Shelf 
 
 •XL— "3 ^ 
 BX 5133 .B75 1891 
 Bright, William, 1824-1901 
 The incarnation as a motiv 
 power 
 
Cbe incarnation as a ^otitic Ipoluet 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE LIVES OF THREE 
 
 GREAT FATHERS: St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and St. 
 Augustine. With Appendices. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 IONA AND OTHER VERSES. Small 8vo, 4s. 6d. 
 HYMNS AND OTHER VERSES. Second Edition, 
 
 Enlarged. Small 8vo, 5s. 
 
 FAITH AND LIFE : Readings for the Greater Holy 
 
 Days, and the Sundays from Advent to Trinity. Second Edition. Small 
 
 8vo, 5 *. 
 
 LIBER PRECUM PUBLIC A RUM ECCLESI^ 
 
 ANGLICAN^E a Gulielmo Bright, S.T.P., ^Edis Christi apud 
 Oxon. Canonico, Historian Ecclesiastical, Protessore Regio, et Petro 
 GOLDSMITH Medd, A.M , Eccles. Cath. S. Albani Canonico Honorario, 
 Collegii Universitatis apud Oxon. Socio S^niore. Latine Redditus. 
 Editio Quarta, cum Appendice. [In hac EditionecontinenturVersiones 
 Latins — z. Libri Precum Publicarum Ecclesiae Anglicanae ; 2. Liturgiae 
 Primae Reformatae ; 3. Liturgiae Scoticanae ; 4. Liturgiae Americanae.] 
 "With rubrics in red. Small 8vo, 7^. 6d. 
 
 LONDON & NEW YORK: 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
INCARNATION 
 
 A MOTIVE POWER 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM BRIGHT, D.D. 
 
 CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD 
 KEGIUS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 
 HONORARY CANON OF CUM BR Ah 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16th STREET 
 1891 
 
 THE 
 
 AS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/incarnationasmotOObrig 
 
TO THE VENERABLE 
 
 EDWARD BARBER, M.A., 
 
 ARCHDEACON AND CANON OF CHESTER, 
 IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE 
 OF A FRIENDSHIP OF TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The contents of the following pages have been 
 addressed, in substance, to various congregations 
 during the last fifteen years, with the exception 
 of the twenty-seventh sermon, which was preached 
 at a Cuddesdon College festival in the first year 
 of Bishop Mackarness's episcopate, and published 
 soon afterwards at his desire, almost exactly as 
 now reprinted. It may be as well to explain 
 that some of the sermons were prepared for ser- 
 vices at which it was usual for the preacher to 
 be brief. 
 
 Such unity of purpose as the series may be 
 found to possess is sufficiently indicated on the 
 title-page ; but a few words may here be added 
 in the way of further illustration. 
 
 That quickened sense of interdependence, cohe- 
 sion, and reciprocal action, which has made " the 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 unity of nature" a familiar phrase, and "dualism" 
 a word of ill omen, has its correlative in the 
 domain of religious thought. For some time 
 past, Churchmen have been, as it were, learning 
 over again the lesson which St. Athanasius, pre- 
 eminently among the Fathers, taught by the 
 majestic equableness with which he handled the 
 great theological problems of his own time, — 
 the lesson that to isolate any piece of revealed 
 truth from the rest, to look only at this or that 
 aspect of the " wisdom " which is " manifold " 
 while it is one, is the sure way to confusion, if 
 not to heresy. In proportion as Christian stu- 
 dents apprehend this momentous principle, they 
 will be the more keenly sensitive as to false 
 antitheses, however clean-cut and epigrammatic, 
 beween faith and reason, doctrine and life, Scrip- 
 ture and the Church, spirit and form, the out- 
 ward and the inward, corporate authority and 
 individual responsibility. They will recognise 
 the reality of "prevenient" or originative grace, 
 and of the response which is made, under its 
 influence, by the will ; will see that sacramental 
 
T RE FACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 ordinances are not a barrier between God and 
 the soul, but an appointed organ of Divine 
 communications, in which the " efficient cause " 
 is the Holy Spirit ; will find the Eucharist, espe- 
 cially, accounted for by the Incarnation, and the 
 Incarnation brought home and appropriated in 
 the Eucharist ; will understand that the baptismal 
 infusion of spiritual life involves the necessity 
 of its subsequent expansion or reinforcement ; 
 will admit that a ministerial priesthood is intel- 
 ligible as the representation and expression of 
 the High-priesthood of Christ on the one hand, 
 and of the priesthood of Christians on the other. 
 They will assert, without exaggeration, the 
 " self-emptying " which consisted in the adoption 
 of a human sphere of being by One who con- 
 tinued to " exist in the form of God ; " will treat 
 the evidence from His " mighty works " as 
 dependent on the witness of His Person and 
 character ; will discern in His atoning Death 
 not an arbitrary transference of penalty, nor a 
 simple announcement of forgiveness, but the 
 twofold operation, through a Divine and human 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 self-sacrifice, of that perfect love and perfect 
 righteousness which abide indi visibly in the 
 Father and in the Son. While they rejoice in 
 any removal of the stumbling-block which so 
 many souls have found in the association of 
 Christianity with Calvinism, they will be on 
 their guard against such a reaction from an ex- 
 clusive contemplation of the sterner side of truth 
 as would dispense with the motive of religious 
 fear, and explain away that " holy hatred of 
 sin " which is inseparable from the Divine moral 
 government. And they will acknowledge that 
 the infinity of a true God must be capable of 
 self-limitation, and that the relation of the 
 Maker to the universe must be a relation alike 
 of "immanence" and of "transcendence," even 
 as wherever, throughout His creation, moral 
 agency exists, the freedom implied by it will be 
 respected by His Sovereignty. In short, as con- 
 fessing a Christ who is God and Man, and wor- 
 shipping One God, yet One " in Trinity," — may 
 we not add, as holding to that true Theism which 
 has its security in the Catholic faith % — they will 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xi 
 
 be habituated to the idea of spiritual correspon- 
 dences which are often too vast and profound 
 for the methods of logical adjustment, and must 
 needs present themselves, to our faculties, in 
 parallelism. 
 
 Moreover, in God's good providence, the 
 modern developments of unbelief have been 
 overruled to bring home to us the relation 
 which exists between specifically Christian doc- 
 triDe and primary religious ideas. The question 
 of a supernatural Christ is seen to run up into 
 the question of a living, moral, and self-reveal- 
 ing God, and this, again, into the question of a 
 spiritual personality in man. The abandonment 
 of Christianity is found to be, in effect, the 
 attenuation of Theism : the assumptions which 
 put the Gospel story out of court stand 
 evidently on a postulate which would deny 
 that the Supreme was " Master in His own 
 house," and was therefore capable of manifest- 
 ing Himself by communications which the 
 human mind by itself could not anticipate, 
 and of controlling physical forces by the intro- 
 
xii 
 
 F RE FACE. 
 
 duction of a superior force for moral and spiritual 
 ends, — in a word, by revelation and by miracle. 
 There is assuredly no antecedent objection to the 
 Resurrection, — nor, therefore, to any other of 
 the miracles ascribed to Christ, — which would 
 leave unassailed the belief in "a free God : " 
 and those who can believe that the Divine 
 "freedom and love" may be jointly exhibited 
 in what we call the supernatural, 1 are well on 
 their way to the feet of the world's Redeemer. 
 On the other hand, if these Divine attributes are 
 only admitted in some half-hearted and hypo- 
 thetical fashion, or are scornfully set aside as 
 " anthropomorphic," the sense of a free human 
 personality is all the less likely to hold out 
 against the relentless pressure of determinism 
 or materialism. 
 
 For us, then, of this day, it is not only a duty 
 specially urgent, but a duty which should be 
 specially natural, to keep in mind the very 
 direct bearings of Christian and Catholic doctrine 
 on the formation of character and the sustenta- 
 
 1 See Pvessense, Jesus-Christ, p. 34 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 tion of moral life ; to listen for ourselves, and 
 to call upon others to listen to what the Incar- 
 nation in its several stages, and in the several 
 media of its continuous activity, can say on the 
 supreme practical question, How is man to draw 
 nearer to God ? what will help him to become 
 purer, truer, better % There are many who, with 
 a genuine wish to secure the " ethical power " 
 of Christianity, imagine that they can lighten 
 the labouring vessel by throwing the "mystic 
 dogmas " overboard. They may profit by the 
 invitation to consider whether the ethical power 
 would have been, or would now be, what it has 
 been and what it is, apart from a belief in a 
 Divine Christ, 1 and in what He has done, and is 
 
 1 " A Christianity without Christ is no Christianity ; 
 and a Christ not Divine is one other than the Christ on 
 whom the souls of Christians have habitually fed." Mr. 
 Gladstone, in " Nineteenth Century " for May, 1888. 
 Psilanthropism, miscalled TJnitarianism, has never been 
 able to sustain an effective Christian life ; and it is mani- 
 festly incapable of justifying that " absolute sovereignty of 
 Christ over the moral and spiritual life " of the Apostolic 
 writers, in which, rather than in " proof- texts," consists 
 the evidence for their belief in His Divinity. See Dale 
 on the Atonement, p. 24. 
 
 b 
 
xiv 
 
 FREFACE. 
 
 doing, for His disciples, servants, worshippers ; 
 whether the moral and spiritual " fruits " of that 
 which is, in fact, the only possible and working 
 religion have had any other " root " than the 
 " theology which welcomed the presence of the 
 Eternal Beauty, the Eternal Sanctity, and the 
 Eternal Love, the Sacrifice and Reconciliation 
 of the world." 1 In proportion as men come to 
 see that the august phenomenon of Christian 
 goodness is best accounted for by the presence of 
 a re-creating energy, by the infusion of what 
 Scripture describes as a Divine " life," they will 
 acknowledge a raison d'Stre for the affirmations 
 of Catholic Christianity, and a real appropriate- 
 
 1 Dean Church, in " Masters in English Theology," p. 90. 
 The familiar image used in the text is employed by him 
 in "Gifts of Civilisation," etc., p. 343, as by other defenders 
 of the Christian position, and also by one who, himself a 
 disbeliever, has plainly affirmed that " theology is essential 
 to a religion capable of acting as such," and that "to 
 expect to keep the morality of Christianity, while we deny 
 the truth of the Christian theology, is like expecting to 
 cut down the tree and keep the fruit," — although, he adds 
 in effect, a de- Christianised society will have a morality 
 sufficient for its own purposes. See "Nineteenth Century," 
 June, 1884. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 ness in the prayer of the Mediator that believers 
 might be "sanctified in the truth." 
 
 Yet further, the Incarnation should be exhibited 
 as a safeguard against a narrow and conventional 
 estimate of Christian duty and virtue. The 
 proposition upheld of old against the Apollin- 
 arians, that Christ " assumed the whole of that 
 nature which He came to redeem," may be used 
 to represent the interest which, as Son of Man, 
 He takes in all our life as such — nihil humani 
 a se alienum putans. As the natural world is 
 under God's ordering, and its laws, being His, are 
 sacred, so the Christian will seek to bring every 
 part of his week-day conduct " into captivity to 
 the obedience of Christ," and to " do all things " 
 in the one all-sanctifying Name. He will not 
 forget that as the soul is greater than the body, 
 so the spiritual order of life transcends the 
 physical and the secular, and forms an interior 
 circle pervaded by a special Divine presence ; 
 but his behaviour will be a permanent witness 
 for the solidarity of all true work, as seen from 
 the standpoint of obedience to that Master who 
 
xvi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 is to be found and served in " whatsoever things 
 are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good 
 report," — in all that is morally matter of "praise." 
 
 And if the faith must be thus presented in 
 order that serious inquirers may do it justice, 
 those who hold it " without doubt " may yet 
 need to be reminded of their responsibilities in 
 reference to what, if held, must claim so much 
 dominion over conduct. To accej)t it mentally, 
 and not endeavour to assimilate it practically, — 
 to neglect such a store of " moral dynamic," 1 of 
 motive, impulse, inspiration for good effort, so 
 much that can warm and stimulate, enkindle, 
 
 1 Principal Shairp, Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, 
 p. 364. In the same essay he shows in some detail how 
 "those who have most laid to heart, and lived by, the 
 more transcendent doctrines of Christianity, have found 
 in the Atonement . . . the lifting off the whole load of 
 guilt," in the Atonement with the Resurrection "the 
 assurance that God sympathizes with, and will help, the 
 faintest desire to be better," and " in the promise of 
 the indwelling Spirit, and its fulfilment, a surety that the 
 impulse which Christ first gave will not fail nor grow 
 old, but will overcome all obstacles and outlast time. 
 One great practical result of these truths is the animating 
 confidence they give that ' God is for us,'" etc. Ibid. p. 378. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xvii 
 
 direct, support, and reclaim, so much that can 
 be linked, as by a Pauline " therefore," to resolu- 
 tions that lift both heart and will upwards, — to 
 gaze at the revelation of the love of Christ, and 
 in no sense to be " constrained " by it, — this is, 
 indeed, to " keep down the truth," and to defeat 
 its purpose as a power unto salvation. Every 
 one, on the contrary, who, in however limited 
 a sphere, tries honestly to correspond with grace, 
 and to " live in the faith of the Son of God," 1 — 
 whose creed is thus vitalised by consistent action, 
 and brought to bear on daily requirements, or 
 difficulties, or temptations, is, without knowing 
 it, a persuasive apologist for Christianity, a token 
 of its strengthening and purifying efficacy, and 
 a living answer to the cavil that its pro- 
 fessors are encouraged to put belief in place of 
 morality. 
 
 But it has often been said, and cannot be said 
 too often, that Christianity is concentrated in 
 Christ. All its doctrines point to His Person, 
 and cannot be duly estimated except in the 
 
 1 The iv tt'kttu of Gal. ii. 20 is significant. 
 
xviii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 spirit of loyalty to Himself. " What it teaches " 
 about Him and His work " it teaches not in the 
 abstract, but as holding forth Him whose steps 
 we are to follow, in whom our whole trust is to 
 be reposed, with whom we are to be vitally 
 incorporated, and whom, accordingly, we must 
 needs know, even though * in a glass darkly,' " 
 through forms of doctrine which have proved 
 their right to express the convictions of Chris- 
 tendom. " The Church's demand is the demand 
 for our conforming to a new law of heart and 
 life, which new law (as she says) can only take 
 effect under the influence of the faith, and of 
 the agency which it provides ; " 1 and that faith 
 rests upon a personal Redeemer, and that agency 
 is recognised as, in the deepest sense, His own. 
 Christian morality, which consists in doing what 
 Christ has bidden, cannot but be grounded on 
 the doctrine which tells us who Christ is. And 
 thus throughout all Christian ages, " the essence 
 
 1 Gladstone, "Gleanings," ii. 32; from a paper on Blanco 
 White, written in 1845. Comp. ibid. iii. 121, "It was 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation which gave to love, as a 
 practical power, its place in religion." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xix 
 
 of Christian life is the absolute devotion of the 
 soul to the Person of" its " Divine and human 
 Saviour ; " 1 so that for the purposes of a belief 
 which is to be not barren but fruitful, not otiose 
 but operative, not dead but living, " the In- 
 carnation" will mean the Incarnate. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 June 1, 1889. 
 
 In this edition a sermon has been added, 
 which was preached on the Sunday after the 
 death of Dr. Liddon. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 March 18, 1891. 
 
 i Wace, in " Good Words " for 1878, p. 683, in an 
 admirable paper on " the practical importance of the 
 controversy of St. Athanasius with Arianism." Dr. Wace 
 shows that the question then raised, " What think ye of 
 Christ ? " was " practical, personal, moral, and devotional," 
 and involved " the very substance of Christian life and 
 practice." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SERMON I. 
 Preparation for Christmas. 
 
 And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves ; for to- 
 morrow the Lord will do wonders among you." — Josh. iii. 5 . 
 
 SERMON II 
 
 The Gains of a Good Christmas. 
 
 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her 
 heart." — St. Luke ii. 19 
 
 SERMON III. 
 The Nature of Faith. 
 We walk by faith, not by sight." — 2 Cor. v. 7 . . „ . 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 The Steps of Faith. 
 
 Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.'" — St. John xiv. I . 
 
xxii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON V. 
 Faith as Justifying. 
 
 "That he might be the father of all them that believe." — 
 Rom. iv. ii 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 Moral Supports of Faith. 
 
 " Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then 
 Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? 
 Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are 
 sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." — 
 St. John vi. 67-69 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 Spiritual Dimness. 
 
 ' 1 Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice 
 of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? 
 let him trust in the Name of the Lord, and stay upon his 
 God." — Isa. 1. 10 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 The Temptation of our Lord. 
 
 " In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to 
 succour them that are tempted." — Heb. ii. 18 . . 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 The Incarnation and the Atonement. 
 
 " I will now turn aside, and see this great sight. . . . And God 
 said unto Moses, I am that I am." — Exod. iii. 3, 14. 
 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." — 
 St. John viii. 58 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxui 
 
 SERMON X. 
 Hearing of God, or seeing Him. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear : but now mine 
 eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in 
 dust and ashes." — Job xlii. 5, 6 86 
 
 SERMON XL 
 The Holy Eucharist a Bond of Fellowship. 
 
 For we being many are one bread, and one body : for we are all 
 partakers of that one Bread." — 1 Cor. x. 17 . . . 92 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 "Ecce Homo." 
 
 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, 
 I bring Him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no 
 fault in Him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of 
 thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, 
 Behold the Man ! " — St. John xix. 4, 5 . . , . 100 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 The Offering of the Will. 
 
 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written 
 of Me,) to do Thy will, O God."— Heb. x. 7 . . .106 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 Easter Joy, and its Effects. 
 
 After two days will He revive us : in the third day He will raise 
 us up, and we shall live in His sight." — IIosea vi. 2 . .113 
 
xxiv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 Retaining Easter Grace. 
 
 PACE 
 
 " And they drew nigh unto the village whither they went : and 
 He made as though He would have gone further. But they 
 constrained Him, saying, Abide with us : for it is toward 
 evening, and the day is far spent. And He went in to tarry 
 with them." — St. Luke xxiv. 28, 29 . , . . .121 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 The Confession of St. Thomas. 
 
 "And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my 
 •God." — St. John xx. 28 127 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 Christian Thoroughness. 
 
 "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead out 
 Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the 
 blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every 
 good work to do His will, working in you that which is well- 
 pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory 
 for ever and ever. Amen." — Heb. xiii. 20, 21 . . . 133 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 The Ascension. 
 
 "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed 
 into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our 
 profession." — Heb. iv. 14 141 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXV 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 The Holy Spirit in the Church. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you." — St. John 
 
 xvi. 15 148 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 The Holy Trinity. 
 
 "And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him ; and 
 they were full of eyes within : and they rest not day and night, 
 saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and 
 is, and is to come." — Rev. iv. 8 . . . , . .158 
 
 SERMON XXL 
 Personal Religion in Church Life. 
 
 " 0 Lord, Thou hast searched me out, and known me : Thou 
 knowest my down-sitting, and mine up-rising ; Thou under- 
 standest my thoughts long before. Whither shall I go then 
 from Thy Spirit : or whither shall I go then from Thy pre- 
 sence?" — Ps. cxxxix. 1, 6 . • t . , , .170 
 
 SERMON XXII. 
 Self-Dedication. 
 
 " They brought Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord." 
 
 — Sr. Luke ii. 22 176 
 
xxvi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XXIII. 
 Simplicity in the Work of Grace. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My 
 father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, 
 wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when 
 he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, 
 and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the 
 saying of the man of God : and his flesh came again like unto 
 the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." — 2 Kings v. 13, 14 1S2 
 
 SERMON XXIV. 
 Saintliness a Witness for Christ. 
 
 " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have 
 washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb." — Rev. vii. 14 190 
 
 SERMON XXV. 
 The Twofold Result of Divine Manifestations. 
 
 " Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising again of many in 
 Israel ; and for a sign which shall be spoken against ; (yea, a 
 sword shall pierce through thine own soul also,) that the 
 thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." — St. Luke ii. 34, 35 198 
 
 SERMON XXVI. 
 
 Christ and Social Duty. 
 
 " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith 
 unto Him, Which?"— St. Matt. xix. 17, 18 207 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxvii 
 
 SERMON XXVII. 
 Christ's Presence amid Theological Studies. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we 
 beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the 
 Father,) full of grace and truth." — St. John i. 14 . .215 
 
 SERMON XXVIII. 
 Christ's Presence with His Ministers. 
 
 "And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, 
 whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give 
 them their portion of meat in due season?" — St. Luke xii. 42 239 
 
 SERMON XXIX. 
 Tpe King's Law in the Heart. 
 
 " But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house 
 of Israel ; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law 
 in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." — Jer. 
 xxxi. 33 ....... ... 24S 
 
 SERMON XXX. 
 Warnings from the Seven Churches. 
 
 " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
 
 Churches.' — Rev. ii. 7 256 
 
xxviii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XXXI. 
 Faith's Resource under Trial. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, 
 until I went into the sanctuary ol God. ... It is good for 
 me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God." 
 — Ps. lxxiii. 15, 16, 27 (P.B.V.) , . . 274 
 
 Additional Note on the " Exinanition " and the 
 Atonement 290 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 "And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves; for to- 
 morrow the Lord will do wonders among you." — Josh. iii. 5. 
 
 What was the original intention of the observance of 
 Advent ? In other words, which coming of Christ 
 was that which the Western Church, in the latter half 
 of the fifth century, resolved to keep specially in mind 
 during the four or five weeks preceding Christmas ? 
 
 The answer to this question is not that which, 
 probably, most of us would expect beforehand. We 
 have come to regard Advent chiefly, if not wholly, 
 as a season for meditating on that supreme event 
 which will wind up and consummate the long series 
 of God's dealings with mankind. We understand by 
 our Lord's Advent that which we call His Second 
 Coming. The hymns which we use during this season 
 are, for the most part, stamped with that idea. They 
 speak of " the end of things created ; " they point 
 onwards to the descending form of Him Who " cometh 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 with clouds ; " they anticipate the adoration which 
 will then acknowledge Him as " high on His eternal 
 throne ; " or they represent to us the solemn thunder- 
 ous rhythms of that world-famous Dies Irce, which 
 the genius of Scott condensed into three penetrating 
 stanzas — 
 
 " That day of wrath, that dreadful day 
 When heaven and earth shall pass away,— 
 What power shall be the sianer's stay? 
 How shall he meet that dreadful day?" 
 
 And there is profit for us in this way of looking at 
 the Advent solemnities ; for the thought of the Last 
 Day, the prospect of judgment, are too often put aside 
 in our daily life. Our habits, the tone of our social 
 world, our aversion for what is austere and overawe- 
 ing, our instinctive tendency to dwell on the gentler 
 aspects of truth and to excuse ourselves from contem- 
 plating the sterner, to appropriate religious comforts 
 and avoid religious warnings, — all these influences 
 require a strong corrective. We cannot afford to 
 dispense with what may help us practically to re- 
 member that " we must all " stand — must all " be mani- 
 fested," 1 set in our true light, exhibited as what we 
 really are — "before the judgment-seat of Christ, to 
 receive the results of the things done through the 
 body." 
 
 1 2 Cor. v. 10, (pavtpwdrjvai. 
 
PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 3 
 
 But still, as a matter of history, it was not, properly 
 and primarily, with a view to the Second Advent 
 that Christians began to give a special character of 
 solemnity to the season on which we have so lately 
 entered. In the words of Dr. Pusey, 1 the idea which 
 prompted this observance was that of preparation 
 for the Nativity of the Lord, as for " a special period 
 of grace, when He who was then born of our flesh 
 would be again born in the hearts which looked 
 for Him, that they might live by His life in them." 
 He even speaks as if preparation for Christmas were 
 the " only object " of Advent when first observed. It 
 might be a fuller account of the case to say that men 
 first of all set themselves to contemplate the mystery 
 of the Incarnation, and thus were naturally led on in 
 thought from the First Coming to the Second. They 
 prayed, in the words of an old Collect — one of the 
 very oldest — for Advent, "Stir up, O Lord, we 
 beseech thee, our hearts to prepare the way for Thine 
 only-begotten Son, that by His Advent we may be 
 enabled to serve Thee with purified minds;" or, " Grant 
 that the coming solemnity of our redemption may 
 procure for us assistance in this life, and eternal 
 blessedness in the life to come." 2 But they went on 
 
 1 Introd. to Avrillon, Guide for Passing Advent, pp. vii. xiii. 
 * Mnratori, Lit. Eom. Vet., i. 681, G83. 
 
4 
 
 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 — how could they help it ? — they went on to con- 
 sider the Second Coming as involved in and guaran- 
 teed by the First ; and so they prayed that " those 
 who were rejoicing in His Coming in the flesh might 
 receive eternal life when He should come a second 
 time in majesty ; " or, " that, as they joyfully received 
 the Son of God as their Redeemer, they might see 
 Him with good confidence when He should come as 
 their J udge." 1 
 
 Let us, at present, briefly consider the observance 
 in its original, primary aspect, with reference to the 
 First Coming of our Lord. 
 
 We are looking forward to that festival which 
 is certainly the most popular, has been called the 
 " homeliest," 2 and is in some respects the most wel- 
 come, of all our high days, — the birthday of Jesus 
 Christ, and in Him of our own truest life, of all 
 that is solidly good and precious to us as Christians. 
 A foreign writer has well said, " Although it is now 
 so many centuries old, it is ever afresh hailed with a 
 new joy. We cannot conceive the possibility of its 
 becoming obsolete ; it stands at the threshold of the 
 sacred series of festivals, resplendent with everlasting 
 
 1 Muratori, i. 683, 684. The second of these Collects was pre- 
 served in the First Reformed Prayer-book, but unfortunately omitted 
 in the Second. 
 
 2 Liddon, University Sermons, i. 201. 
 
PREPARA TION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 5 
 
 j^outh and beauty." 1 Once, indeed, it was not old ; 
 it began to be kept in the fourth century after Christ, 
 first in the West, then in the East. St. Chrysostom 
 spent much of his fervour and golden eloquence in 
 recommending it to the Church-people of that city 
 where the disciples were first called Christians ; he 
 wanted to " make them love it " — so he says — " as 
 earnestly as he himself did ; " 2 but observe also that 
 he described it to them as " the most venerable and 
 awful of all festivals." Why should he call it awful ? 
 Is it not, we might ask, simply a day of childlike 
 gladness, of pure joy, without reserve or qualification ? 
 If it is, as a well-known carol calls it, " the royal 
 day that chases gloom," may we not, when we keep it, 
 abandon ourselves, as it were, to the simple enjoy- 
 ment of a spiritual sunshine entirely clear of shadow ? 
 
 No, my brethren, we may not. Assuredly, gloom 
 has no place in true religion ; but awe is a different 
 matter, and there is no religious joy without awe. 
 We are forbidden to "feast without fear." We 
 must not forget for a moment that we are travel- 
 ling along a perilous path. We cannot, at any 
 step, divest ourselves of our deep-reaching respon- 
 sibilities. Indeed, as the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 
 1 Van Oosterzee, Image of Christ, E. T., p. 139. 
 
 2 S. Cbiys., de B. Philogonio, c. 3. 
 
6 
 
 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 reminds us, the very amplitude and majesty of Gospel 
 privileges only seem to increase the urgency of the 
 responsibilities which they entail. It is because we 
 have come near to the spiritual Sion, and " to Jesus, 
 the Mediator of the new covenant," that the con- 
 sequence of refusing to hear so Divine a Speaker 
 must needs be so tremendous. The height reveals 
 a corresponding abyss : in the piercing words of a 
 thoughtful poet, " What maketh heaven, that maketh 
 hell." And have we duly considered the immensity 
 of that gift for which we profess to thank God on 
 Christmas Day ? In order to estimate it aright, let 
 us think of a solemn fact in the Divine moral 
 government, which is attested by Scripture, by the 
 entire history of God's dispensations, and, if we will 
 seriously consider, by our own personal experience — 
 that the Presence of God, whenever it is specially 
 brought near to us, brings out into light what we 
 habitually are, and so forms " a centre of attraction 
 or of repulsion." 1 Thus it is that one man is taken, 
 another left. Here a soul is touched and responds ; 
 there a soul recoils, as if resenting an interference. 
 This it is of which St. Paul was thinking when he 
 said that his preaching was a savour of life to some, a 
 savour of death to others ; 2 which Symeon indicated 
 
 1 W. S. Mill, University Sermons, p. 415. 1 2 Cor. ii. 15. 
 
PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 7 
 
 when, holding the Infant Saviour in his arms, he 
 warned Mary that her Son was " set for the fall " 
 as well as "for the rising of many in Israel," — that 
 is, that some would turn the very corner-stone into a 
 stumbling-block. This is what is summarised in the 
 solemn declaration that " the coming of the Light into 
 the world" was of itself a process of "judgment;" 1 
 and for this very reason our Lord repeatedly, in His 
 considerate mercy, " withdrew Himself " from souls 
 not yet disposed to receive Him, and refrained from 
 forcing on them that fuller light which would but 
 have proved to be their deeper condemnation. 
 
 All sacred seasons are, then, in their way, "times 
 of visitation," critical periods, opportunities fertile in 
 consequences, if not for good, then for evil ; occasions 
 of trial, of exposure, and of judgment. God means 
 them to be seasons of grace ; He desires us to be the 
 stronger, better, happier, for having had them. But, 
 in accordance with the requirements of moral respon- 
 sibility, He leaves us free to say whether it shall be 
 so, or shall it be otherwise. And does not this rule 
 hold good in regard to a festival which celebrates, 
 not the birth of a mere saint, but that stupendous 
 "mystery of love" which we "adore" as the Holy Incar- 
 nation ? What is it that we believe about the Person 
 1 John iii. 19. 
 
8 
 
 PREPARA T10N FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 of Jesus Christ ? Surely this, and nothing less than 
 this : that He is the Divine Son of God, who for our 
 sakes became man. He is not a human person ex- 
 ceptionally sanctified, not a mere man who retained 
 more fully than others the impress of God's moral 
 image, who responded more loyally than others to the 
 summons of the all-perfect will, to the influence of 
 the all-holy Spirit ; no, He is Divine in His own Self, 
 in the very root of His personal being, having existed 
 from eternity in the form of God, in the bosom of 
 the Father, as His coeternal and consubstantial Son. 
 And He " was made Man : " as St. Auonistine loved 
 to put it, 1 " He continued to be what He was, but 
 became what He had not been ; " He entered into the 
 actual sphere of human life and experience, by taking 
 upon Himself, without diminution of His essential 
 Deity, the body and soul which made Him one of us, 
 and subjecting Himself, thus far, to creaturely and 
 earthly limitations; "and that," as the Church says in 
 the Christmas octave, " without spot of sin, to make us 
 clean from all sin." Given this august and inspiriting 
 belief, the faith of the Catholic Church from the 
 beginning, we surely see what a solemn thing it is for 
 Christians to keep the human birthday of a Christ 
 who is " Divine " in no unreal and abated sense, but 
 
 1 See his Sermons in Natali Domini. 
 
PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. g 
 
 in the entire and thoroughgoing significance of the 
 unmistakable term "Godhead." Grasp this thought 
 well, my brethren, and it will do its own work, it will 
 tell its own story. Remember that in looking, by 
 faith, at the Babe of Bethlehem, you are looking upon 
 your God, self-humbled for your salvation, in com- 
 pliance with the promptings of an unimp ginable love. 
 What says the hymn which is so dear to us ? — 
 
 " Christ, by highest heaven adored, 
 Christ, the everlasting Lord, 
 Late in time behold Him come, 
 Offspring of a Virgin's womb ; 
 Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, 
 Hail the Incarnate Deity ! " 
 
 It is, then, the true Deity of Jesus which underlies 
 and explains the anxiety of His Church that her 
 children should train themselves for the due observ- 
 ance of Christmastide, lest through carelessness, which 
 involves irreverence, they should forget the claims 
 which belong to such a Master. To those who accept 
 this sovereign and fundamental truth, it will seem 
 worth while to spend a little time, at any rate, in 
 looking well at it in its various aspects, and accus- 
 toming themselves to a regular contemplation of them 
 all. 
 
 What, then, shall we do for this purpose ? What 
 subjects of thought shall we take up — not as mere 
 
10 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 matters of speculation, not as so much exercise of our 
 minds on sacred truth, but with the set purpose of 
 fitting ourselves for the due discharge of a very 
 serious responsibility ? 
 
 1. Let me say, in the first place, that, as with other 
 Christian truths, so with this, the chiefest of them, 
 we cannot appreciate as a dogma binding on our 
 acceptance what we have not learned to associate 
 with the needs and the capacities of our own moral 
 and spiritual nature. When we can do this, then the 
 doctrines of our faith commend themselves to our 
 conscience ; we gain, as it has been well said, a 
 " practical ground for our belief ; " 1 we see that it 
 fits our case, and interprets our life for us ; we 
 " know," in a vital way, " whom we have believed ; " 
 we have, as St. John expresses it, " the witness in 
 ourselves." Let us, then, look into our souls, and 
 we shall see that a really Divine Christ is the answer 
 to their deepest inward questionings. What do we 
 feel when a consciousness of sin is brought home to 
 us ; when we are ill at ease with ourselves, despondent, 
 bewildered, heartsick ; when the sunshine of life has 
 been overclouded, or anxieties hang heavy upon us, 
 or pain and sorrow are facts too close at hand ? The 
 question then is, " What should we do without the 
 
 1 Wace, Christianity and Morality, p. 283. 
 
PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 1 1 
 
 Christ of the Gospel and of the Church, living, loving, 
 reigning, upholding, interceding, saving to the utter- 
 most ? " We know something then of what it is to 
 sit in darkness ; our souls go forth to welcome the 
 "great Light," and the angel's message is felt to be 
 " good tidings of great joy." 
 
 2. Another point is this : We must surely wish to 
 become better, to make a new start, to turn from 
 darkness to light, from evil to good, from self-will 
 and perverseness to the service that is perfect free- 
 dom. If not, why are we here ? " What mean we 
 by this service," unless it is that we come to place 
 ourselves under the influences of that Spirit Who is 
 the Comforter or Supporter inasmuch as He is the 
 Purifier; to submit our souls to the treatment of a 
 Divine Physician ; to renew our purposes of fidelity ; 
 to renew, therefore, our repentance for past unfaith- 
 fulness ? In that case, the prospect of Christmas 
 should deepen our contrition, strengthen our resolu- 
 tions, touch our wills with a new moral impulse, and 
 revive in us the hopes which wait upon moral 
 sincerity. After all, whatever we have been, here, by 
 God's mercy, we still live. We can pray, we can 
 confess our sins, we can thank Him for giving us a 
 Saviour, we can claim our part in the inexhaustible 
 consolations and assurances of that Saviour's temporal 
 
12 
 
 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Nativity. Let us ask Him, by the virtue of His 
 adorable Incarnation, to make us monuments of its 
 ever-fresh restorative energy, and recipients from that 
 " fulness " of spiritual life which resides perpetually 
 in Himself as the Second Adam. Let us be sure that 
 He desires our salvation, means us nothing but the 
 truest good, is ready to give, as with both hands, 
 the grace which we need to serve Him better for 
 the future. One thing He does indeed require, a con- 
 dition morally indispensable — and that is, singleness 
 of heart. 
 
 3. And this should lead us to a third consideration. 
 What is it which keeps us from being simple, sincere, 
 loyal, in our relation to God and to our own con- 
 science? What is it which overclouds our faith, 
 chills our prayers, paralyses our intentions ? Is it 
 not sin tampered with, sin secretly cherished, and, 
 therefore, sin easily besetting ? We give up, perhaps, 
 certain wrong things ; do we give up all ? Do we not 
 keep back something, as if it were too much to expect 
 that we should be unreserved in our surrenders ? 
 There is somt bit of self-will which we cannot bear 
 to part with, some evil temper, some particular bad 
 habit which we think has, under the circumstances, 
 a good deal to say in its own defence, which, at any 
 rate, has become part of ourselves. While we keep 
 
PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS. 1 3 
 
 terms with evil in this form, we are trying to shut 
 out God from some one corner of our souls ; and the 
 result is, that we are immersed in what our Lord has 
 branded as hypocrisy. Our heart is divided ; our eye 
 is not single ; we are false to ourselves. And while 
 this is so, how idle it is to expect that religion can do 
 anything for us, that we can look up, as children 
 should, into the face of a reconciled Father, or offer 
 a true birthday greeting to Him whose eyes are as 
 a flame of fire ! My brethren, if we are thus hiding 
 ourselves from the presence of the Lord God, under 
 the trees of a garden which is certainly not a Para- 
 dise, let us come out of that baneful shadow at once, 
 and face the light now, while yet there is time for 
 it to fill our souls with its own reanimating splendour. 
 Let us, during this Advent season, very specially 
 implore the Searcher of hearts to purge us clean 
 from all double-mindedness, to make us honest with 
 Him and with our consciences, to stir up and kindle 
 and straighten our wills, that they may be conformed 
 to His goodwill for us, who has so intensely loved 
 us as to send His Son for our redemption, and who 
 calls to us now, with the voice of a Father, to find 
 in that Son our salvation and our peace. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 THE GAINS OF A GOOD 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." 
 — St. Luke ii. 19. 
 
 Probably most of us have an instinctive disposition 
 to put aside, as far as possible, throughout the season 
 of Christmastide all thoughts that vex or disturb. 
 In this sense we perpetuate the idea of " Christmas 
 holidays," which had for us, in our first school-days, 
 a charm so exceptional, and invested the weeks 
 following upon mid-winter with a tender brightness 
 peculiarly their own. We still say, as it were, to 
 troubles and anxieties, " Wait until Christmas is well 
 over ; let us enjoy, without qualification or drawback, 
 the sweetness and fragrance of 'the most welcome 
 festival of the Church.' " 
 
 It is well. But the holy time is drawing to a 
 conclusion ; we are approaching that twelfth day 
 which is consecrated to the several and progressive 
 
THE GAINS OF A GOOD CHRISTMAS. 
 
 15 
 
 manifestations of the glory that dwelt in the Word 
 Incarnate ; and, indeed, we have already ceased to use 
 the Christmas collect, — ceased to add to our highest 
 act of thanksgiving the mention of that special reason 
 for praising the Father, that He " gave Jesus Christ, 
 His only Son, to be born as at this time for us." 
 
 Let us, then, consider briefly what should be the 
 lasting gains of a good Christmas ; how we may best 
 retain through the ensuing weeks and months the 
 thoughts which have helped us, the peace which our 
 hearts have felt, the blessings which, as we may trust, 
 we have obtained in and by means of the celebra- 
 tion of our Redeemer's human birthday; how, in a 
 word, like His own Blessed Mother, we may " keep 
 these things, and ponder them in our hearts," com- 
 bining point with point, 1 and thoughtfully musing on 
 the significance of the whole. 
 
 1. For us, who believe with the Church of Christ, 
 the solemnities of Christmas should, of course, have 
 the effect of deepening and consolidating our faith 
 in the great central mystery of the Incarnation. We 
 know in whom we believe when we say, " Who was 
 conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
 Mary : who for us men, and for our salvation came 
 down from heaven, and was incarnate, . . . and was 
 
 1 ZvufidWovou. 
 
1 6 THE GAIN'S OF A GOOD CHRISTMAS. 
 
 made man." It is no other than the Eternal Son of 
 God, He whose Personality has its root in Godhead ; 
 whose very Self is interior to the uncreated life; who 
 is " the effulgence of the Father's glory, the exact 
 impress of His sul istance," or " heing ; " who can claim 
 the title of " the First and Last ; " who is the Maker 
 of all things, Himself unmade; who "in the hecnnnin <y 
 was with God, and was God ; " who, when, in St. 
 Paul's strong phrase, He " emptied Himself " of His 
 glory, could but limit by His own will the exercise 
 of His Divine powers, could not cease to exist " in 
 the form of God" when He put on "the form of a 
 servant," 1 simply because He could not cease to be 
 Himself ; who " became man, yet was still God, having 
 His manhood as an adjunct, perfect in its kind, but 
 dependent upon His Godhead." 2 Yes, most true ; 
 
 1 The " self-emptying," in Phil. ii. 7, must be determined, as to 
 its nature and extent, by the " assumption of the form," or essential 
 character, " of a servant ; '" for He " emptied Himself " by taking that 
 form upon Him, even as He further " humbled Himself by becoming 
 obedient even unto death." The acceptance of such limitations as 
 •were involved in the assumption of humanity, or the acceptance of 
 human conditions of existence, was pro tanto a suspension of the 
 manifestation of His Divine glory. The preceding words, it has 
 been suggested, may be understood to mean that He did not use 
 equality with God for His own self-aggrandisement, did not take for 
 Himself the opportunities of His position. He did not. as it were, 
 insist on remaining in the unqualified enjoyment of the prerogatives 
 of His Divine pre-existence. 
 
 * Newman, Sermons, vi. 61. 
 
THE GAINS OF A GOOD CHRISTMAS. 1 7 
 
 but then observe how Christmas helps us to see this 
 stupendous fact in the light of its Evangelist's 
 sublime definition, " God is Love." The doctrine 
 that God became man is not simply imposed upon 
 us as a dogma, involving intellectual difficulties and 
 making a demand on faith ; it is the expression of 
 an immense condescension, and therein of a supreme, 
 incalculable love. A miraculous Christ is "the one 
 central miracle of Divine love : " in accepting Him 
 we take hold of the Infinite Pity. That vast be- 
 nignity, that unspeakable " philanthropy," 1 as St. 
 Paul calls it, comes home to us when we think of 
 Bethlehem, and presents the mystery of godliness in 
 the most attractive and persuasive of all aspects. It 
 ought surely to be easier for us to adopt and assimi- 
 late, for instance, the language of the Athanasian 
 Creed respecting our Saviour's Person, and the co- 
 existence of Godhead and manhood within the unity 
 of that Person, when we think of our Christmas 
 worship, when we rekindle our Christmas joy. " We 
 believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is 
 perfect God and perfect Man, yet not two, but one 
 Christ," and this " not by confusion of substance, but 
 by unity of Person." And then we bring it home, 
 — " He came down — He, this Divine Son of God, 
 
 1 Titns iii. 4. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THE GAINS OF A GOOD CHRISTMAS. 
 
 stooped to this depth of self-abasement — for love of 
 me, and of such as I am." The Fatherhood of God, 1 
 the tenderness, compassion, and goodwill which are 
 of the very essence of Deity in relation to mankind, 
 are illuminated by many facts and many experi- 
 ences ; but by nothing, we may say, more brilliantly 
 than by the Church's answer to the great question, 
 " What think ye of Christ ? " Yes, assuredly, it is 
 the Catholic faith which best calls forth love in 
 response to Love Divine. 
 
 2. One other point, out of several which may 
 occur to us, seems especially to fit in with the reflec- 
 tions natural to the first Sunday of a new year. It 
 is well known that the observance of Christmas is 
 not nearly so old as that of Easter ; we cannot trace 
 it further than to the fourth century after Christ. A 
 theory has been advanced to explain this comparative 
 inattention of the early Church to such an event 
 as the Nativity. It is said that the first Christians 
 were so absorbed in the thought of redemption and 
 the prospect of resurrection that they did not do full 
 justice to the effect of our Lord's coming in the flesh 
 in elevating and sanctifying all human life as such. 
 Be this as it may, we, at any rate, may well use the 
 
 1 This phrase has to be vindicated against a popular misuse of it, 
 which tends to disparage the Mediation, and attenuate the sense of 
 sin. 
 
THE GAINS OF A GOOD CHRISTMAS. 1 9 
 
 festival of His Birth as representing all that He can 
 do and will do if we ask Him, to render our lives 
 pure and fruitful, consistent, and solidly happy ; as 
 concentrating all the lessons which we can derive 
 from His contact with life at all points — from His 
 youthful work in a shop, from His presence at social 
 meals and family festivals, from His acceptance of 
 friendships, from His pity for the suffering and the 
 poor. Christmas will have done us good, my brethren, 
 if it has formed in us some fresh resolution to offer 
 up our life to Him, to place it in His hands, who, as 
 the Second Adam, as Head of His body, the Church, 
 as Fountain of grace, as Life-giver, as Teacher, as 
 Example, can alone effectively help us to make some- 
 thing better of this rich gift of life than we have 
 made of it in past years. Would it not be well if, 
 from this Christmastide, we were to start afresh with 
 new efforts to please Him in daily thoughts, words, 
 and deeds ; to ask His blessing on all that we under- 
 take ; to avoid, as a pestilence, whatever we know He 
 would condemn ; to say at every turn, " Lord, I am 
 Thine : I give Thee my heart ; do Thou take care of 
 my soul, keep me from evil, make me what Thou 
 wouldest have me to be;" — in a word, to dedicate our- 
 selves, more consciously, regularly, and affectionately 
 than ever before, to Him who lay in the manger 
 
20 THE GAINS OF A GOOD CHRISTMAS. 
 
 and died on the Cross, that He might have us as His 
 own to all eternity ? 
 
 Let us take home these thoughts, and take care 
 not to lose them. Perhaps they will help us not 
 only to remember this Christmas with thankfulness, 
 but to welcome the next with a fuller preparation 
 of soul. And they will have this effect if we learn 
 that " lesson of the holy manger," 1 the dignity and 
 momentousness which, in the sphere of grace, are 
 attached to what seems commonplace or trivial. The 
 sign given to the shepherds was of the simplest ; just 
 " a babe," more poorly housed than other infants, in 
 a manger instead of a cradle, because His Mother 
 had had to find shelter in an outhouse. Let us take 
 well to heart this significance of the Holy Nativity. 
 Let us endeavour so to live, in the year that lies 
 before us, that the least impressive surroundings and 
 the most prosaic bits of work may become all radiant 
 with the spiritual glory of Bethlehem, the presence 
 of Him who, being eternally rich, for our sakes, as 
 at this time, became poor. 
 
 1 Liddon, Univ. Serm. i. 189. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 "We walk by faith, not by sight." — 2 Cor. v. 7. 
 
 St. Paul, in this comprehensive saying, is illustrating 
 the relation which Christians, during this earthly life, 
 sustain towards their unseen Lord. He has been 
 emphasising the contrast between things temporal, 
 which are seen, and things eternal, which are unseen, 
 and the obligation which lies upon us to recognise 
 practically the superior importance of what is unseen, 
 although, as he well knows, it will cost a continuous 
 effort. If the outward man decays, the real life 
 of the soul is not compromised, but enhanced ; 
 and when the supreme change itself arrives, and 
 the earthly lodging of the spirit is broken up, 
 the spirit passes to a better home, which is, in the 
 fullest sense, a building of God. Nay, even before 
 that event there must be felt a craving for the 
 habitation that is from heaven ; not for death in 
 
22 
 
 THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 itself, but for the putting-on of immortality, when 
 mortality shall he swallowed up of life. This con- 
 sciousness of a glorious future is infused into the 
 soul by God Himself, in that He made us capable 
 of " enjoying Him for ever ; " and it may serve as a 
 counteracting force against the influence exerted by 
 the visible world, which virtually seems to assert 
 that it is the only world. The Christian knows that 
 it is not ; and one thing which, beyond most others, 
 fortifies him against " secularist " assertions is, that 
 while he is in the body he is, in one sense, absent 
 from the Lord. He is quite sure that Jesus Christ, 
 His Person, His works, His love, His holiness, His 
 discriminating interest in the welfare of every one 
 of His servants, 1 are realities of the highest type, if 
 anything whatever can be called real. And yet he 
 cannot, at present, see his Saviour; and he will not 
 be able to see Him while he is in this world; for 
 we Christians, says the Apostle, in all our relations 
 with the spiritual and eternal world, must dispense 
 with the evidence of our senses, and accept the 
 principle of belief or trust as our informant and our 
 stay. We walk by faith, — by means or help of 
 faith, — not by sight. This is, so to speak, what we 
 bargained for when we became Christians ; we knew 
 
 1 See Christian Year : Monday before Easter. 
 
THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 23 
 
 that it must be so. Our religion puts faith in the 
 very foreground ; its first word is a credo ; it imposed 
 upon us, at the outset, the necessity of going beyond 
 the area of sensible experience ; its benedictions are 
 for those who have not, in that sense, seen, and yet 
 have, in a vital sense, believed. 
 
 How much St. Paul has to say about faith, we all 
 know ; it is almost needless to quote passages. We 
 remember how, for him, the Church of Christ is 
 the very household of faith ; if you enter it, you 
 breathe faith's very air. It is by faith, he says, that 
 we have " access to grace," that we " stand," that we 
 "live," that we are "justified." The question for 
 us as to the reality of our Christian profession is 
 " whether we are," or are not, " in the faith." In 
 that faith we are to "continue grounded and settled;" 
 by it " Christ is to dwell in our hearts." St. Peter 
 describes faith as a " precious " treasure common 
 to all true Christians, capable of being " tested," 
 — as a power whereby we are to " resist " our 
 ghostly enemy. St. James insists on conduct which 
 shall be consistent with our possession of faith in 
 "Jesus Christ the Lord of glory." St. John treats 
 faith in Jesus, the Son of God, as the instrument of 
 " victory over the world," over the influences of this 
 visible order of things when set up as against the 
 
24 
 
 THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 spiritual, and of human society in alienation from 
 its Divine and rightful Sovereign. St. Jude regards 
 our " holy faith " as the basis on which our life is to 
 be "built up." Christ's servants are therein simply 
 carrying out the teaching of the Master; in His 
 words, as well as in theirs, the Gospel commits itself 
 decisively, and us, if wei accept it, to the principle 
 of faith. 
 
 It is true, of course, that faith was also the funda- 
 mental principle of Hebrew piety. It was by the 
 power of " realising 1 things hoped for," and finding 
 " a proof of things not seen," that " the elders," as they 
 are called, from Abel downwards, were recognised 
 as righteous ; that Abraham especially, and in their 
 way the other patriarchs who took God at His word, 
 and by their acts declared that they " sought a better 
 country " than could be found on earth, were brought 
 into close relation with the unseen Helper and Guide 
 on whose assurance they had staked everything. 
 But how richly was faith developed under the 
 Gospel! Christian faith is to Jewish as the flower 
 to the seed. It retains the same elements. It is 
 distinct, as it ever was, from sight or sensible experi- 
 
 1 "tTroaraais has the notion of a groundwork or basis (cp. LXX., 
 Ps. lxviii. 2), and hence of " substantive " reality. In Heb. xi. 1, 
 by a transfer of meaning, it is applied to that which recognises the 
 reality. 
 
THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 2 5 
 
 ence, — from the demonstrations which science can 
 give of facts belonging to its area, — from opinion, 
 which falls short of adequate certitude ; in other 
 words, it holds fast to truths which cannot be verified 
 by such tests as inform us that this is solid and that 
 is fluid, nor by trains of strictly scientific reasoning ; 
 and it regards them not as mere working theories, 
 nor as mere expressions of the devotional sentiment, 
 but as truths " worth living for and dying for." It 
 relies on what, in some form or other — brought home 
 to it in this way or in that — it regards as Divine 
 testimony, to accept which is to trust God. Is this 
 irrational ? Only on the hypothesis of atheism, or 
 of the theory which, if it has not the " terrible 
 courage " to say, " Certainly no God exists," yet says, 
 " We cannot tell whether He exists or not, and after 
 all it does not practically signify." Doubtless, faith 
 starts with the conviction that God is, that He lives, 
 reigns, observes, provides, — a conviction most per- 
 suasively brought home by the thought of our own 
 moral personality; by the sense of moral obligation, 
 not to some law, but to some One; 1 by the demand 
 of our affections for a supreme, all-satisfying object, 
 — a conviction which grows into the confidence that 
 such a God as is thus attested would yet further 
 
 1 See Wace's Christianity and Morality, pp. 50, 203, ff. 
 
26 
 
 THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 reveal His will and His character : so that from the 
 point of view of a vital theism, no difficulty lies in 
 the idea of such a special revelation ; 1 it would lie 
 rather in the thought that no such revelation had 
 been made. Given a living God, and a revelation 
 such as culminates in a Christ is just what was to 
 be expected ; and the faith which welcomes the 
 Christ is but filling in the outlines traced by the 
 spiritual experience of those who " without us were 
 not made perfect." But how gloriously are those 
 outlines thus filled in ! 
 
 It is quite evident, from the whole strain of Scrip- 
 ture language, that faith derives its religious value 
 from the fact that it is not only intellectual, but 
 moral, and belongs to the heart as well as to the 
 head; that it deals with questions which are far 
 enough from being merely speculative, which must 
 needs affect the bent of choice and the drift of 
 conduct ; and this is why it cannot be dependent on 
 such evidence as would suit an inquiry devoid of 
 moral interest. Even the simplest and most elemen- 
 tary acts of faith in God, if it is to be higher than that 
 of those who believe and tremble, must involve some 
 wish to get nearer to Him, to stand well with Him, 
 
 1 Newman, University Sermons, pp. 195, 239 ; Liddon, Advent 
 Sermons, i. 194. 
 
THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 27 
 
 and therefore, in some sort, a purpose of obeying 
 Him ; and those who are not thus, as St. Luke puts 
 it, " disposed towards eternal life," 1 will say that they 
 see no reason to believe. Faith's reasoning, in fact — 
 we confess it — is swayed by this aspiration of the 
 soul; it involves a "moral sympathy," a religious 
 " preconception " or " presentiment " which seems irra- 
 tional to those who insist on applying scientific tests 
 to religious questions. 2 If the longing after an in- 
 finite Truth and Goodness has not been awakened, 
 faith cannot act ; when it is awakened, she cannot but 
 act somehow, and the Gospel provides her with a 
 proper method of action. Hence, faith is treated in 
 Scripture as a criterion of disposition, and, being thus 
 closely connected with the state of the affections and 
 the will, it is said to "work through love ; " 3 it always 
 contains an element of religious obedience ; it commits 
 the soul to a strife against sin, to a choice of God's 
 will, to a practical recognition of Christ, both as 
 Saviour and as Master; and it is exactly on this 
 ground that St. Paul describes it as the principle of 
 our justification, as placing us in an acceptable position 
 before God. 
 
 1 Acts xiii. 48. 
 
 2 Newman, Sermons, ii. 19; Liddon, University Sermons, ii. 21G; 
 Jlozley, Lectures, p. 280, ff. 
 
 » Gal. v. 6. 
 
2S 
 
 THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 To bring this to a practical conclusion : Are we 
 sincere in adopting for ourselves the momentous 
 petition of the Apostles, and asking the Lord to 
 " increase our faith " ? Do we feel that, at best, we 
 have need also to say, " Lord, I believe, help Thou 
 mine unbelief " ? Do we desire to bring our constant 
 repetitions of the Creed into effective relation with 
 whatever is truest and deepest in our whole nature ? 
 Should we be honestly glad if we could secure a real 
 share in the victory that overcometh the world, — could 
 believe, as a collect says, " perfectly " and profoundly, 
 by the united action of all our powers, mental and 
 spiritual, not only in Christianity as the truth, but 
 in Christ as the True One, so that " the vague, shore- 
 less universe might become for us a firm city, and a 
 dwelling which we know," 1 because we know its Lord 
 as our own Lord ? Then let us take the course which 
 He marked out for us, when He made obedience the 
 condition of such loyalty as He would accept, and 
 likened mere inactive profession to a fool's house built 
 upon the sand. Let us strive each day to make our 
 thoughts, words, and acts such as we know that He 
 would be able to approve. So, according to His own 
 assurance, by seriously endeavouring to " do " His will 
 
 1 Carlyle, French Revolution, i. 12, on " the virtue that lies in 
 belief." He adds, " Well might men prize their Credo." 
 
THE NATURE OF FAITH. 
 
 29 
 
 and the Father's, we shall " know," as no arguments 
 could teach us, that He is the Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the 
 infallible Guide and rightful King of souls, to follow 
 whom is " not to walk in darkness, but to have the 
 light of life." We shall "know," in short, by "follow- 
 ing on to know the Lord ; " we shall be walking by 
 faith ; and faith, in the words of a great writer, is 
 " not an isolated act of human knowledge, feeling, or 
 will, but a complex action, something only consum- 
 mated through the co-operation of all the powers of 
 the soul," 1 so that by it the whole man commits 
 himself effectually to God, and makes his " I believe " 
 a confession tending to salvation. 2 
 
 1 DOllinger, First Age of the Church, E. T., p. 190. Compare 
 Liddon, Easter Serm. i. 81. 
 ■ Bom. x. 10. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 " Ye believe in God, believe also in Me." — St. John xiv. i. 
 
 Our Lord here tells us that His religion addresses 
 itself to those who acknowledge a real and living 
 God. This is the first lesson taught in the school of 
 religious knowledge. When it has been learned, 
 Christianity can lead on the pupil's mind to a full 
 conviction of the truths depending on it. But men 
 must, in some sense, know the Father before they can 
 recognise and accept the Son. 
 
 " Hear, 0 Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord." 1 
 This creed of the ancient revelation, professed by all 
 Israelites to this day at the most solemn moments 
 oi life, including the very last moment, is developed 
 by Christian teaching into the doctrine of the Un- 
 divided Trinity. But it retains unchanged its original 
 character; it is emphasised in the language of the 
 Church when she is actually avowing her Trinita- 
 1 Dcut. vi. 4. 
 
THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 31 
 
 rianism : " We worship one God," but a God who 
 exists in Trinity." The confession of " one God, one 
 Lord," precedes the confession of " three Persons in 
 one substance." The question before the early 
 Christian thinkers was that of combining with this 
 primeval affirmation of Divine unity the specifically 
 Christian propositions that there is a Son of God, 
 and that this Son is Himself really Divine. 
 
 It is often useful for us to look to the rock whence 
 our Creed is hewn, to scan the foundations of the 
 house of our faith. It is more than useful, it is in- 
 evitably necessary ; for we are constantly challenged 
 on the subject, and if we "give an answer, with 
 meekness and fear," we may hope to gain a firmer 
 hold on the primary truths, and to appreciate more 
 worthily the truths derived from them. Let us dare, 
 then, to go back to the beginning, " I believe in God." 
 
 The word, it has been well said, is in itself a the- 
 ology. The heathen had gods many, and lords many ; 
 and one great heresy of the old time represented the 
 long survival of Pagan notions about greater and 
 lesser deities, while the Church's resistance was a 
 safeguard of the Divine idea in its purity and its 
 singleness. 1 But some, who have not the excuse of 
 
 1 As to " the Arian idea of a created divinity," see Mozley, on 
 Development, p. 78. 
 
32 THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 confusedness caused by paganism, have borrowed the 
 " glorious and fearful Name " to deck out the con- 
 ceptions of an unconscious First Cause, or a soul of the 
 world, or an underlying force, or law, or movement, 
 sustaining the physical or the moral order. We may 
 hope that sometimes the Xame, even thus used, exerts 
 its power over the speaker's mind, so as to prepare 
 him to recognise its true import. But, as yet, such 
 a person is not genuinely a believer in God. 
 
 We mean by the word 1 a single, eternal, self- 
 dependent Spirit, possessing in fulness the attributes 
 which we call personal, self -consciousness and will ; 
 all-powerful, all- wise, all-good ; the Originator, Up- 
 holder, and absolute Lord of the whole universe ; the 
 moral Ruler and merciful Father of men, the obser- 
 vant Judge of their actions, the End for which their 
 souls exist, and in which alone they can attain their 
 consummation. If we mean anything by God, we 
 cannot mean less than this. True, we are far indeed 
 from being able to measure the ideas thus indicated ; 
 on the contrary, we feel that we are touching on 
 mysteries which we cannot penetrate, when we think 
 of an existence which had literally no beginning, or 
 of a Creator present throughout His works, yet not 
 
 1 See the noble passage in Cardinal Newman's Lectures on 
 University Education, p. 91, £F. 
 
THE STEPS OF FAITH. 33 
 
 contained within the sum of them. But the thought 
 of God exists, and commands attention. Its very 
 magnificence is of itself a recommendation. There it 
 lies at the bottom of our minds — 
 
 " The ultimate, 
 The ground o'er which all other notions pass." 
 
 For when we ask, " Why do I believe in God ? " we do 
 not give the fullest answer by saying that the universe 
 suggests an intelligent Author, a primal Mind which 
 planned it, and a Power which started it on its course, 
 and which must still be supposed to energise in its 
 motion, and that this Mind and Power are best called 
 "God." Considerations derived from the physical 
 universe have their force, as St. Paul says; but he 
 does not say that of themselves they prove the exist- 
 ence of a moral God, only that they throw light on 
 what "may be known" about Him, 1 and this in 
 dependence on other reasons which go deeper and rise 
 higher. And where are these to be found ? In our- 
 selves, always supposing that we believe in our own 
 personality, as spiritual and moral beings. If, in this 
 sense, we believe in man, it is but consistent to believe 
 in God. All turns on that point, Do we believe that 
 we have souls ? If so, what is the soul's testimony ? 
 We are sure that we — not merely our bodies, but we 
 
 1 Bom. i. 19, 20. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 — exist with a continuity of " self," so that each of us 
 can say, "I am." But this consciousness of a per- 
 sonality which is real and yet finite leads up to a 
 Personality on which our own is dependent, but which 
 is not limited like our own. 1 We are spirits, and so 
 we think of a sovereign Spirit as having called us 
 into being, and as presiding over the life which He 
 only could have bestowed. Again, if we listen to the 
 voice within us, we hear it say, "I can." I have 
 power to act, and can resolve to act ; I am sure that, 
 in some true sense, I possess a free will ; and this 
 points to a supreme Will and Power from which my 
 capacity, such as it is, proceeds. Once more, the 
 momentous confession proceeds, "I ought." I am 
 bound to do right and not wrong ; I am under a law 
 of duty, which I did not make and cannot set aside. 
 I have a conscience which speaks to me in personal 
 tones, as if in the name of a moral arbiter; and to 
 resolve it into a mere sum of social instincts would 
 be to violate my sense of a responsibility which 
 cannot be ignored. 2 And yet once more, our affections 
 
 1 It has been well observed that " God's personality transcends 
 ours " in the sense of being more complete than it, of being its 
 archetype : and that His " infinity " consists in His not being 
 " limited " save by His own act. 
 
 1 See Travers Smith, Alan's Knowledge of Man and of God, p. 
 161, ff. 
 
THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 35 
 
 speak from the depths of our nature, "I need." I 
 ■want a supreme object for love and trust, for the sense 
 of dependence, the capacity of devotion. " The heart 
 has reasons of its own," says Pascal. 1 It " knows its 
 bitterness," but it knows its aspirations ; it cannot 
 believe that they were given for nought ; it cries out 
 instinctively, not for something, but for Some One who 
 alone can satisfy its " profound, insatiate need." 2 This 
 experience is the basis of Augustine's declaration, so 
 full at once of sublimity and of pathos, " Thou, Lord, 
 hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless 
 until it finds rest in Thee." 3 
 
 This witness of the soul for God is reinforced from 
 what we know of human love, human faithfulness, 
 human purity, which lift our thoughts to a perfect 
 Goodner? of which they are but dim reflections ; from 
 the mysteriousness of this life, as requiring a God and 
 a better world to explain its "whence" and "whither," 
 to correct its anomalies, and to heal its griefs ; from 
 the heaped-up stores of spiritual experience, to which 
 we ourselves may contribute enough for a deep, im- 
 
 1 Pensees, ed. Molinier, ii. 140. 
 1 " Man needs some faith. Profound, insatiate need! 
 No vice can stifle, fortune supersede, 
 Folly forget it, literature console, 
 Nor unbelief dissemble from the soul." 
 
 Moilo's State Trials. 
 
 ' Confess, i. 1. 
 
36 
 
 THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 pregnable conviction, that if this or that is perplex- 
 ingly dark, " there are dealings with us — there are 
 dealings ! " 1 
 
 But if there is a living and reigning God, Almighty, 
 righteous, and benignant, He surely would not leave 
 us without further tokens of His presence and will 
 than nature of itself can exhibit ; for there is a side 
 of nature which, as has often been said, seems rather 
 to conceal than to reveal Him. And what we do see 
 creates an imperious desire of seeing more ; and the 
 news that more has been shown, that He has inter- 
 vened and come nearer to us, is not intrinsically im- 
 probable, but the reverse. The difficulty would be 
 in believing that He had not thus pitied us and helped 
 us. And thus we are led to anticipate what we call 
 specifically a revelation ; and there can be no ques- 
 tion of any revelation save that which is concen- 
 trated in the Person of J esus Christ. 2 " The only 
 begotten Son, He hath interpreted the Father." And 
 by Christ we mean the historical Christ of the Gospels, 
 whose character is in a most true sense its own 
 evidence, 3 whom the Church throughout the world 
 
 1 See " Silas Marner," p. 126. 
 
 ! " One thing is certain : nothing can take the place of Chris- 
 tianity. ... It is idle to speak of substitutes which mock our 
 common sense." Dean Church, Human Life and its Conditions, 
 p. 71); cp. ibid., p. 160. 
 
 3 " The contemplation of our Lord's character, as carrying with 
 
THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 37 
 
 adores as the Word Incarnate ; and under His Name 
 we include the religion which is gathered up in Him, 
 — the Church, which is His kingdom in this world, 
 the doctrines which exhibit so many aspects of His 
 Person and work, the ordinances which are organs 
 of communication with Him, the moral teaching 
 which expands His recorded precepts, and claims 
 obedience on the ground of loyalty to Him ; and the 
 type of character, — that unique thing, that luminous 
 heart-uplifting fact, which Christian life, with its 
 motives, aims, activities, its prayers and labours and 
 sufferings, has set up as the result of " His image 
 imprinted in the minds of His subjects individually." 1 
 In spite of all disappointments and drawbacks, of 
 earthen vessels, and blemished copies, and ideals not 
 realised, and " ill in the heart of good," this spiritual 
 creation forms an atmosphere within which we can 
 breathe freely, while we confess the faith which is its 
 one life-principle. But for Him, it would not exist. 
 Conceive it gone, and what would life be without 
 it ? Let those who can, believe that the best fruits 
 ever put forth by the tree of humanity were grown, 
 as it were, on false pretences, were fostered by a mere 
 
 it its own evidence ... is the point to which, after all and in 
 fact, all religions minds tend, and in which they ultimately rest." 
 Newman, Discussions and Arguments, p. 367. Cp. St. Johu x. 38. 
 1 Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. ioti. 
 
? 8 
 
 THE STEPS OF FAITH. 
 
 superstitious figment. For us, the fact of Christian 
 holiness is a living witness to Christ as the Holy 
 One. 
 
 Thus from belief in the soul's true existence we 
 are led on to the acceptance of Christ as its true 
 Lord. It matters little whether we trace the steps 
 of faith in this sequence, or whether, reversing it, 
 we becnn with the Christian religion and Church, 
 and work backwards. Practically, we are most likely 
 to take this latter course, because the first question 
 raised is, " Why are you a Christian ? " But the 
 former course has this advantage, that it helps ns to 
 see how Christian faith reacts on those convictions 
 which it presupposes, and especially how it illumi- 
 nates, enriches, consolidates — we may well say, secures 
 — the primary idea of all religion. Belief in God 
 warrants belief in Christ ; and belief in Christ inten- 
 sifies belief in God. The second article of the Creed 
 would have no standing-ground without the first ; but 
 we appreciate the first more truly, and cling to it 
 more effectually, when we take hold of the second. 
 
 A great deal of the difficulty which persons feel in 
 trying to realise the thought of God is not properly 
 caused by want of faith, but by the vastness of the 
 idea regarded in itself ; whereas it is condensed a ud 
 brought home to us, and commends itself most power- 
 
THE STEPS OF FAITH. 39 
 
 fully to mind and heart and conscience, in the light 
 
 of the Divine Incarnation. " He that hath seen Me," 
 
 said our Lord, " hath seen the Father ; " and the long 
 
 experience of Christian history has shown that a true 
 
 Theism has its stronghold in Christian faith and 
 
 worship. 1 The issue as between belief and unbelief, 
 
 in our time, is fundamentally whether there is a 
 
 living God, and whether man is a spiritual being. 
 
 And it is the disciple and servant of Christ who can 
 
 say with deepest and happiest confidence, "Praii-e 
 
 thou the Lord, O my soul." Our best hope for those 
 
 who at present are clinging to Theism without having 
 
 got a hold on Christianity, is that they may believe 
 
 in a real God, a God with will, personality, and 
 
 character, as utterly as did the Psalmist, as the 
 
 prophet who fell back repeatedly on the recorded 
 
 Divine assurance, " I, even I, am the Lord ; " 2 and 
 
 then that they may, by the light of that belief, come 
 
 to see " the glory of God in the face of Jesus," and 
 
 to " have the Father " by " acknowledging the Son." 
 
 1 Liddon, Banopton Lectures, p. 452, ff. ; Flint on Theism, p. 305. 
 2 See Isa. xliii. 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 
 
 "That he might be the father of all them that believe." 
 
 Rom. iv. u. 
 
 We must all alike feel, I think, the solemn and 
 pathetic significance of this day's services, as he- 
 longing to the first Sunday of the opening civil year. 
 
 " The year begins with Thee, 
 And Thou beginn'st with woe." 
 
 The Passion casts its shadow over the Infancy ; the 
 principle of obedience receives one of its most vivid 
 illustrations. As we look forward into the avenue 
 of the future, the obligation of resistance to sinful 
 impulses is enforced, while we pray for grace to have 
 all " worldly and carnal lusts " thoroughly " morti- 
 fied " by " the circumcision " that comes from " the 
 Spirit." Yet further, we begin a fresh period of life 
 with all the better hope, with all the higher purpose, 
 because it is consecrated by the remembrance of that 
 day when the Holy Name of Jesus was formally 
 
FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 4} 
 
 bestowed on the Son of the Virgin. 1 We go forth, 
 as it were, along the unknown path, under the shelter, 
 and also under the sunshine, of that only Name 
 wherein we can find strength and salvation, the 
 Name which animates our worship in time, the Name 
 which, we trust, will be our joy for all eternity. 
 
 We see, then, that there is much to be thought 
 over, and much which one might opportunely speak 
 of, on this Sunday. But let us fix on one point, 
 which the Epistle for the day brings forward. Cir- 
 cumcision is placed by St. Paul in its true aspect, as 
 a sign of something earlier, something more vital — 
 that is, of faith. " Abraham believed God, and that 
 faith was reckoned to him for righteousness." When ? 
 Before he was circumcised, God had told him — the 
 solitary, childless exile from his own country — that 
 He would be " his shield, and his exceeding great 
 reward ; " that no slave born in his house should be 
 his heir, but that he himself should have descendants 
 as numerous as the orbs of heaven. 3 He was bidden 
 to look up into the starry sky, and therein to see an 
 image of his own patriarchal future ; and he " believed 
 in the Lord ; " he renewed the act of faith made when 
 he was bidden to " go forth to a place which he was 
 
 1 Preached when Jan. 1 fell on a Sunday. 
 1 Gen. xv. 1—5. 
 
42 
 
 FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 
 
 to inherit, 1 and assured that in him should all families 
 of the earth be blessed. Of this first call he is now 
 reminded. "I am the Lord, that brought thee out of 
 Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land." He 
 believed, as he had believed when he was parted 
 from his kinsman, and was told that his seed should 
 be as the dust of the earth. 2 He believed, in spite 
 of appearances, with a strong, resolute, affectionate 
 reliance on the word of an unseen Guide and Father ; 
 and thus he won that august title which put on 
 record for all time the intimacy of his relation to the 
 Eternal, and reminded the Israelites that they were 
 the descendants of the " friend of God." As a true 
 poet has described him — 
 
 " The better portion didst thou choose, great Heart, 
 Thy God's first choice, and pledge of Gentile-grace ! 
 Faith's truest type, he with unruffled face 
 Bore the world's smile, and bade her slaves depart. 
 
 0 happy in their soul's high solitude, 
 
 Who commune thus with God, and not with earth ! " 8 
 
 It was, then, because of that acceptance before God j 
 which this persistent and heroic trustfulness had 
 secured for Abraham, that he " received the sign of 
 circumcision," as a witness of that promised blessing 
 
 1 Heb. xi. 8. * Gen xiii. 16. 
 
 * Newman, in Lyra Apostolica, p. 27. 
 
FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 43 
 
 which he believed to be certainly in store, and as a 
 symbol of the relation which should exist between 
 himself and all others who, whether or not circum- 
 cised, should " walk in the steps of his faith," and, as 
 believing men, should have a right to call him their 
 father. 
 
 In these steps, dear brethren, we Christians must 
 walk, if we would get safely and happily through the 
 time that may yet remain for us. Let us think a 
 little about the elements of true faith, what it involves, 
 what it requires, and what it ensures. It is a complex 
 thing, certainly. We cannot take up one part of it 
 and say, " This is faith," or " that is faith ; " we must 
 look at it all round, we must do justice to all its parts. 
 We must avoid, in this, as in other cases pertaining 
 to truth which comes from the Infinite, that fatal 
 propensity to what is called " simplifying," which 
 would choose one bit of truth, and let go others; would 
 " halve the Gospel " 1 in this way or in that ; would 
 reduce the Creed to one or two favourite propositions. 
 Faith includes, of course, an intellectual assent to 
 certain statements as conveying truth from God, and 
 claiming to be received by man. In other words, you 
 cannot have faith without doctrine. " He that cometh 
 to God must believe that He is," 2 and that He has a 
 
 1 Lyra Apostolica, p. 142. 2 Heb. xi. 6. 
 
44 
 
 FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 
 
 certain moral character ; — and that is a doctrine. He 
 that believes in Jesus Christ must know who and 
 what Jesus Christ is, and what He has done, and is 
 doing for him ; — and that is a doctrine too. In short 
 faith is essentially theological. But if it is to be 
 like Abraham's faith, and to justify, that is, to be a 
 ground of acceptance, it must involve more than this. 
 How much more ? Have we true faith if we can 
 get ourselves to trust that Christ has died for us 
 individually, that we personally have an interest in 
 His salvation ? Undoubtedly, the element of personal 
 affiance must come in, for we are persons dealing with 
 a Person, and the ground of our Christian hope is the 
 death of Christ our Saviour; but it is possible — 
 strange and sad though it be, — it is possible for a 
 man to be quite orthodox in his convictions as to 
 Divine truth, or to be fully persuaded that the work 
 of redemption includes him in its scope, and yet to 
 be far from the standing-ground of Abraham, and of 
 those who, like him, have "justifying" faith. In 
 order to stand with them before God, we must have 
 faith full-formed and vitalised. There must be a 
 movement of the whole being towards Him in Whom 
 to believe thoroughly is to be accepted with Him. 
 There must be a surrender, a consecration, a committal 
 of the whole self to Him; intellect, feeling, affection, 
 
FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 
 
 45 
 
 will, must all be dedicated as a whole burnt-offering ; 
 and then the soul that thus believes with a faith 
 which is living, because it is loving and active, is 
 in a proper moral and spiritual attitude before Him, 
 is competent to be a recipient of further grace. 
 One must say of further grace, for, of course, this 
 faith is itself the response of the soul to the call 
 of grace ; without grace, it could not exist at all. 1 
 Observe, too, that this is not by any means the 
 same thing as saying that faith means a series of 
 what arc called good works ; it is rather the principle 
 which will afterwards produce good works, if time 
 is given for them. Put the idea into other words : 
 let a soul say to God, " I give myself to Thee ; 
 I open all the doors of my being to Thy Presence ; I 
 renounce all independence; I own Thy claim on me in 
 its completeness ; take Thou full possession of me ; " 
 and then, and thereby, it commends itself to God. 
 The barriers which keep grace from flowing in freely 
 upon the soul are broken down, like dykes in flood- 
 time; the healing stream rushes in, and, as in Ezekiel's 
 inspiriting vision, becomes "a river that cannot be 
 passed over, and everything where it shall come shall 
 
 1 Grace, as a movement of the Holy Spirit upon the soul, makes 
 this response possible, but does not necessitate it. The distinction is 
 well 6tated in the third and fourth canons of the Council of Trent 
 on Justification. 
 
4 6 
 
 FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 
 
 live. 1 Even as when our Lord was able to do great 
 works for those who trusted Him, so now He is able 
 to be the Saviour of those who commit themselves to 
 Him. On one occasion we are told by St. Mark that 
 He could not work miracles at Nazareth except on a 
 few sick folk, and that He marvelled because of the 
 unbelief 2 of His fellow-townsmen in general. On the 
 other hand, we find Him using the remarkable 
 expression, " Thy faith hath saved thee," not only in 
 regard to a bodily healing, but once, at least, in regard 
 to a spiritual. 3 In Himself, of course, He had absolute 
 power over physical evils ; but even in dealing with 
 them, He looked into the sufferer's moral condition, 
 because physical cures would not, from the stand- 
 point of His redemptive purpose, be real blessings if 
 separated from moral recovery. And in regard to the 
 latter, we must not recoil from the description of faith 
 as " saving," as if, somehow, it were not edifying, as if 
 it obscured the necessity of spiritual dependence on 
 " the good hand of God," and fostered men's arrogant 
 reluctance to look outside themselves for the principle 
 of spiritual restoration. 4 Our Lord means to say that 
 faith, involving a moral, interior responsiveness, is, 
 
 1 Ezek. xlvii. 5, 9. 2 Mark vi. 5, 6. 
 
 * Luke vii. 50, and perhaps in xvii. 19, compared with viii. 48, 
 and xviii. 42. 
 
 4 The phrase has actually been wrested into a disclaimer, on our 
 Lord's pi\rt, of supernatural powers. 
 
FAITH AS JUSTIFYING. 47 
 
 according to the rule of His merciful operations, a 
 necessary condition of their effect. " How often," He 
 once said, with pathos unspeakable, "did I wish to 
 gather you together, and you did not wish it!" 
 " Therefore," His words imply, " I could not do it : 
 you stopped Me." For here we touch a great principle 
 in God's dealings with responsible agents. They must 
 sympathise with His purposes, must answer to His 
 appeals, must heartily open themselves to Him ; 
 then He can bless them, then they can enter into 
 close fellowship with Him. Before, while they kept 
 Him, as it were, at arm's length, — as they could do 
 by misuse of their free-will, — they thwarted His 
 merciful intentions, and barred the full influx of His 
 love, which might have been their life ; but now that 
 they are no longer " straitened " towards Him, He is 
 free to show them all that is in His heart. 
 
 We see, then, how it is ; we see what faith means, 
 and why Scripture treats it as so unspeakably 
 important. Practically, for us, the question of ques- 
 tions is, " Shall I, then, put myself, simply and loyally 
 into God's hands through Jesus Christ?" May His 
 Holy Spirit enable us both now and throughout this 
 year to make the right answer, and to be blessed 
 with, yes, and above " Abraham His friend ! " 1 
 
 1 laa. xli. 8. 
 
SERMON VL 
 
 MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 
 
 " Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then 
 Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast 
 the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art 
 that Christ, the Son of the living God." — St. John vi. 67-69. 
 
 What is the principal subject, the characteristic or 
 dominant idea of the Fourth Gospel ? I suppose we 
 should answer, The full significance of the title, " Son 
 of God ; " the Divine glory of the eternal Word, 
 revealed in the perfections, moral and spiritual, of His 
 character as Incarnate. It has been truly said that, 
 so far from contradicting the estimates of Christ's 
 work which are found in the first three Gospels, 
 " St. John gives us the key " to all of them. " What 
 Christ did and said becomes thus explicable, by our 
 knowing more fully what Christ is." His relation to 
 the Old Testament, His human activities, His com- 
 prehensive, world-wide mercy, are all harmonised by 
 the expansion which St. John gives to the intimations 
 of earlier Evangelists as to the majesty of His unique 
 
MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 
 
 49 
 
 Person. It is as if a curtain were fully uplifted. Jesus 
 Christ is " evidently set forth," not as the most 
 eminent of saints, not as the ally or instrument of the 
 Word, but as Himself the Word, made flesh, dwelling 
 among men, full of grace and truth, and so "inter- 
 preting," as it is said, the mind of the Father, and by 
 acts and words revealing that glory which belonged 
 to Him essentially as the only-begotten Son. 
 
 But observe the care with which St. John insists 
 on the reality of that manhood which He assumed 
 as the vehicle of this self-revelation. Is it not one 
 of the most persuasive evidences for the authentic 
 character of this Gospel, is it not one of the very 
 best lessons which an Apostle such as John could 
 teach to theological students, that in this picture 
 of the Incarnate Son there is no sacrifice of one 
 element to the other, that justice is done to both 
 sides of a Divine fact, since He who in the beginning 
 was with God, and was God, is seen to have entered 
 so truly into the sphere of human life that He could, 
 as man, be wearied with a journey, could weep for 
 a death, could be " troubled " by the thought of 
 impending anguish ? 1 The Christ of St. John cannot 
 
 1 "The details of onr Lord's human manifestation in this Gospel 
 vary from those in the Synoptics ; but He is arrayed in exactly the 
 same human vesture as in the latter Gospels." Row, The Jesus of 
 the Evangelists, p. 224. 
 
 E 
 
5Q 
 
 MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 
 
 be accurately represented except as the " perfect God 
 and perfect Man" of the Church's Catholic faith. 
 The " one Person in two natures " is He who, being 
 " the effulgence of the Father's glory," became a 
 " merciful and faithful High Priest, able to sympathise 
 with our infirmities," and fitted by sufferings to be 
 the " Leader " of the saved. And so it is that, looking 
 back to some special crises in His earthly history, 
 we also, in all reverence, may venture to sympathise 
 with Him ; not the least, assuredly, when He asks 
 that sorrowful question, " Will ye also go away ? " 
 
 Think how it was, and why it was, that He thus 
 spoke. After a long discourse, which had traversed 
 a wide range of gracious mysteries, rising by measured 
 steps from height to height, He had to see many 
 of His hearers, hitherto His followers, pausing, 
 objecting, and finally turning away. They had heard 
 Him say that He was the Food by eating of which 
 men were to live, that if they did not eat of His Flesh 
 and drink of His Blood they would have no life. 
 It was a " hard saying " to them ; they stumbled at 
 it. He bade them associate the thought with His 
 future return to His pre-existent glory, when His 
 Humanity, as glorified and made spiritual, should be 
 communicated as a principle of "life;" but He also 
 reminded them of His own saying, that no man 
 
MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 5 I 
 
 could come to Him except it were given him of the 
 Father. This was too much for their patience ; they 
 felt it to be confounding, bewildering, more than 
 they had bargained for ; they gave it up, and, there- 
 with, gave Him up too. And He — what must He 
 have felt ? They were separating themselves from 
 Him, and, in Him, from their truest life. But He 
 could not recall them by unsaying His own words, — 
 could not say, " Come back, and I will make it 
 smooth and simple." He saw before Him one of 
 those facts which Scripture emphasises — that high 
 truth repels some, while it wins others. He had 
 been "set for the fall of many," and these were 
 among the fallen. What He could do was to turn 
 to His own Twelve, although He foreknew that one 
 of them would be a traitor. With sorrowful tender- 
 ness He asks, " And you — have you, too, a mind to 
 go away ? " Peter, as spokesman, replies, from a 
 full heart, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? " " If we 
 leave Thee," he means, "who is there that we can 
 trust ? " " Thou hast the words of eternal life, and 
 we have come to believe and know that Thou art 
 the Christ, the Son of the living God," or, as probably 
 we should read, " That Thou art the Holy One of God." 
 
 Let us enter into his meaning. He does not say, 
 "What was puzzling those others is clear to us;" 
 
52 MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 
 
 no, but rather, " We can put up with difficulties for 
 a time, on the strength of what we know Thee to 
 be. Thou hast proved Thy right to be our Master. 
 We have an interior confidence, the grounds of which 
 lie deepest in our own experience of what we owe 
 to Thee. If others forsake Thee, our part, at least, 
 is taken ; we will cling the more closely to Thee, 
 because Thou art what Thou art." 
 
 The words come home to us in a day when so 
 many voices are heard to raise questions about the 
 claims of Christ, as a sovereign Teacher, on the trust 
 and obedience of thoughtful men, or, at any rate, 
 as to this or that article of the faith which has been 
 preached for so many ages in His Name. " How can 
 the text help us ? " it may be asked. In this way, 
 surely ; that, in the first place, it indicates the 
 conditions which must go before any solid and 
 healthful belief — those instincts, affections, and pre- 
 dispositions which look up to a living God, and look 
 out for tokens of His will. It is when we give to 
 these a fair hearing that the Christian interpretation 
 of that will, and of human life as ordered by it, 
 commends itself more and more to the conscience 
 and to the heart. Man's own soul will be the most 
 convincing witness for his God ; his sense of person- 
 ality, of freedom, of moral duty, of weakness and 
 
MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 
 
 55 
 
 dependence, will plead more powerfully than argu- 
 ments from without. And then he will feel that 
 " the story of Calvary " — yes, and of Calvary as 
 following on the story of Bethlehem and Nazareth 
 — is to all his faculties, except the " sensuous ex- 
 perience, the most natural, probable, necessary of 
 events, — assuming only that God is a righteous 
 Person." 1 And the more that he learns of Christ, 
 or, rather as St. Paul says, that he " learns Christ " 2 
 (for His religion is but the expression or manifestation 
 of His Person), the more that he contemplates that 
 character, and enters into its spirit, the better will 
 he appreciate the question, " Lord, to whom shall 
 we go ? " An atmosphere will form around his soul, 
 instinct with a deepening assurance of the reality 
 of the Christian faith. Within that area he will be 
 at home and in peace, when unbelief is " as a storm 
 against the wall." 3 But remember the full import of 
 learning Christ. It is not merely a matter of appre- 
 hending the beauty or coherency of Christ's teaching ; 
 it is a matter of personal fellowship with Christ 
 Himself, as a trusted and worshipped Master. We 
 must try to obey Christ in daily conduct, if we would 
 
 1 Kingsley, Hypatia, p. 348. * Eph. iv. 20. 
 
 * See Trench's Hulsean Lectures, p. 149. " Let us have a sanc- 
 tuary to retreat to . . . let us be able to say, These words, we have 
 found them words of healing, words of eternal life." 
 
54 MORAL SUPPORTS OF FAITH. 
 
 " know whom we believe," and find His words to be 
 " words of eternal life." We must, in a word, strive 
 practically to follow Him. Peter and others had 
 done so with singleness of heart ; therefore, when 
 keener trials of faith came, they could say, " We 
 believe and are sure." They had come to love Him ; 
 therefore love sustained their belief, and it can sustain 
 ours. As faith acts through love, so love reacts on 
 faith, so as to make faith more vital, and to pour 
 into it just the strength which it needs. It is good 
 to associate Christian doctrine — say, the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, of the Atonement, of the Sacraments — 
 with the moral character of God, and the moral needs 
 and capacities of man ; but it is better still to accustom 
 oneself to live as in the presence of Christ, and of 
 the Father as seen in Christ, and at each turn of life 
 to say, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " He 
 who aims steadily at this is in the way of securing 
 that true support of faith which is essentially moral, 
 spiritual, and practical. 
 
 Brethren, it were well for us to resolve that we 
 will definitely make this an object ; will use, for this 
 end, all means of grace, all holy opportunities ; will 
 avoid, for this end, all occasions of sin, all contact 
 with influences which might loosen our hold on 
 Christ; will endeavour to bring Christ into our 
 
MORAL .SUPPORTS OF FAITH. $$ 
 
 common life, and so to make it indeed " worth living," 
 and thus to gain some place among those genuine 
 " believers on the Son of God " who " have the witness 
 in themselves." For that witness is effective to him 
 who has it, although he may not be able to bring it 
 home to others except by the impressive consistency 
 of his own life. "There is," it has been well said, 
 " a great reserve fund of conviction, arising from the 
 increased experience which Christian men have of 
 the truth of what they believe. It is something too 
 inward, too personal, too mystical, to be set forth " 
 in forms of argument. "It is not on that account 
 the less real and powerful ; indeed, it may be said 
 that, once felt, it is the most self-evidencing of all 
 proofs. This is what Coleridge said, If you wish to 
 be assured of the truth of Christianity, try it." 1 
 1 Shairp, Culture and Religion, p. 87. 
 
SERMON VII 
 
 SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 " Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice 
 of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? let him 
 trust in the Name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." — ISA. 1. io. 
 
 The season of Epiphany, on which we have just 
 entered, is dedicated to the idea of Light from God, 
 as concentrated in the Person of His Incarnate Son, 
 the true Light that lighteneth every man. Scripture 
 is full of testimonies to this office of the Christ ; and 
 the early Christians, who had felt the deep horror of 
 Pagan darkness, could realise, as we cannot, the ful- 
 filment of those words of prophecy which ring in our 
 ears on Christmas morning, " The people that sat in 
 darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell 
 in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath 
 the light shined." So that we cannot wonder if 
 some of them dwelt habitually on their Lord's cha- 
 racter as the Dayspring that had shone out, with a 
 reanimating and heart-uplifting splendour, on those 
 
SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 57 
 
 that were sitting in darkness and the shadow of 
 death. Baptism itself, as we gather from two passages 
 in one Epistle, was known familiarly as the " enlight- 
 ening." 1 We have, perhaps, a fragment of a primitive 
 baptismal hymn in those rhythmical words which St. 
 Paul once quotes — 
 
 " Arouse thee, thou that sleepest, 
 And from the dead arise, 
 And Christ on thee shall shine." 2 
 
 We have certainly good evidence of this habit of 
 thought in the ancient Eastern hymn still extant, 3 
 whereby the kindling of the evening lamp in Chris- 
 tian households was greeted by a burst of thankful 
 homage to Christ, as the " cheering Light from the 
 Father's holy glory." Teachers arose, brilliant, affec- 
 tionate, and hopeful, who spent their lives in showing 
 to inquirers how the craving of the soul for light 
 was met and answered by the Author of Christianity. 
 They were thus led to insist rather too exclusively 
 upon this aspect of His work ; 4 and ere long a 
 deeper view, which took fuller account of the needs 
 
 1 Heb. vi. 4 ; x. 32. 2 Eph. v. 14. 
 
 3 4>a>s iXaphv aylai S6(ris, k.t.X. 
 
 4 " La revelation est moins pour Clement une redemption qne la 
 communication de la lumiere celeste. . . . Ce n'est pas que cette 
 notion de la reparation soit absente de ses ecrits, mais elle n'y occupi' 
 pas la premiere place : elle s'idealise k l'exces," etc. Pressense, Tr. 
 Pr. Siecl. ii. 2. 267. 
 
58 
 
 SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 of man as a sinful being, reasserted itself, and, pre- 
 eminently through the vast influence of one richly- 
 gifted mind — let us say also, of one large and loving 
 heart, — became supreme in the thought of Western 
 Christendom. We are, all of us, to a great extent, even 
 if unconsciously, the pupils of that great Father 
 who had been in his own person a signal instance of 
 God's converting mercy. Our Collects overflow with 
 the spirit of St. Augustine, for they repeatedly pre- 
 suppose and emphasise what is called the doctrine 
 of grace. But it is not well to lose interest in any 
 aspect under which Scripture leads us to contemplate 
 Him whom no one description can adequately pour- 
 tray, because " in Him dwells the whole fulness of 
 the Godhead." Even now, many souls are first drawn 
 towards Him by His offer of truth, and so come to 
 appreciate what St. Paul calls " the riches of His 
 grace." And in our day, when a prevailing form of 
 unbelief would fain persuade us that what is super- 
 sensuous is, as such, incapable of being verified, it is 
 but right to grasp firmly the principle which underlies 
 our creed, and to proclaim our conviction that certain 
 facts about the eternal and spiritual world can really 
 be taught, and learned, and lived upon ; and that 
 although in this world we cannot comprehend God, 
 we can, in a true and practical sense, apprehend Him. 
 
SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 59 
 
 We believe that He has spoken, so that man can 
 hear. The craving to know Him, at least in part, is 
 not a mere illusion or fantastic wish, diverting us, 
 as some would say, from the real business of life, 
 wasting our strength on a fruitless speculation, and 
 weakening our capacities for such efforts as would 
 yield us solid fruit ; but rather it is that which gives 
 to life its true meaning and value, and in the Divine 
 answer returned to it we can obtain, even in this 
 world, a firstfruits of that felicity which will be con- 
 summated in the " beatific vision " of God. 
 
 And at certain points in our sacred year we feel 
 specially able to sympathise with those who were 
 brought, as the Church says at Whitsuntide, " out of 
 darkness and error into the clear light," the resplen- 
 dent sunshine of the Father's glory, as revealed to 
 man through Christ. The Colleet for the Epiphany 
 was written by some one who had learned to gaze on 
 the true Light ; but our translators have not, in this 
 instance, done their work so well as usual. It should 
 run, "That we, who know Thee now by faith, may 
 be led on to contemplate Thy majesty by sight," or, 
 " to behold the clear vision of Thy glory." 1 This is 
 the prospect — faith daily strengthening, brightening, 
 
 1 " Usque ad contemplandam speciem tuae celsitudinis perduca- 
 raur." 
 
6o 
 
 SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 mounting upward, until at last it melts into sight, 
 when we shall " see the King in His beauty." 
 
 It is a prospect, indeed ; but we often feel unable 
 to enter into it. And it may be of some use, even in 
 this very season, to think of a form of trial which 
 is not very uncommon, even among Christians who 
 desire to " walk as children of light," — the trial of 
 obscured spiritual perceptions. 
 
 Times of opportunity are often times of disappoint- 
 ment, in the order of grace, as in the order of this 
 world. There are strange contradictions within our 
 own being, — mysteries of the inner life which baffle 
 us, which show us how poorly we understand our- 
 selves. Perhaps we remember how, as children, we 
 could not assimilate, as it were, the joy or sorrow 
 which occupied our families at this or that time ; we 
 seemed to our elders insensible, unfeeling, even 
 stupid ; but we could not help it. So it is, sometimes, 
 with grown-up people. Say to yourself that on a 
 certain occasion you will be sure to be strongly 
 moved, lifted up out of your commonplace tranquillity 
 into a higher sphere of feeling or thought ; and see 
 whether, when the time comes, your expectations are 
 verified. They may be, — but also they may not. 
 Sometimes, just because we want to feel, we seem as 
 if we could not feel. And this holds true as to 
 
SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 61 
 
 sacred seasons — a Christmastide, a Lent, or an Easter. 
 A person looks forward to some such " time of visi- 
 tation ; " he takes for granted that it will make peni- 
 tence easy and devotion spontaneous, that he will be 
 illuminated, awakened, enkindled, or chastened, sub- 
 dued, overawed, by its services. They begin; he attends 
 them. Ah, what a shock ! There is a felt blank, an 
 emptiness, a chill ; the spiritual eyesight is dim ; the 
 heart seems frozen up. " What is this ? " he asks 
 himself. " I am really further off than I was before, 
 less able to realise the presence of God, less responsive 
 to the touch of religion as a power." The trouble 
 may take various forms. Let us try to picture two 
 of them. 
 
 1. A person joins, we will say, in the confession or 
 the thanksgiving, or the tender, solemn pleadings 
 which appeal to the efficacy of the Incarnate Life ; 
 or perhaps he approaches the Blessed Sacrament. Yet 
 he feels as if he were not really sorry for his sins, 
 could not heartily rejoice in the redemption or the 
 hope of glory, had found no refreshment in the Bread 
 and Cup of the Lord. Naturally, he is astonished, 
 disquieted, perhaps frightened. " Why," he asks, 
 " is there this haze, this fog, between my soul and the 
 verities of the Creed — between myself and my God ? 
 What has come to me ? What has stiffened my 
 
62 
 
 SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 faculty of repenting, of worshipping, of longing after 
 the living God, of sympathising with the great heart 
 of the Church ? Why am I like the fleece that was 
 dry when there was dew on all the ground ? Ought 
 I to go on saying holy words, which do not any 
 longer seem honest on my lips ? " You see the 
 temptation; he is in peril of absenting himself from 
 God's worship, — of shortening, or even dropping his 
 own prayers, because of this harassing sense of an 
 inconsistency between them and his inward state, 
 and because he has a conscientious dread of keeping 
 up what may be a religious sham. Or he may drift 
 into that strange mood of discontent in winch God is 
 regarded as a " hard " Master, with real ano;er at His 
 dealings, as if unreasonable, as if inconsistent with 
 His own promises ; a mood, as it has been called, of 
 " black disloyalty," shocking and senseless when 
 looked at from without, but, as Scripture intimates, 
 only too human, — for Israel's " murmurings " are 
 human indeed. 
 
 2. And sometimes the trial is even sorer. The 
 dimness becomes a thick cloud, and out of that 
 dreary gloom terrible questions shape themselves. 
 " After all, does God hear my prayer ? Is He, as 
 I used to believe, close to me, and within me ? 
 Does He interest Himself about me ? Can I get 
 
SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 63 
 
 near Him by any religious acts ? " Then presently, 
 " Is it possible that those teachers are right who have 
 convinced so many followers that the Infinite must 
 for ever be the Unknown 1" I will not go further ; 
 you can imagine how the self-questioning might 
 proceed. A man may be gradually persuaded that, 
 because he has less and less power of realising sacred 
 things, he has, in fact, parted with his faith, or even 
 that he has seen through the " illusions " which once 
 made faith his treasure. And so he may, in sad 
 earnest, drift away from the Christian anchorage ; he 
 may sink into his darkness, and call it " light," the 
 only light possible for man; he may break with 
 religion altogether ; yes, he who had once clung 
 to the Cross of Christ, who had tasted that the 
 Lord, his Lord, was gracious, may turn aside from 
 faith and hope, may come to speak with contemptuous 
 indulgence of the Christian " legend " and the " super- 
 stitions " which hang around it, and settle himself to 
 live, and compose himself to die, as if Christ had 
 never died and risen again, as if he himself had no 
 God, and, in effect, no soul. 
 
 We ought, surely, to feel for those who suffer from 
 a trial which might thus end. I believe that many 
 do so, who cannot bear to speak of it. It seems too 
 shocking to be laid open, even to a friend. They 
 
6 4 
 
 SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 brood over their dreary secret; and the evil grows 
 worse, while it strikes deeper root within. What 
 should they do, brethren? What should we ourselves 
 do, if we were conscious of being in the earlier stages 
 of such a condition ? 
 
 1. The first question for the soul thus afflicted is, 
 Do I want to be set free ? Should I be glad and 
 thankful if I could be again " as I was in days when 
 God's candle shined upon my head, and by His light 
 I walked through darkness " ? 1 If he can answer 
 earnestly, " Yes," then all may sooner or later be well. 
 The deliverance may only be a matter of patient 
 waiting, of tarrying the Lord's leisure, of looking for 
 the vision that will come in its appointed time. 
 
 2. Let him remember, next, that, from the Christian 
 point of view, his trouble is no strange thing. Good 
 men, even holy men, have known something of it. 
 Psalmists have complained of the hiding of God's 
 face. 2 In the lives of saints 8 one may read of a 
 period of dimness, of dryness, which had to be passed 
 through. And are we better than our fathers ? 
 
 3. And then, how to account for it ? Let this truth 
 be firmly grasped — it is not from any change in the 
 will of the Most Merciful. He is where He was, and 
 
 1 Job xxix. 2, 3. * E.g. Ps. xiii. 1 ; xliv. 24 ; lxxxviii. 14. 
 
 * E.g. see Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints : Aug. 21. 
 
Sri RITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 65 
 
 what He was, with no " variableness " to cast a 
 " shadow " on the many " lights " of His continuous 
 goodwill. 1 But there may be in the soul itself some 
 element of sin which is not yet effectively repented of. 
 Or even if conscience reports that the will is turned 
 towards God, and not away from Him, then the trial 
 may be regarded as a penance or a discipline, to be 
 accepted with patient humility, as an admonition to 
 seek God for Himself rather than for His consolations. 2 
 In that case, the best thing to do is, first, to place 
 one's self, in purpose, at the feet of the Redeemer; 
 " to keep as much as possible in the presence of the 
 Father ; " 3 to make acts of faith or love or penitence ; 
 to wish that they were more real, and persevere until 
 they become more real ; to say, " May the holy will 
 of God be done by me and in regard to me." In the 
 words of a saint who could speak from experience, 4 
 "Blessed is that soul which remains steadfast amid 
 dryness and sensible desolation ; which can then love 
 God more truly because more purely, and so, after being 
 proved, can come forth as gold." This is for us the 
 
 1 James i. 17. 2 See Imit. Chr. ii. 9. 
 
 ' Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints : Oct. 4. Compare Toplady : — 
 " When we in darkness walk, 
 Nor feel the heavenly flame, 
 Tli en is the time to trust onr God, 
 To rest upon His Name." 
 * Francis de Sales. Cp. Scupoli on Interior Peace, c. 11. 
 
 F 
 
65 
 
 SPIRITUAL DIMNESS. 
 
 full import of the prophet's pitying counsel, " to trust 
 in the Name of the Lord, to stay upon our God." 
 And then, let the soul go out of itself into its duties, 
 and try to do something as Christ's law would have 
 it done ; let there he an effort to do kindnesses to 
 others, and make them, if possible, a little happier ; 
 and let a special watch be kept against all known 
 evil. Hymns, or texts, cherished in memory, will 
 tend to soften the heart and to quicken faith. 
 
 Remember that to lack comfort is not always to 
 lack grace, and that dryness of feeling is not neces- 
 sarily barrenness of soul. Keep on looking for the 
 light, and believe that it will again shine, even as the 
 star was hidden for a while from the Magi, and then 
 reappeared to guide them to His presence, who came 
 in our flesh, to make of His love an Epiphany for us 
 all. "When they saw the star, they rejoiced with 
 exceeding great joy." May such joy be the portion 
 of souls that have not " lost patience," 1 but, when 
 constrained for a while to " walk in darkness," have 
 not " compassed themselves about with sparks of their 
 own kindling," but have steadily trusted in the Name 
 ol the Lord, and stayed themselves upon their God ! 
 
 1 Ecclas. ii. 14. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 " In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to 
 succour them that are tempted." — Heb. ii. 18. 
 
 The word which we render " temptation " is some- 
 times used in Scripture with reference to suffering or 
 trouble, considered as a trial of patience and faith. 1 
 But as we feel that such an interpretation would be 
 inadequate if applied to the familiar petition in the 
 Lord's Prayer, so we know from the description of 
 our Lord's mysterious sojourn in the wilderness that 
 He was then actually exposed to evil suggestions pro- 
 ceeding from that apostate spirit whom St. Paul 
 names, pre-eminently, " the Tempter." 
 
 But a question arises at the outset : How could our 
 Lord and Saviour, the only-begotten Son of God, be 
 tempted, in His humanity, to sin ? 
 
 We must first distinguish between two kinds of 
 
 1 As in Acts xx. 19; 1 Pet. i. 6; cp. Gen. xxii. 1. 
 
63 
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 temptation, — the direct, which addresses itself to cor- 
 rupt propensities, which endeavours to stimulate the 
 element of self-will into some form of actual disobedi- 
 ence to, or revolt from, the known will of God ; and 
 the indirect, which appeals to some natural instincts 
 or feelings, in themselves innocent, and endeavours to 
 represent obedience to God's will, at the expense of 
 such instincts, as too painful. 
 
 Now, it is a point of faith that Christ was per- 
 sonally Divine. His manhood had been assumed into 
 union with His Divine Self; indeed, it had never 
 existed apart from such union. 1 This did not exempt 
 it from simple infirmities, from strictly human sen- 
 sations or emotions ; and it was destined, from the 
 first, to be the sphere of His redemptive sufferings; 
 but it was exempted from all sinful tendencies by 
 its intimate relation to the Godhead, which, if we 
 may so speak, encompassed it with an atmosphere of 
 sanctity, so as to exclude from it, absolutely and 
 entirely, the seeds and constituents of rebellious self- 
 will. Concupiscence, as it has been termed, was 
 wholly absent from our Saviour's spotless manhood ; 
 there was no proneness to evil, no sympathy with sin, 
 " nothing " as He Himself said, in which Satan could 
 
 1 See Hooker, E. P. v. 52. 3; Wilberforce on the Incarnation, 
 p. 133. 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 6 9 
 
 claim an interest. 1 It was because His human nature 
 did not stand alone, but was " taken into God," that 
 He, as Man, was literally impeccable. 2 
 
 But, then, the human nature of Christ was, as we 
 have just seen, most truly human, and had all the 
 needs, cravings, and desires which involve no moral 
 taint. As Man, He could and did feel pain, and 
 shrink from feeling it ; He could be weary, hungry, 
 thirsty ; could long after sympathy, could value in- 
 fluence and success, could wonder and grieve and be 
 angered ; one need not speak of the Passion and the 
 Death. And so far, therefore, indirect temptation 
 could tell upon Him. It could, for instance, pro- 
 duce in His mind the momentary wish that escape 
 from suffering or from conflict could be compatible 
 with obedience to the will of the Father, with fidelity 
 to the mission which He had come to accomplish. 
 But it could go no further ; it could not produce, even 
 for a moment, the wish, still less the resolve, to free 
 Himself from the law of obedience ; for such a wish 
 or resolve could only be possible where the principle 
 of self-will was not excluded. And when the incom- 
 patibility of the desired relief with that law of 
 obedience was apprehended by our Saviour's human 
 
 1 John xiv. 31. 
 
 J See Hatchings' Mystery of the Temptation, p. 117, ff. 
 
70 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 consciousness, 1 there could be no question as to which 
 should be preferred. His holy human will would at 
 once, and of course, reject the suggestion, control the 
 instinctive wish, and reaffirm the resolution of utter- 
 most loyalty to the will Divine. 
 
 But, then, it will be asked, what could be the 
 meaning of a temptation so limited and so powerless ? 
 If Christ was " tempted," might He not have fallen, 
 although, in fact, He stood fast ? If He was to be our 
 Example in resistance to temptation, must He not 
 have really shared our peril, and secured a victory 
 when He might have incurred a defeat ? 
 
 Let us, by way of reply, consider that those who 
 are for thus extending the range of temptation in His 
 case, who suppose that He might have entertained 
 a wish to break with the law of obedience, and 
 might have carried it into effect, are not only impair- 
 ing their own belief in the Incarnation, but are 
 enterinc on a line of thought which will be found 
 inconsistent with a true belief in His office as the 
 spiritual Restorer of humanity. If it is necessary, in 
 order to secure the impressiveness of His human 
 example, that He should have been capable of de- 
 siring or willing to do wrong, then we must, con- 
 
 1 In His human, as distinct from His Divine consciousness, one 
 thought would necessarily succeed to another. 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 7 1 
 
 sistently, go further. He must not only, as our 
 Pattern, have been liable to . the temptations which 
 beset us, but, as a Pattern for all men, He must have 
 had an affinity to any or every evil impulse which 
 misleads any man to his moral ruin. Yet further — if 
 one can bring one's self to put the supposition into 
 words — He must have been capable of absolute re- 
 bellion against God, because men are so capable. So 
 that He must not only have been liable to fall in the 
 sense of Adam's liability, as if He had been only 
 what Adam was, but must have been on a par with 
 all of us in regard to what is called " original sin." 
 He must even have had this " corruption of nature " 
 in large and comprehensive extent, must have felt 
 the full pressure of all human temptations, and by 
 sturdy resistance have mastered them all, — when 
 He might, in default of such resistance, have sunk 
 under them. But as such a Christ could not have 
 been in personal union with Godhead, so neither could 
 He be to us the source of purifying influences, which 
 could only proceed from One who was intrinsically 
 pure. 1 He could not be our Life, because the possi- 
 bilities of moral death had once, at least, adhered to 
 Him. No, assuredly, if we would have a Christ who 
 
 1 See Church Quarterly Review, xvi. 292, in an admirable article 
 (July, 18S3) on " Our Lord's Human Example." 
 
72 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 can effectually save us, He must be a Christ who could 
 not possibly sin. 
 
 2. And, next, remember that within its own 
 narrowly bounded area, temptation was a reality to 
 our Lord. Remember that a " thought " or surges- 
 tion tending to evil is not of itself sin : sin begins 
 when we take " pleasure " in the idea of evil, and is 
 completed when we "consent" to it. A "thought," 
 then, might be presented to our Lord's mind, in agree- 
 ment with some natural emotion. He could, as we 
 have seen, feel an eagerness for relief from the gnaw- 
 ing pangs of hunger ; His human frame was, probably, 
 exceptionally sensitive, and it might seem most natural 
 that He should, as Son of God, use His power for the 
 supply of so urgent a need. It might occur to Him 
 that there would be no harm, but good, in making a 
 great public act of reliance on the Divine promise of 
 protection ; or that it would be a happy thing to 
 hasten the establishment of His own kingdom, to 
 subdue the world without the miseries of a struggle, 
 to win the crown without first bearing the cross. 
 The scene in Gethsemane compresses, as it were, 
 into a small compass, and at the same time highly 
 intensifies, the "temptation" at the outset of His 
 ministry. There, at its close, while fainting under 
 the anguish of the " Sin-bearer," He considers, so 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 73 
 
 to speak, whether it may not be possible, consistently 
 with His duty, to avoid the awful " cup." " If 
 it be possible" — but not otherwise. He sees it is 
 not possible; therefore the lower element in His 
 human will submits to the higher, 1 and He adds, " If 
 this cup may not pass from Me, Thy will be done." 
 So also here in the Temptation, He perceives that to 
 appease His own hunger by a miracle would, under 
 the circumstances, be an act of impatience ; that to 
 expect an extraordinary intervention, by way of 
 " forcing " the people to accept Him, 2 would be an act 
 of spiritual presumption designed to anticipate His 
 appointed " hour ; " and that to gain, at once, recog- 
 nition and homage from all nations, by some com- 
 pliance which would have the moral import of 
 " worshipping " the Prince of this world, would be a 
 breach of the first commandment. Therefore, in each 
 case, He refuses the proposal on the ground of a 
 Scripture lesson or precept; and in the last case, 
 together with "It is written," we find the final, 
 imperative " Get thee hence ! " 3 
 
 1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., iii. q. 18, a. 2, 5, distinguishes 
 within Christ's human will between a " voluutas sensualitatis." laxly 
 called " voluntas," which " refugit naturaliter dolores," and a 
 "voluntas rationis." Cp. Hooker, v. 48. 10. 
 
 * Hatchings, p. 173. Cp. Mill on The Temptation, p. 112. 
 
 * That probably St. Matthew, rather thnn St. Luke, is here giving 
 the actual order of the temptations, see Bishop John Wordsworth's 
 University Sermons on Gospel Subjects, p. 10(5. 
 
74 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 3. Arid if the Temptation was thus real within 
 its own limits, although it could not produce in our 
 Lord's human soul any " pleasure " in, or any " consent " 
 to, sin as such, and although it was therefore certain 
 to fail, it must have involved an unspeakable humilia- 
 tion, a horror and anguish which we sinners cannot 
 conceive. For Him, the Holy One, to be thus brought 
 into contact with the enemy of truth and goodness, 
 whose dominion He had come to overthrow, for Him 
 to be insulted by solicitations from such a quarter 
 and for such a purpose, — this was to " suffer " indeed. 
 And as suffering teaches sympathy, so He who could 
 not in any sense be accessible to evil desires as such 
 could, in some mysterious way, increase His human 
 consciousness of what temptation is to His frail 
 creatures; and His temptation, being a sort of fore- 
 taste of His interior Passion, may well be thought to 
 have a virtue of its own, and, accordingly, we entreat 
 Him " by " His Temptation, as " by " His Agony, to 
 " deliver us," to " succour " us mightily whenever we 
 are " tempted." 
 
 The more thoroughly we believe in the impeccable 
 holiness of our Saviour, the more deeply must we 
 feel His condescension in stooping thus low for us. 
 And when temptation attacks us in some one of its 
 innumerable forms, we need all the help that we can 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 75 
 
 get, and we can get all that we need by looking up 
 to Him who was tempted. He knows how, if one 
 temptation loses its force, another starts up to succeed 
 it. We have begun to relax our efforts, we sit down 
 under the oak, we warm ourselves at the fire, we are 
 taken off our ffuard. Some habit which we seemed 
 to have overcome stirs again, like a serpent bruised 
 and not killed. Or our memory recalls what is 
 fraught with evil ; or our besetting fault puts on a 
 disguise, calls itself manliness or independence, claims 
 to be inseparable from our temperament, to have 
 the rights of a part of ourselves. Or we have 
 resisted a long time, and the thought comes, "If I 
 yield this once, it will exhaust the force of the 
 impulse, and I shall obtain peace for the future." Or 
 we have fallen, and then instead of craft comes open 
 assault: "You may as well go on; too late for you 
 now to turn back ! " Or even in the midst of our best 
 resolutions, within reach of Divine ordinances, during 
 Church service, on the very evening after a Com- 
 munion, we are startled and unnerved by some 
 allurement to evil, which we had fancied would be 
 powerless against those who had stood on the holy 
 mount. It is not so, — we can never count on immunity. 
 Bad thoughts may dart into our minds against our 
 will, even while we kneel to receive the Blessed 
 
J 5 THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 Sacrament. But He who then gives Himself to us 
 will remember that He was tempted ; and if, instead 
 of entertaining the intruder, and giving it time to 
 attract and take hold of us, we promptly trample 
 upon it, and give ourselves up to Him by a 
 fresh renunciation of what He hates, He will not 
 impute to us the evil which we have rejected; 1 the 
 fiery dart will have been quenched, the lion and adder 
 will have been trodden down. 
 
 It has often been observed that the very language 
 in which our Lord replied to the tempter was chosen 
 for our instruction and encouragement. He did not 
 refer to His own dignity, but simply to Scripture 
 words which are available for all His servants. And 
 for us, the practical remedy is, in the first place, to 
 keep well out of the way of all occasions of evil, to 
 avoid whatever might awaken dangerous thoughts ; 
 and then, if such thoughts present themselves without 
 our seeking, never to entertain or tamper with them, 
 not to spend a moment in speculating about their 
 drift, or in pretending to examine them as if from a 
 safe distance, for to do this is, in the great poet's 
 phrase, to be " merely our own traitors," to 
 
 1 "Tf the will does not consent, the presence of any amonnt of 
 temptation may be mere suffering, and, however intense, it will not 
 be sin." Card. Manning, Sin and its Consequences, p. 179. 
 
THE TEMPTATION OF OUR LORD. 
 
 77 
 
 " Tempt the frailty of our powers, 
 Presuming on their changeful potency." 1 
 
 Rather let us turn aside at once, and appeal to our 
 Lord for aid, in some such momentary prayer as 
 " Help me now, 0 Christ," " Lord, save me, or I 
 perish," or simply by the utterance of the holy Name 
 of Jesus ; and so carry out the advice of a guide of 
 souls, 2 "while standing on a precipice-edge, never to 
 look down, but always to look up," away from the 
 bewildering fascinations of evil, away from the haunt- 
 ing images of past falls, away from all else to that all- 
 merciful Redeemer, who having Himself " suffered, 
 being tempted," although " without sin," is able to 
 succour the tempted and to wash the sinners white. 
 
 1 "All's Well that Ends Well," act iv. sc. 3; " Troilas and 
 Cressida," act iv. sc. 4. 
 ! J. M. Neale. 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND THE 
 ATONEMENT. 
 
 "I will now turn aside, and see this great sight. . '. . And God 
 said unto Moses, I am that I am." — Exod. iii. 3, 14. 
 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." — 
 St. John viii. 58. 
 
 This Sunday 1 forms a landmark in our Christian 
 year. We pass, to-day, so to speak, from the outer 
 court of Lent into the inner; we enter upon Pas- 
 siontide. Why so ? you ask. Why not restrict the 
 special consideration of the Passion to the sacred 
 week, the " great " week, the " authentic " week, as 
 it was formerly called, which begins with Palm 
 Sunday ? Because, for ages, it has been the Church's 
 custom to read, on this Fifth Sunday in Lent, a short 
 portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, by its 
 very first words, enforces on our thought the mystery 
 
 1 Fifth Sunday in Lent. 
 
THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 79 
 
 of our Lord's self-sacrifice, and of the efficacy of that 
 blood, by the pouring forth of which He "offered 
 Himself, through the eternal Spirit," 1 i.e., probably, 
 through the power of His Divine nature, "without 
 spot to God," " obtained eternal redemption for us," 
 and so became " the Mediator of the new covenant." 
 Do not the words, as we hear them in this day's 
 service, thrill us with the consciousness of our own 
 personal relation to very awful facts ? If we have 
 Christian belief as a vital thing in our minds, they 
 speak to us in accents of commanding urgency ; they 
 say to us, " You must attend now ; you must think 
 where you are, how you personally stand in regard 
 to Christ, what interest you take in His work as 
 High Priest and Sacrifice and Mediator, whether 
 you are nearer to Him in heart and spirit than you 
 were on last Passion Sunday/' They bid us, in 
 short, " turn aside and see the great sight " which is 
 gradually unfolding itself, in the last two weeks of 
 this solemn season, before our eyes — those inward 
 eyes which are so often but too unwilling to trouble 
 themselves with the contemplation of the Object on 
 which they should be fixed, "Jesus Christ, evidently 
 set forth," crucified for us men and for our salvation. 
 "Turn aside and see this great sight," — turn 
 
 1 Rom. i. 4. 
 
8o THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 away from that routine of ordinary interests which, 
 while life runs smoothly, is so sadly efficacious in 
 protecting our triviality, our love of the common- 
 place, our instinctive dread of what is overawing and 
 exacting, from being " put out of its way," and ele- 
 vated, in spite of itself, to a higher standpoint in a 
 keener atmosphere ; from being carried up to Horeb 
 the mount of God, instead of lazily abiding among 
 the fleshpots of Egypt. Let us make an effort for 
 once ; let us put ourselves into sympathy with the 
 Church of God, which is the kingdom of the invisible, 
 the supernatural, the mysterious — in St. Paul's com- 
 prehensive phrase, of the spiritual. Remember that 
 when the exiled shepherd looked away from all other 
 sights to the strange phenomenon of the bush that 
 burned with fire and was not consumed, he was 
 instantly rewarded by Him who ever meets His 
 children more than half way, and heard the Divine 
 Voice calling out of the bush, and opening the con- 
 ference which was to mark a new epoch in the 
 spiritual history of mankind. God spake to Moses, 
 and revealed to him the full significance of the Name 
 Jehovah, which, as it appears, had been known to 
 earlier patriarchal worshippers, but not understood 
 in all its meaning, " I am that I am." The oldest 
 Greek version renders, "I am He who is." The 
 
THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 8 1 
 
 Revised version tells us that it might also be 
 rendered, " I will be that I will be ; " and this ren- 
 dering would emphasise what the common transla- 
 tion would involve, the truth that God, as personal 
 and living, and in relation to His creatures, will be 
 permanently their God. " Thus shalt thou say to 
 the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you." 
 It is the revelation of a perpetual Protector, for 
 it is the revelation of " the Lord who changes 
 not ; " and it seems to be paraphrased by St. John 
 in the title, " Who is, and who was, and who is to 
 come." 1 
 
 But do you not see, my brethren, why this ancient 
 story is linked with Passion Sunday, — what is the 
 relation between this third chapter of Exodus and 
 that solemn passage from the eighth chapter of St. 
 John which, for many a century, has formed this 
 Sunday's Gospel ? When you hear of God describing 
 Himself by the words, " I am that I am," can you 
 help thinking of Him who, after the Jews had asked 
 how it was possible for a man far short of fifty years 
 old to have seen Abraham, answered forthwith, with 
 the most emphatic assurance, that He meant what He 
 said in its fullest import : " Before Abraham came into 
 being, I am"? Not " I was ; " not as if He claimed 
 
 1 Kev. i. 4, 8. 
 
82 THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 mere pre-existence, such as might have been asserted 
 about an angel. The point of the contrast between 
 the two Greek words is, as has been well said, that He 
 claims " simple existence," independent of all periods. 
 He is; He is that He is. It recalled the old form of 
 Divine self-assertion, 1 but it came from One who to 
 the listeners seemed a mere man, and whose previous 
 language had appeared to them the very frenzy of self- 
 assertion. They now took up stones to punish Him as 
 a blasphemer ; and observe, He never corrected their 
 interpretation of His words. They saw in what sense 
 He claimed to be the Son of God. Quite lately, one 
 has seen placarded on some of our walls in Oxford 
 a statement of what are called Unitarian opinions, 
 in which it is said that those who hold them believe 
 Jesus Christ to be " Son of God, not God the Son." 
 Rather let us say that because He is " Son of God," 
 in the full sense of that phrase, 2 as illustrated by 
 
 1 If the title popularly written " Jehovah " represented " not 
 abstract, but active existence," as of " One who asserts His being, 
 and enters into personal relations with His worshippers," and 
 therefore can be relied upon as " consistent with Himself " and 
 " true to His promises " (Prof. Driver, in " Stadia Biblica," p. 17), 
 this " moral unchangeableness " implies an essential permanence, or 
 eternity of being (Ps. xc. 1, 2). 
 
 * That no mere " ethical " sonship can be here intended, see 
 Liddon's Bampton Lectures, pp. 10,235; Christlieb, Modern Doubt 
 and Christian Belief, p. 246, E. T. 
 
THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 83 
 
 those awful syllables, " I am," He is " God the Son " — 
 that is, is " one with the Father," not only in will but 
 in essence, 1 consubstantial, co-eternal ; and then, in 
 conclusion, take home, for our own thoughts this 
 week, the consideration that it is His Personal Deity 
 which gives efficacy to His sufferings as Man. He 
 would not have been an effectual Atoner, He would 
 not have really delivered us from the Egypt of our 
 lost condition, He would not have vindicated " the 
 eternal law of righteousness " 2 by His own acceptance 
 of the suffering which was due to sin, — yes, and 
 therewith of that incommunicable spiritual agony, 
 which filled His " cup " with such unique bitterness, 
 and wrung from His lips the cry as of one forsaken 
 by God, — unless He had been, in His very Self, in the 
 very heart of His being, one with the All-holy and 
 Most High. For consider: a mere man would be 
 but one of many ; he could not gather up all men 
 into himself. It is because Jesus Christ is Divine 
 that His Manhood has acquired this vast extension of 
 power. In this way the Incarnation acts on His 
 human nature in reference to mankind, whom He 
 can represent effectively, as having " recapitulated " 
 them in Himself; and again, in reference to God, 
 by investing the human acts and sufferings with an 
 
 1 John x. 30. 1 Dale on the Atonement, p. 391. 
 
84 THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 infinite value and preciousness ; so that His Deity 
 renders Him, on the one hand, a completely qualified 
 Priest, on the other, a completely availing Sacrifice. 
 This is a widely different view from that which is 
 now justly discredited, and which imagined a merely 
 arbitrary substitution of Christ, as the one innocent 
 man, for sinners. The word " substitution " represents 
 an aspect of the truth ; but there was no arbitrari- 
 ness in the matter. Our Lord, being God, and having 
 become Man, that is, the Son of Man, the Second 
 Adam, could, by His " obedience even unto death," 
 exhibit and secure the principle of Divine righteous- 
 ness, and enable those who by a vital faith should 
 accept Him to obtain pardon and renewal through 
 the free working of the Divine love. Thus, in the 
 words of a great theologian, 1 the Divinity of the 
 suffering Christ " underlies the contrast between the 
 blood of bulls and goats, and the blood of Christ 
 offering Himself to God." If He is God, "the dis- 
 closures of revelation respecting the efficacy of His 
 death do not appear to be excessive;" its "world- 
 redeeming virtue " is " illuminated " by the truth of 
 His Divinity. 
 
 Let us, my brethren, walk in that awful light, as 
 believers in it, and as conscious of the responsibilities 
 
 1 Liddon, Barapton Lectures, p. 485 ; cp. Univ. Serm., i. 240. 
 
THE INCARNATION AND THE ATONEMENT. 85 
 
 which it involves ; and so let us prepare to look up, 
 on Good Friday, as to a mystery of infinite love, 
 expressing itself, for those who will receive it, in a 
 mystery of not less infinite redemption. Or rather 
 let us say that the imagery of redeeming, ransoming, 
 or buying off, is used in Scripture as an illustration 
 of the energy of Divine love, exerting itself for man's 
 rescue by signal interventions which might in human 
 language be described as efforts made at a great 
 cost, and at last culminating in that supreme act of 
 God whereby, to free us from the bondage of sin, 
 and from its penalties, He " spared not His own Son." 
 And while we confess that we were bought with a 
 price exceeding all " corruptible things," let us take 
 to heart St. Peter's solemn inference, 1 and " pass the 
 time of our sojourning " in that holy " fear " which 
 is not cast out, but sustained by holy love. 
 
 1 1 Pet. i. 17. 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 HEARING OF GOD, OR SEEING 
 HIM. 
 
 " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear : but now mine eye 
 seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' 
 — Job xlii. 5, 6. 
 
 A passage from the Book of Job would have seemed 
 to the early Christians very appropriate as a text for 
 thought in Holy Week. A great Father and Bishop, 1 
 preaching on a Wednesday before Easter, at a time 
 of signal anxiety for his own Church, began his 
 sermon with, " You have heard the Book of Job read, 
 as it is read according to custom at this time." The 
 feeling was, that Job was an eminent instance of 
 suffering, and, as such, a type of the Christ in His 
 character of Sufferer. But that is not the point on 
 which I wish at present to dwell. Rather, let us 
 ask why Job is described as uttering this remarkable 
 confession of a new experience, as emphasising this 
 
 1 St. Ambrose, Epist. xx. 14. 
 
HEARING OF GOD, OR SEEING HIM. 87 
 
 contrast between the hearing about God with the ear, 
 and the seeing Him with the eye of the soul ? 
 
 We all know that, according to the story, the 
 friends of Job had added to his affliction by a coarse 
 and superficial theory of its cause. " You must have 
 been exceptionally sinful, or God would never have 
 visited you with such exceptional distress." He could 
 not accept this rough and ready way of accounting 
 for the stroke upon stroke which had so suddenly 
 beaten him down. He would not, for he could not, 
 charge himself with any conspicuous offences, although 
 he was conscious that human righteousness could not 
 assert itself as capable of standing the judgment of 
 the All-holy; yet he could not say that which was 
 not true, merely because they urged him to confess 
 himself guilty of this or that crime. It is very re- 
 markable that what, at last, he accepts as the only 
 possible solution to the problem, is not, as we should 
 have expected, a revelation of God's fatherly purpose 
 in the chastisement of children whom He loves, but 
 simply the enforcement of His inscrutable wisdom 
 and power. " The depth," as St. Paul calls it, " of the 
 riches of that wisdom," the pi-ofound mysteriousness 
 of its judgments and its ways — it is this which awes 
 Job into acquiescence. He does not even say, " One 
 who is so wise and so powerful must needs be, some- 
 
88 HEARING OF GOD, OR SEEING HIM. 
 
 how, all-good ; " he simply throws himself, with closed 
 eyes, into the arms of the Most High, and contents 
 himself with saying that he has uttered things " too 
 wonderful for him, which he knows not ; " he gives 
 up the attempt to account for the terrible discipline 
 under which he has passed ; he says, in effect, " God 
 knows" — just that, and nothing more. An act of 
 faith was this, assuredly not unworthy of our serious 
 attention ; but, at present, let us keep to the point I 
 spoke of — the contrast drawn between a condition 
 in which Job had been, and a condition in which 
 he was. 
 
 Why does he say that once he had heard of God 
 " with the hearing of the ear," as distinct from seeing 
 Him, in an effective though spiritual sense ? 
 
 The answer seems to be, that formerly he had been 
 religious and conscientious, or, as the story says, " per- 
 fect and upright, fearing God and eschewing evil," 
 carefully guarding against any abuse of prosperity, 
 and patient, to a very considerable extent, under 
 sufferings in mind, body, and estate — sufferings varied, 
 acute, heartrending. But this religiousness, although 
 real in its own way, had not brought him near enough 
 to God. He had thought he was near, but, in fact, he 
 had been a good way off; he had not thoroughly 
 realized the awful Presence, nor duly estimated the 
 
HEARING OF GOD, OR SEEING HIM. 
 
 8 9 
 
 eternal Mind, in its relation to himself. By a process 
 which to us may appear strange; by an argument 
 which we may think inadequate to produce the 
 desired effect, because it left out of sight the fact of 
 God's love, with all its stores of unspeakable consola- 
 tion ; by strange ways, if we choose so to regard 
 them, Job had come to see things in their true light. 
 Once he had only heard, now he saw — that was just 
 the difference. The possession of a new, profound, 
 intense experience had changed his whole idea of life ; 
 he had gained perceptions previously unknown to 
 him ; he could never again be merely as he was 
 before. He realised his position before God; and — 
 observe the solemn significance of the result — " there- 
 fore he abhorred himself, and repented in dust and 
 ashes," appreciating his own sinfulness with a keen- 
 ness unfelt when he had previously cried out, " Make 
 me to know my transgression and my sin." 1 
 
 Carlyle once called the Book of Job " all men's 
 book ; " 2 and, to confine ourselves to the point before 
 us, there are many religious people who have got no 
 further than the hearing of the ear. Theirs is a 
 mental apprehension and acceptance of revealed truth, 
 of the Christian Creed. Theirs, too, is a sincere 
 religiousness in thought, and act, and speech ; no 
 
 1 Job xiii. 23. * In " Heroes and Hero-worship." 
 
90 HEARING OF GOD, OR SEEING HIM. 
 
 hypocrites are they when they use religious language, 
 repeat prayers, frequent ordinances. They do so 
 because they believe it to be right. They follow at 
 a distance, perhaps with a sort of envy, those whom 
 they see to enjoy a fervour and vividness of faith to 
 which they have not, as yet, attained. Some day, 
 they hope, they will enjoy religion more ; meantime, 
 they go on repeating its formulas with a real though 
 somewhat cold sincerity, and also trying, as a matter 
 of duty, to observe its precepts. What lack they 
 but this great thing, which Job once lacked — a per- 
 sonal consciousness of their own relation to a personal 
 Father, and, we must add, a personal Saviour and 
 Sanctifier? How are they to gain this realising, 
 assimilating faith, whereby they will be able to say, 
 " I know in whom I have believed ; I believe and am 
 sure that Thou art my God, that Thou art my Christ " ? 
 How, in short, is the hearing of the ear to be trans- 
 formed into the seeing of the eye ? 
 
 Not, one would say, by attempts to excite feeling. 
 Devotional books are sometimes rather over-full of 
 hifh-strung, emotional language, which is not made 
 real to the persons using it by their mere resolve to 
 take it on their lips. Feeling cannot be. forced; it 
 comes when God sends it, and, if it is to do any good, 
 it must be used to help us over difficulties in the path 
 
 4 
 
HEARING OF GOD, OR SEEING HIM. 9 1 
 
 of obedience. 1 No; let us rather have recourse, if 
 we are still but "hearers" and hardly "seers," to a 
 cultivation of the sense of God's presence, as of One 
 with whom we personally have to deal, before whom 
 we ourselves stand, each as a single soul that must 
 say to Him, " My God, I am Thine." This first. Then 
 next, it is obvious that the conscience must be 
 examined, to see whether any cherished sin is the 
 cause of our want of spiritual insight, is keeping us 
 off from closer relations with God, or, in the Prophet's 
 phrase, is "separating between us and Him." 2 And 
 one point more, which will surely come home to us 
 when, as now, the Death-day of our Redeemer is close 
 at hand. Let us try to look at our position in the 
 world of spiritual life, as illuminated by the Passion. 
 The sight of the Cross should open our eyes to the 
 most real of all facts in which a human soul can be 
 interested. "The Son of God loved me, and gave 
 Himself for me." 3 Let us face and grasp that thought ; 
 it will best help us to " see " God, and our own true 
 selves as before Him ; and then we shall better under- 
 stand why such a sight produced in Job that energetic 
 "self-abhorrence" which made him "repent in dust 
 and ashes," whereupon, it is written, "the Lord 
 accepted Job." 
 
 1 Newman, Sermons, i. 115, S. 2 Isa. lix. 2. » Gal. ii. 20. 
 
SERMON XI. 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST A BOND 
 OF FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 "For we being many are one bread, and one body : for we are all 
 partakers of that one Bread." — I Cor. x. 17. 
 
 It is usual, on this one evening of the week devoted 
 to the contemplation of our Lord's sufferings, to turn 
 aside for a brief space, even from " that great sight," 
 and to fix our thoughts on a subject which, beyond all 
 others, is characterised by a solemn and beautiful 
 calm. For this is the day 1 on which we celebrate the 
 institution of that supreme ordinance, in which its 
 gracious Founder has concentrated whatever in His 
 Gospel is most transcendent and most vital — the Sacra- 
 ment of the Holy Eucharist. The day was sometimes 
 called of old, with a touch of Christian poetry, " the 
 Birthday of the Cup " of salvation ; and in its service, 
 before the words of institution, the priest said, " Who, 
 
 1 Maundy Thursday. 
 
THE EUCHARIST A BOND OF FELLOWSHIP. 93 
 
 on the day before He suffered, that is, to-day, took 
 bread." 
 
 When we think of the Holy Eucharist, and espe- 
 cially when we put aside the controversies which have 
 unhappily disturbed its atmosphere, we feel that we 
 have entered into the very sanctuary of God, and are 
 standing beside the very hearth-fire of our religion. 
 It is the Sacrament of Life ; for by it, pre-eminently, 
 Christians attain to that life in God which He bestows 
 and sustains, who, being the Word, is Life, 1 and is the 
 quickening Spirit in His character as Second Adam. 
 It is the Sacrament of Love ; for in it we find Him 
 most fully and intimately brought near to us, who, 
 as on this sacred night, " having loved His own that 
 were in the world," showed how He could " love them 
 unto the end." And it is also the Sacrament of Fellow- 
 ship ; for the truest comment on its purpose and 
 efficacy, as uniting us to Christ our Head, and to each 
 other in Christ, is found in those words of His prayer 
 as Intercessor or High Priest, solemnly offered to the 
 Father after the first celebration of this feast, " That 
 they may be one, even as We are one : I in them, and 
 Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one " — 
 or rather, " into one," — and " that the love wherewith 
 Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." 
 
 1 See Cyril Alex., Ep. 3 to Nestoriue. 
 
94 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 It is on this aspect of the Blessed Sacrament, its 
 function as a bond of Christian fellowship, that I 
 desire now to say a few words. It is not, of course, 
 the highest aspect of the gift which our Lord, as at 
 this time, left to His faithful people ; for, primarily, 
 this is " the Sacrament of the Body and Blood 
 of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and 
 received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." In 
 some most true, although mysterious sense, the bread 
 which we break is the Communion of Christ's Body, 
 the cup of blessing is the Communion of His Blood. 
 We therein partake, through consecrated elements, 
 of the essential life of His glorified Humanity, who, 
 as God the Word, and as the Second Head of our 
 race, is a Fountain of spiritual life to all who so 
 accept Him. He has thus provided us with a ful- 
 filment of His own words, which were spoken just 
 one year before the institution of this Sacrament, 
 and received their interpretation from its institu- 
 tion, "Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, 
 and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you." But 
 when we have fairly apprehended this high truth, 
 we can see how there flows from it the further truth, 
 that such participation of Christ binds the partakers 
 in a closer fellowship of love, even as St. Paul in 
 the text must be understood to argue. He has been 
 
A BOND OF FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 95 
 
 warning the Corinthians against taking part in feasts 
 connected with the worship of Greek idols. The 
 idols, indeed, were mere dead images ; but the worship 
 was allied with so much evil that the powers of the 
 kingdom of darkness stood, as it were, behind it, and 
 used it for the ruin of human souls. You cannot, 
 therefore, he says, frequent such rites without coming 
 into contact with these foul spirits, just as, in the case 
 of Jewish sacrifices, the worshipper came into contact 
 with the true God, and as, in the great Christian rite, 
 the bread and the cup are the Communion of Christ's 
 Body and Blood. " For we, who are many, are one 
 bread, one 'body; ' for we all partake of the one Bread." 
 His thought may be put into this form : " I say this 
 about the Cup of blessing and the Bread, and you will 
 follow me if you consider how we are wont to call 
 the Church Christ's body " (so, you remember, he calls 
 it when he says, "Ye are a body of Christ," or, " the 
 Church which is His body " x ). " Why is it," he seems to 
 ask them, " that we give this title to the Society which 
 He has founded ? Because to partake of the Bread 
 is, according to His own solemn words of institution, 
 to partake of His Body ; and we do partake of it as 
 such, and so, by taking it unto ourselves, may be said 
 to become a body of Christ." Thus, according to 
 
 1 1 Cor. xii. 27 ; Eph. i. 23. 
 
9 6 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 St. Paul, it is because the Church is fed on Christ's 
 Body Sacramental that it possesses the character of 
 His body mystical. It is His life, received in Sacra- 
 mental participation, which pervades the Church as 
 a whole, and causes her to be, in this sense, "one bread 
 and one body ; " we are so, the Apostle tells us, "because 
 we are all partakers of the one bread." 1 
 
 It is well to see these things in their authentic 
 Scriptural order. The great social blessings which 
 Christianity has given to the world are then only 
 understood in truth and fulness, when taken in con- 
 nection with the Divine facts which it has revealed. 
 Out of those facts they grow ; apart from those facts 
 they would lose their special potency and charm. The 
 Sacrament of Christ's Body and Christ's Blood is so 
 powerful a bond of our Christian corporate life, 
 because, in the first place, it so really joins us to Him. 
 It is the felt sense of " the benefits which we receive 
 thereby " which makes the tie so strong between those 
 who share in them together, by virtue of their joint 
 partaking in what the Church calls its " inward part," 
 from which those benefits flow. From this point of 
 view, we see how it serves as the completest answer 
 to all those aspirations which, from the outset of 
 history, have arisen from the purest and highest souls, 
 
 1 Cp. St. Chrys. in loe. ; St. Cyril Alex, on St. John, b. x. c 2. 
 
A BOND OF FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 97 
 
 craving for unity, for fellowship, for brotherhood 
 Men have felt that they ought to draw together, that 
 two were better than one, that a threefold cord was 
 not quickly broken ; efforts were made to establish 
 harmony of action — efforts too often made on a false 
 principle, and tending rather towards Babel than to- 
 wards " the city that is at unity with itself." But still 
 they witnessed for a real need ; and meantime, within 
 one chosen race, provision was made for something 
 like true fellowship ; and at last, after faithful souls 
 had been through long ages persistently clinging to 
 the hope of a coming Redeemer, refusing even in dark 
 times to give it up, and keeping it pure when coarser 
 minds had practically secularised it, — at last, for the 
 consolation of true Israelites, He came, the Son of the 
 Virgin, the Incarnate Salvation, the Prince of Peace, 
 the centre of unity for men as men, the one true Lord 
 of a vast universal company, including Greek and 
 Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, male and 
 female, all one in the one Christ, all baptised into one 
 body, all made to drink into one Spirit, pressing 
 forward with one hope and faith, in filial dependence 
 on the one universal Father. 
 
 And now, to make this thought more practical. 
 Perhaps the very vastness of the idea of Christian 
 fellowship interferes somewhat with our due estimate 
 
 u 
 
98 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 of its blessedness. Let us begin nearer home. The 
 love of family and of friends is what we start with, in 
 order to reach the love of country, or the love of all 
 mankind. So it is in the spiritual order. Here, too, 
 God has given us a clue, so to speak — has placed us 
 within an interior circle, which we are to contemplate 
 first, and so train our eyes for appreciating the wider 
 prospect. Let us think, therefore, of this Sacrament, 
 " the holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of 
 everlasting salvation," first as the means of a real and 
 unique participation of Christ as Lifegiver, and then 
 as a bond of fellowship between ourselves and those 
 with whom we live, and worship, and receive from 
 His altar no ordinary gift, but the Presence of Him 
 who is all in all. Let us see how, in regard to these, 
 this same Communion is the true preservative of the 
 most precious and lasting intimacy. It is well worth 
 remembering that the time at which our Saviour and 
 Lord established this rite for our perpetual observance, 
 and bequeathed us this gift in which all His love is 
 summarised, was that at which His specially loved 
 disciple is depicted to us as leaning on His breast. 
 You who have the blessing of kindred and friends 
 increased so richly by that spiritual oneness of heart 
 which flows from a common faith and a common aim 
 heavenwards, — you who can enter into the deep, sweet 
 
A BOND OF FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 99 
 
 words of a great saint and teacher, " He alone cannot 
 lose any that are dear to him, to whom they .are all 
 dear in Him who cannot be lost," 1 — will you not 
 resolve to use this sacred Feast as the best means of 
 consolidating those spiritual bonds and harmonies 
 which He who understands us, as He has framed us, 
 has willed to be such signal helps in our journey to 
 the kingdom of true peace, the " dear, dear country," 
 the home where all shall "be one in Him" ? Let each 
 Communion be an occasion of special prayer for all 
 whom you love, and who love you in Christ, that they 
 may have an interest in that great pleading of His 
 Sacrifice, which corresponds to His heavenly presenta- 
 tion of Himself ; 2 and ask that He who there and then 
 gives to us the Bread which makes us to be " one body," 
 will be Himself the everlasting bond of all your rela- 
 tions to each other, will do for each of you what He 
 sees to be the best, and draw you, by the cords of His 
 sympathy and His self-sacrifice, " nearer day by day, 
 each to his brethren, all to God." 
 
 1 St. Augustine, Confessions, iv. 14. 
 
 * Our Lord's Presence in heaven, as the Lamb that had been slain, 
 involves a self-presentation which is no repetition of the Sacrifice of 
 His death, but a continuous intercession on the ground of its perfect 
 efficacy. The jame may be said of the presentation involved in His 
 Sacramental Presence. 
 
SERMON XII 
 
 "ECCE HOMO." 
 
 " Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I 
 bring Him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in Him. 
 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple 
 robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man ! " — St. John 
 xix. 4, 5. 
 
 This is the well-known scene of the " Ecce Homo." 
 The Prisoner, crowned and robed in scorn, and 
 bleeding from the horrible infliction of the scourge ; 
 the Roman governor pointing Him out with a 
 genuinely compassionate purpose ; the chief priests 
 and their officers taking the lead in the fierce shout 
 of " Crucify Him ; " what a scene it is, how full of 
 awe, of pathos, and of teaching ! Let us take only 
 one point — who it was that said, " Behold the Man ! " 
 and what is the significance of the part which he 
 took in the great tragedy of the Crucifixion. 
 
 What a destiny for a Roman governor of a Syrian 
 province, to have his name ineflaceably branded 
 throughout the long ages of the history of Chris- 
 
"£cce homo: 1 
 
 101 
 
 tendom ! What would he have said if he could have 
 known that, simply because of his conduct in a few 
 hours of a single day at the great annual Jewish 
 feast, thousands on thousands, day after day, in every 
 region of a world far larger than he knew of, would 
 profess their belief in that one Victim of Jewish 
 animosity, " who suffered," or " who was crucified 
 for us under Pontius Pilate " ? There is this, first 
 of all, to be observed ; that his previous acts had not 
 been those of such a man as the Pilate of the Passion. 
 One famous Jewish writer of that age calls him 
 " wilful, inflexible, relentless." 1 Bishop Pearson hands 
 on that estimate in the words, " A man of an high, 
 rough, untractable, and irreconcileable spirit." 2 He 
 had shown this repeatedly, by insults to the religious 
 feeling of the strong-willed and dangerous people 
 whom he had to govern in the name of Cfesar, and 
 even by a slaughter in the very Temple-court. Now, 
 remembering this, let us look at him, as he bears 
 himself on that fateful Friday morning, when he was 
 suddenly called upon to encounter the supreme crisis 
 of his life. 
 
 One does not see in his behaviour on this occasion 
 
 1 Philo, Legat. ad Caium, c. 38. 
 
 * On the Creed, i. 341. Bishop Ellicott modifies it, Hnls. Lect., 
 p. 350. 
 
102 
 
 "ECCE HOMO." 
 
 any trace of the tyrant. Until nearly the very last 
 he shows a genuine anxiety to do justice. His first 
 impulse is to get the matter off his hands. " Take ye 
 Him, and judge Him according to your law." The 
 chief priests are prompt with their answer. The 
 crime charged is a case of constructive rebellion, 
 a matter quite outside their province ; it calls directly 
 for the exercise of the ordinary jurisdiction of the 
 secular authority as representing the emperor. Pilate 
 thinks he will understand things better if he holds 
 a private interview with the Accused. He thus elicits 
 the fact that the royal claims of Jesus are not 
 secular ; he does not pretend to enter into that 
 strange, mystic language about " witnessing for the 
 truth," but he feels quite clear as to the point in 
 hand ; the Prisoner is a harmless enthusiast, political 
 crime is wholly out of the question. The mention 
 of Galilee, in the fierce exclamation of the chief 
 priests, " He stirreth up the people," is caught up 
 by Pilate as helping him out of a difficulty. The 
 tetrarch of Galilee happens to be in Jerusalem ; he 
 may shift the responsibility on to the shoulders of 
 Herod Antipas ; it will be policy to pay respect to 
 his jurisdiction, and he himself has enough of 
 Galilaean blood on his hands. The expedient is tried, 
 and fails; the Prisoner is sent back to Pilate; the 
 
"ECCE HOMO." 103 
 
 difficulty again stares him in the face. But the people 
 are demanding the usual favour of the release of one 
 prisoner, to be chosen by themselves, because of tht 
 Passover. Surely they will give this poor innocent 
 man, a fanatic at the worst, the benefit of the custom. 
 No — and at this point all the four forms of the history 
 combine — they prefer, decidedly, one who had been 
 arrested for insurrection and murder, whose name (it 
 is strange) meant " son of the father ; " who, although 
 a robber and a man of violence, was probably 
 animated by so-called patriotic aspirations. 1 What, 
 then, is to be done with J esus ? They all — all with 
 one voice, the voice of a nation determined on 
 spiritual suicide — answer, " Crucify Him ! " Pilate 
 tries another plan. Perhaps they will be content if 
 Jesus is well scourged. The infliction, no doubt, 
 went against the feeling and conscience — we must 
 say, conscience — of the governor, who clearly knew 
 a "just person " when he saw him. And after it is 
 over, he utters his " Ecce Homo," as if to say, " You 
 see in what condition He is now : will not this content 
 you?" Not in the least. The shout of " Crucify ! " 
 is reiterated ; it is added that J esus had incurred 
 death for blasphemy, had the priests been ordinarily 
 competent to carry out their own law, " because he 
 
 1 Trench, Studies in the Gospels, p. 293. 
 
104 "ECCE HOMO." 
 
 made Himself the Son of God." The Son of God 1 
 A sudden thrill of fear, caused by that mysterious 
 phrase, causes Pilate to hold a second private con- 
 ference with Jesus, which ends in further efforts on 
 his part to persuade the popular leaders out of their 
 thirst for innocent blood. Quite useless, — worse than 
 useless, — for they bring forward the clenching argu- 
 ment, " If thou let this man go, thou art not Csesar's 
 friend." They knew the way to the privy council 
 of a sovereign whose anger was death ; and they 
 knew the way, on that very account, to the weak 
 side of Pilate's will. After one bitter, sarcastic 
 question, " Shall I crucify your King ? " meant, clearly, 
 to vent his own vexation at being coerced by their 
 persistence, he washes his hands in token of intense 
 repugnance, — but he " delivers Jesus to their will." 
 " Judas and Caiaphas may plan ; it is Pilate who 
 must execute." 1 
 
 " Behold the Man ! " So Pilate had said when he 
 intended, if he possibly could, to get rid of the case, 
 and not to stain his hands with legal murder. But 
 did it profit Pilate that he beheld that Face with 
 respect and pity, that he tried to evoke compunction 
 in those stony, infuriated hearts ? No, it did not — it 
 could not. Why did he, after all, give way ? Why 
 
 1 A. P. Stanley, in a sermon in University College Chapel. 
 
"ECCE HOMO." 105 
 
 did he lack that firmness and faithfulness, without 
 which mere physical contact with the Holiest was 
 a thing of no value ? He excites our human interest — 
 yes, at this distance of ages, our compassion ; for we 
 see in him good feelings, just instincts, struggling 
 for successful self-assertion. They failed, because his 
 old evil deeds " found him out," 1 tied his hands when 
 he most wanted to be free, made him afraid to do 
 what was right. And here is the moral of Pilate's 
 story. What if any former sins of ours should have 
 hindered us from taking part with Christ, and 
 beholding Him with the gaze of a steadfast loyalty ? 
 What if they should have obscured our apprehension 
 of the " truth," and made us fatally fertile in attempts 
 to evade plain duty, even to the point of persuading 
 ourselves that circumstances were too strong for us ? 
 If it has ever been so, let us look to Him now, the 
 Crucified and the Risen, and beg Him to forgive us 
 all the evil of bygone years, to set our wills in a 
 straight line with His, and give us grace, in the days 
 that yet remain, to speak, think, and act as " behold- 
 ing " in Him " the Man " who is our God and our 
 Saviour. 
 
 1 Numb, xxxii. 23. 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE OFFERING OF THE WILL. 
 
 "Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written 
 of Me,) to do Thy will, O God."— Heb. x. 7. 
 
 The Epistle of this great day 1 contains, in these 
 words, a quotation from one of the Psalms of its 
 morning's service. What is the point of the Psalmist's 
 words, considered as his ? He begins his song in a 
 strain of buoyant thankfulness, as one who has had 
 experience of prayer answered, who has been lifted 
 up, as it were, out of a " pit," out of " mire " in which 
 he had been sinking ; his " feet are set on the rock," 
 his hps are free to break forth in praise. And now 
 he has to tell what he has learned in the hour of 
 affliction. He has gained a fresh and vivid perception 
 of God's purposes in regard to himself personally, and 
 to others whose condition has been like his. " Many 
 are Thy thoughts which are to us-ward. Thou 
 carest for us : Thou hast intentions in regard to us. 
 
 1 Good Friday. 
 
THE OFFERING OF THE WILL. 10/ 
 
 I see it better now ; but I also see that it is ' a scheme 
 imperfectly comprehended.' Thy counsels, which are 
 faithfulness and truth, 1 are more than I am able to 
 set forth in complete and ordered series. Something 
 I do understand and can express, but not all." What 
 is that something? He proceeds to state it very 
 boldly, in that form of Biblical speech which, looking 
 at two things, appears to exclude and set aside one 
 of them, by way of intimating that the other is more 
 important. (There are several instances of this way of 
 speaking in Scripture. 2 ) So it is here ; " In sacrifice 
 and meat-offering Thou hast no pleasure; burnt-offering 
 and sin-offering Thou hast not required." What, then, 
 if not these ? "Mine ears hast Thou opened" (as Isaiah 
 puts it, " The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I 
 was not rebellious " 3 ). " Then said I, Lo, I come (in 
 the roll of the book " — that is, " in the book of Thy 
 law" — "it is so prescribed for me,) to do Thy will, O 
 God. Yes, I delight in doing Thy pleasure : yes, Thy 
 law is written deep in my heart." He does not mean 
 that the rites of worship, ordained by that same law, 
 and practised by all his forefathers, are valueless in 
 God's sight; he means that they presuppose, that 
 they involve, a spirit of willing devotion ; and that if 
 
 1 Isa. xxv. 1 ; cp. Ps. xxv. 10; cxxxix. 17. 
 
 * E.g. Hosea vi. 6 ; Pe. li. 16 ; JoLu vii. 1C ; xiv. 24. 
 
 » Isa. L 5 
 
108 THE OFFERING OF THE WILL. 
 
 that spirit is absent, their fulfilment, however exact, 
 becomes a dead formality. And in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews this comparison between sacrifices and 
 offerings for sin on the one hand, and the doing of 
 God's will on the other, is made to point onwards 
 towards that great Sacrifice of "the body of Jesus 
 Christ," 1 which is the antitype of all the ancient 
 sacrifices, and the consummation and perfection of that 
 surrender of the will which underlay and vitalised 
 the forms of Hebrew worship. 
 
 Let us think for a few moments of the awful event 
 of this day, from this special point of view — that it 
 completed the lifelong union of the will of the 
 Incarnate Son with the will of the Eternal Father. 
 It is very remarkable that the Evangelist who speaks 
 most pointedly and fully of the Godhead of the Son, 
 is the Evangelist who records such words as, " My 
 meat is to do the will of Him Who sent Me, and to 
 finish His work ; " 2 and again, more wonderful still 
 in their expression of this high truth, the words 
 wherein our Lord actually explains or illustrates His 
 own readiness to receive and in no wise to cast out 
 those who come to Him, by the fact that He " came 
 down from heaven, not to do His own will" as a 
 thing apart, " but the will of Him that sent Him." 3 
 
 1 Heb. x. 10. 2 John iv. 34. * John vi. 38. 
 
THE OFFERING OF THE WILL. 109 
 
 The union of the will of the Son with the will of 
 the Father is, in two respects which touch on Christian 
 doctrine, a fact to be perpetually borne in mind. 
 First, because a serious misconception, which has 
 proved most perilous as a stumbling-block, exists, 
 although less widely than it once existed, in the 
 minds of people who really mean to believe aright as 
 to the atoning efficacy of the Passion. They vaguely 
 imagine that the Father is all justice, and the Son all 
 love; that the Father had to be persuaded by the 
 Son to accept an atonement for us. They have got 
 hold of a truth by the wrong end — the truth that 
 between God and men sin had created a real barrier, 
 because God is the moral Ruler of the world. But, 
 at the same time, it is true that, as the Father and 
 the Son are of one essence, so They are of one mind 
 and one will ; that mercy and justice belong to Both ; 
 and, particularly, that the Father is repeatedly 
 affirmed to have " sent " and " given " the Son because 
 of His own love for man. He " so loved the world 
 that He gave the Only-begotten," that He " sent the 
 Son as the propitiation for our sins." 1 
 
 And then again, when we look at the condescension 
 of that Son to our humanity, we have to recollect that 
 He became truly and thoroughly man. His Person, 
 
 1 John iii. 16 ; 1 John iv. 10; see Dale on Atonement, pp. 1G7, 313. 
 
IIO THE OFFER ING OF THE WILL. 
 
 indeed, could not but remain single, and thci-efore 
 simply Divine ; but He assumed into the unity of 
 that Person a true human nature, so that He could 
 exist and act in a human sphere of being. Therefore 
 He must have had, as the Catholic faith teaches, a 
 human will, as belonging to His human nature. If it 
 be said, as it has been said, that a human consciousness 
 and a human will involve a separate human per- 
 sonality, we may answer that this is true in other 
 cases, but not in the one case which has no parallel, 
 because God could keep the manhood which He 
 " appropriated " 1 from belonging to any one but Him- 
 self. His Personality could dwell in His Godhead, and 
 yet could employ the manhood as a distinct medium 
 of operation. He could remain the same that He 
 had been from eternity, and yet could adopt human 
 sensations, and go through a human experience. And 
 we are all the more likely to realise this fact, as 
 we apprehend the continuous oblation of His human 
 will to that Divine will, which was one in the Father 
 and in Himself as God. Then we see Him, in the 
 words of the text, coming to do the Father's will, 
 rejoicing in it, finding, so to speak, His food in it, 
 regarding the close of His earthly career as a finishing 
 of the work which His Father had given Him to do. 
 
 1 Cp. St. Athanasius, Orat. iii. 33; St. Cyril Alex., Schol. 8, etc. 
 
THE OFFERING OF THE WILL. 1 1 I 
 
 And now just a word or two in conclusion, by way 
 of applying this truth to ourselves assembled together, 
 in spirit, before the Cross of the great Sacrifice. It 
 may be that some of us do not feel, as it were, quite 
 up to the mark for these Good Friday services. We 
 have come to church, perhaps, with spirits somewhat 
 overclouded ; it does not seem easy to be fervent ; we 
 are partly afraid of finding ourselves rather chilled 
 than enkindled. There may be a variety of causes 
 for this state of feeling. It is distressful to us; we 
 do not like to speak of it to others ; we wonder, 
 perchance, whether we can get ourselves to feel as we 
 should wish; we are tempted to try experiments, to 
 galvanize ourselves into a temper of devotion. Let 
 us not try to do so; let us take a different course. 
 In the words of one who in his day was an experienced 
 guide of souls, 1 " Whatever helps us to patience and 
 humility contributes more than anything else to our 
 spending Good Friday well." Emotions "come and 
 go;" 2 they cannot be forced, and cannot be relied 
 upon. Our best plan will be to make an act of the 
 will, and leave the feelings to themselves, or rather, 
 to God. An act of the will — offering itself up, simply, 
 loyally, unreservedly, to the will of Him who died 
 
 1 Memoir of James Skinner, p. 338. 
 * Newman, Sermons, i. 185. 
 
TI2 THE OFFERING OF THE WILL. 
 
 for us. Such an act is possible, for grace, as a 
 movement of the Holy Spirit on the inward being of 
 a Christian, enables, though it does not compel, the 
 will to respond to its reanimating touch. We can, if 
 we please, by using that Divinely imparted strength, 
 perform this act of loyal self-surrender. " Lo, I come 
 to do Thy will, O Christ. O my Lord, I give myself 
 to Thee : make what Thou wilt of me : only let this 
 remembrance of Thine unreserved self -oblation assist 
 me, wretched and unworthy, to be more truly united 
 to Thy most dear and blessed will, who art my King, 
 my Redeemer, and my God." And then, when this 
 has been heartily said, let us take in hand the next 
 piece of duty, be it small or great, and try to do it 
 as well as we can, in conformity to that type of 
 filial obedience which the Son of God exhibited in 
 the days of His self-humiliation, and consummated, as 
 at this time, in death, even the death of the Cross. 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 " After two days will He revive us : in the third day He will raise 
 us up, and we shall live in His sight." — Hosea vi. 2. 
 
 It is a strange, and at first sight, hardly intelligible 
 fact, that on the first Easter Even the chief priests 
 and Pharisees appear to have remembered the Lord's 
 assertion, that on the third day He would rise 
 again, better than did His own followers themselves. 
 Nothing can be more certain, on the very face of the 
 Gospel story ; and nothing can be much more valuable 
 as a piece of evidence, than that the men who had 
 clung to and trusted Jesus had practically lost sight 
 of that assurance which should have saved them from 
 despair. For they were in despair ; they " trusted " 
 once " that He would redeem Israel," but they were 
 as far as possible from expecting to hear that He had 
 risen again. They were in no mood to fancy that He 
 was alive, to mistake " visions " for the reality of His 
 presence, to catch eagerly at the tidings brought, as 
 
 I 
 
114 EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 some would now express it, by "an enthusiastic 
 female devotee." 1 It must be a mistake ; it was too 
 good, by a great deal, to be true ; it was an " idle 
 tale," the result of a fond hope, which, after so recent 
 and so terrible an experience, they, at any rate, could 
 not make their own. Thomas did but continue so 
 many days longer in the state of mind which on 
 Easter morning, and for nearly the whole of Easter 
 day, was common to others as well, and from which 
 St. John was the first to emerge. Even when Jesus 
 stood among them on that evening, where the doors 
 were shut, some at least, we are told, still " believed 
 not for joy." The fact was, that the shock of the 
 Crucifixion was so much greater and more crushing 
 than anything which they had imagined beforehand 
 that it had bowed their hearts quite down, stricken 
 their faith with paralysis, and driven out of their 
 memories the promise that He would rise again. 
 Even after the Last Supper, they did not " take in," 
 as we say, the thought that His death was at hand. 
 When He was arrested, the fact crushed them ; they 
 fled, all but two, and one of those two " denied Him 
 thrice." They did not say, "He warned us of this, 
 and He also told us of a triumph which should follow 
 
 1 Against the " vision-theory," Bee Gndet, Defence of Christian 
 Faith, E. T., p. 68, ff. Edersheim, Life of Jesus, ii. 624. 
 
EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 1 1 5 
 
 it." Apparently they lost all thought of what He had 
 said ; and when He actually died on the Cross, they 
 gave up the whole cause in sheer despair. Even on 
 the Easter morning Peter and John " knew not," in a 
 practical sense, the Old Testament " Scripture " which 
 had been interpreted by His own reassuring words. 
 All had been blotted out of their minds ; nothing had 
 survived the collapse of hopes which had been formed 
 by the experience of His superhuman power, and had 
 fortified them, at the time, against the impression 
 which His considerate warnings were intended to 
 produce. 
 
 At last, at different times on that ever memorable 
 Sunday, the Apostles — all but one, who happened to 
 be absent — did fairly grasp the fact that Jesus had 
 verily risen again. It was not, after all, too good to 
 be true. The Lord had been slain, had been buried, — 
 those facts were certain ; but here He was with them 
 again. His return in actual bodily life impressed itself 
 upon their senses, as a fact not less tangible than the 
 event of the Friday afternoon. What a revulsion of 
 feeling it must have been when those who had heard 
 of the careful and costly burial, and knew that the 
 chief priests had been enabled to " make the sepulchre 
 as sure as they could" (words which we read with 
 exultation on Holy Saturday), became convinced by 
 
Il6 EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 the evidence of the senses that the Lord was risen 
 indeed ! It was well for them that they had passed 
 through that prostration; they could appreciate the 
 height to which so suddenly they were raised. " He 
 brought them out of the horrible pit " of hopelessness. 
 And they were thus the better able to proclaim the 
 Risen Christ to others, who at first would be sure to 
 say that such a victory over death was impossible. 
 They insisted that it was possible, for they had had 
 proof that it had occurred, and they were not likely, 
 in such circumstances, to mistake an illusion for a 
 proof, to build such lofty confidence on a basis which 
 could bear no scrutiny. Certainly we cannot wonder 
 that men who naturally shrunk from the risk of 
 being misled, of entertaining hopes and then en- 
 countering disappointments, should in all ages have 
 been slow to receive this great affirmation, on which 
 the Apostles, and especially St. Paul, rested the whole 
 structure of Christian teaching and belief. If Christ 
 had not literally and actually been raised again from 
 the dead, Christianity was a mere figment ; " the 
 faith of Christians was vain ; they were yet in their 
 sins." But St. Paul, writing about a quarter of a 
 century later, in a strain most unlike that of a 
 credulous fanatic, could seriously point out the cases 
 in which Christ had been recognised as " alive after 
 
EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 II/ 
 
 His Passion by many decisive proofs." 1 Not to speak 
 of Apostles, there were living, when he wrote, so he 
 positively affirms, more than two hundred and fifty 
 persons who could testify that they had thus beheld 
 Him. 2 It was not " too good to be true," although it 
 had seemed so at first. And, in days when the 
 Resurrection is discredited on the general ground of 
 the incredibility of all miracles, it may be useful for 
 us to see how the real truth of this most glorious 
 of all events comes before us not simply as an isolated 
 wonder, but as connected with, as the crown of, the 
 manifold revelations which we associate with the 
 Name of Jesus Christ. Undoubtedly, if a person has 
 no predisposition, or, if you prefer the term, precon- 
 ception, in favour of the idea of a benignant and right- 
 eous God, who would be likely, for a high moral and 
 spiritual end, to overrule the action of even such a law 
 as death, he will promptly have recourse to theories of 
 "hallucinations," will remark that St. Paul had loose 
 ideas of evidence, will trace the " legend " up, with a 
 sort of dogmatic confidence, to a wild fancy which 
 
 1 This is the force of St. Luke's phrase in Acts i. 3. 
 
 2 1 Cor. xv. 6 ; see Liddon's Easter Sermons, i. 165. It is to be 
 remembered that before Saul's conversion there was in existence a 
 definite and energetic mass of belief in Jesus as Risen and as the 
 Lord, which he had deemed it his duty, as far as he could, to stamp 
 out by persecution. 
 
Il8 £ ASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 spread like a disease. Yes ; but given a living God, 
 and given a Christ, we have an antecedent even for 
 such a consequent, a basis strong enough to support 
 such a structure. The faith in Christ risen is the 
 fitting consummation of faith in a real God. It 
 commends itself to us when we think of the Eternal 
 Truth and Goodness, which might well reveal itself 
 in plenitude of light by this grandest of all triumphs 
 over evil; it joins on to, and confirms our highest 
 ideas of the moral character of the Perfect Being ; 
 it displays Him as decisively on our side, when we 
 desire that good may prevail over evil, in ourselves 
 and in the world around us. And so that " thought 
 of God " which, in its vast, calm, tender strength, is 
 the only true " stay of the soul," 1 is felt to be then 
 most powerfully present with us when we seriously 
 and thankfully, especially on the morning of this 
 " Queen of Sundays," profess our belief that Jesus 
 Christ rose again. 
 
 "The Day of Resurrection," as one of our most 
 inspiriting Easter hymns expresses it — " the Passover 
 of gladness, the Passover of God ! " Easter prayer, it 
 has been well said, is joy, and Easter joy is prayer. 2 
 
 1 Newman, Sermons, v. 313, ff. 
 * " 0 brothers, prayer is joy, 
 
 And joy like this is prayer ! " 
 
 Manzoni, The Resurrection, translated in Monthly Packet, vii. 328. 
 
EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 119 
 
 Yes; and it should be also resolution. Here is a 
 point for us to think of. Merely to indulge in what 
 may be called the high spirits of a festival solemnity, — 
 simply to throw ourselves into a stream of exultation, 
 even though it may be a stream of devout thankful- 
 ness, — is not safe for such as we are. 1 Easter must 
 brace us as well as kindle us. Our Collect teaches us 
 well when it leads us to think of " good desires," and 
 to pray that they may be " brought to good effect," so 
 that we may be practically all the better for the 
 multiplied Alleluias of this day. We, too, must have 
 our part in the new life ; as Hosea says in the text, 
 which indicates rather than expresses the interest of 
 sinners in their Saviour's Kesurrection, we ourselves 
 may be, and ought to be revived. Revived from 
 what ? From such a state of mind or habits as 
 Scripture calls spiritually "dead." "Dead works" 2 
 mean, plainly, a system of conduct not animated by 
 a sense of God's presence, or of our duty to Him. 
 Surely we might try, in the light and strength of this 
 our highest festival, to put more of sacred life into 
 our ways of going on, — to do common things as to 
 God and for God, to bring the glory and charm of 
 Christ's Name into our everyday employments, to rise 
 in thought and aim from our low levels, and to be 
 
 1 See Liddon, University Sermons, i. 251. * Ileb. ix. 14. 
 
120 EASTER JOY, AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 positively and actively at work in our Lord's causa 
 Thus will this day of golden opportunities be a day 
 of new beginnings, of new resolves, of new efforts 
 to " walk in light " as redeemed from the bondage 
 of corruption, and as endued with that " power " of 
 His life-giving Resurrection which it is our chief 
 privilege effectually to " know." 1 It has been truly 
 said that " the Resurrection of the Lord is not only 
 the type " of our moral resurrection from the death 
 of sin unto the life of righteousness, "but also the 
 incentive thereto, and the power to effect it." 2 And 
 again, that "this makes strength possible for us — 
 ' the inworking of the mighty power which ' the 
 Father 'inwrought in Christ, when He raised Him 
 from the dead.' " 3 
 
 > Phil. iii. 10. 
 
 * Oosterzee, Image of Christ in Scripture, E. T., p. 325. 
 
 * Bishop Alexander, The Great Question, etc., p. 136. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 RETAINING EASTER GRACE. 
 
 "And they drew nigh unto the village whither they went : and He 
 made as though He would have gone further. But they constrained 
 Him, saying, Abide with us : for it is toward evening, and the day 
 is far spent. And He went in to tarry with them." — St. Luke xxiv. 
 28, 29. 
 
 We may well be thankful that the Easter festival is 
 prolonged, in one sense, through forty days, — in 
 another and more complete sense, through the octave 
 which culminates on this (so-called) " Low Sunday." 
 One can hardly, perhaps, account for this name. It 
 may be intended, by comparison, to emphasise the 
 supreme majesty of the Queen of Sundays ; another 
 surmise would make it a corruption of the phrase, 
 " close of Easter," sometimes applied to this day in 
 old ritual language. The Greek Church has a 
 worthier name for it, "Antipascha" — that is, a day 
 corresponding to the great Paschal Sunday itself, an 
 Easter festival over again. Call it whatever we will, 
 we must feel that it is a day of great gladness, of 
 
T22 
 
 RETAINING EASTER GRACE. 
 
 rich opportunities. How shall we use it for the 
 best? 
 
 The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact too 
 immense in its range, too glorious in its consequences, 
 too altogether transporting and beatific, to be at all 
 adequately surveyed within the compass of a single 
 day. We do well to give it at least a week. Even 
 if nothing has happened to distract us on the " Day 
 of days " itself — yes, even if we have been able to 
 appreciate its glory in the spirit of those familiar 
 hymns which express the very heart of Paschal joy, — 
 still we shall be only too thankful to have a renewal of 
 its sunshine ; and if, on the other hand, anything has 
 happened to cast a shadow across it, — if some personal 
 trouble, or some remembrance of past sin, has been 
 allowed to abate our enjoyment, we shall now be all 
 the more glad to traverse the sacred ground once 
 more, to rekindle, if it may be, our devotion, to 
 gather up the fragments of Easter thought, and to 
 secure what we can of the joy that ought to be our 
 strength. 1 
 
 What is the practical object before us ? Assuredly, 
 to retain in our souls, with a view to future effort, and 
 for our comfort and support in days less brilliantly 
 festal, the grace which a good Easter should have won. 
 
 1 Neh. viii. 10. 
 
RETAINING EASTER GRACE. 1 23 
 
 The special feelings aroused by an Easter service 
 will not, and indeed cannot, be literally perpetuated. 
 It is not a question of emotion, but it is a question 
 of grace. We ought to be spiritually the stronger 
 for having contemplated, in faith, the historical 
 " foundation-fact," as it has been called, of the whole 
 Christian structure ; for having sympathised with 
 our Lord in His triumph, and sought from Him a 
 vital interest in the quickening energies of His risen 
 Life. Let us hope that we have, to some extent, 
 learned more from Him of Himself ; that our relation 
 to Him has become more consciously personal ; and 
 therefore that He is more precious to us, and that 
 we are more anxious than formerly to retain His 
 Presence with us. If so, we can take as our own 
 the words addressed to Him on the afternoon of the 
 first Easter-day by those two companions whom He 
 joined in their walk, and whose hearts, at first frozen 
 under the misery of a total disappointment, began 
 to glow with renewed confidence as He gave them 
 that exposition of the Messianic Scriptures which 
 the Church must have stored up, and of which, per- 
 haps, some echoes are preserved in the writings of 
 St. Paul. " Abide with us," they might well say ; 
 they could not bear to lose a presence that had done 
 so much for them, albeit as yet they took Him but for 
 
I2A RETAINING EASTER GRACE. 
 
 a stranger — of exceptional wisdom, of rare sympathy, 
 yet still only a stranger, until they recognised Him 
 " in the breaking of the bread." 
 
 How shall we effectively say to Him, " Abide with 
 us, O Thou whom we know to be our Christ, whom 
 we adore as the Crucified and the Risen " ? 
 
 1. Let us answer, in the first place, By deepening, 
 as far as may be, our sense of dependence on His 
 mercy, and therewith our consciousness of our own 
 sin. Lent is indeed past, but it ought to leave 
 results behind. One of the main lessons of Easter 
 is, to beware of presumption, to mistrust our own 
 steadfastness, to renew our contrition, to realise our 
 profound unworthiness in presence of the gifts and 
 privileges conferred by our union with the Risen 
 Saviour. Let us not lose any humbling or chastening 
 convictions which the penitential season may have 
 brought ; let us rather add to them. It is well, it is 
 a duty, to rejoice with the exulting Church of Jesus, 
 because Jesus is "alive for evermore." But joy, 
 with such as we are, must needs have an element of 
 awe. We must " fear lest we come short " of promises 
 so ample ; we must watch and be sober, and not be 
 " high-minded," remembering how often we have mis- 
 used this Easter happiness, and fallen back into the 
 indolence, the self-will, the unholiness, out of which 
 
RETAINING EASTER GRACE. 1 25 
 
 we had seemed in Lent to emerge. In a true sense, 
 it may be said to be " written for our admonition " 
 that, when the Israelites had to " take their journey " 
 onward, after a brief repose under the palm-trees of 
 Elim, they encountered a temptation to murmur, and 
 gave way to it. 1 
 
 2. And, in the second place, let us aim at a more 
 thorough consecration of our lives to the service of 
 Him who claims them as His by right, and is able 
 and willing to transform them by His power. Let 
 us try to do more than we hitherto attempted, in the 
 way of pleasing and obeying Him. Cannot we elevate 
 the motives of our conduct ? Cannot we bear oftener 
 in mind that He lives and reigns, in His tranquil 
 glory, to intercede for us and to sustain us ; that we 
 may have His grace for the asking, and more of it, 
 and yet more, the more we ask ; that if we believe 
 in Him as risen, we are thereby bound to rise above 
 a mere secular level of aim and purpose ; that there 
 must be, for us, a serious meaning in the call of the 
 Easter-day Epistle, to set our affection on things 
 above, where Christ, our Life, sitteth on God's right 
 hand ? Let us add a little to our daily prayers, — 
 accustom ourselves to begin each day by offering it 
 to Him, — give more thought to the familiar verse 
 
 1 Exod. xvi. 1, 2. 
 
126 
 
 RETAINING EASTER GRACE. 
 
 which speaks of His " opening of the kingdom of 
 heaven," — store our minds with holy words which 
 may foster heavenward aspirations, and, at intervals 
 in each day's business, look up to Him for a blessing 
 upon it, and for the help which may enable us to do 
 all things in Him, and for His glory. So will this 
 Easter, by His mercy, prove effectual in drawing us 
 nearer to Himself ; it will not wholly pass away, but 
 will abide in solid results of good ; and they will be 
 all summed up and concentrated in the increase of 
 loyal devotion to Him whose Resurrection is for us 
 the source alike of renewal and of glory. It is 
 exactly such devotion which St. John, in the Epistle 
 for the day, describes as " the faith which overcometh 
 the world;" a belief not merely in the fact of the 
 Resurrection, but in "the actual energy and life- 
 giving power " of a risen and living Christ. 1 In 
 this faith let us pray, in the words of an old Collect 
 for this Sunday — " Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty 
 God, that we who have gone through, the Paschal 
 festival may, by Thy bounty, retain it in conduct and 
 life." 3 
 
 1 Wace, The Gospel and its Witnesses, p. 161. 
 * Gregorian Sacramentary. 
 
SERMON XVL 
 
 THE CONFESSION OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 " And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God." 
 — St. John xx. 28. 
 
 The story of St. Thomas is full of perpetual interest, 
 especially for all whose clear consciousness of the 
 verities of the faith has at any time been overclouded 
 by difficulties or questions as to which they could not 
 at once see their way. St. John, as his manner is, leads 
 up to the scene which is most critical in the career of 
 this Apostle, by pointing out how on several previous 
 occasions the peculiarity of his temperament had dis- 
 played itself. It was a sombre, gloomy temperament, 
 ever prone to dwell on the darker side of all possi- 
 bilities. When Jesus invites the disciples to go with 
 Him to Bethany, Thomas takes for granted that the 
 journey will end in death. When our Lord says, 
 " Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," 
 Thomas breaks in, not rudely, but sadly, with his 
 melancholy uncertainties ; " We do not know the 
 
128 THE CONFESSION OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 whither, and how can we know the way thither ? " 
 It is his hesetting infirmity, a want of that power of 
 realising the unseen, in which the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews defines faith to consist. And so we know 
 that after the death of Jesus the whole company of 
 the Apostles were prostrated by a shock of despair. 
 They had never taken hold of our Lord's warning as 
 to His death ; and so, when it actually took place, 
 they lost withal the remembrance, they forfeited the 
 comfort, of His predictions as to His resurrection. All 
 was over ; the cause was lost. They had trusted, but 
 they had trusted in vain. And Thomas represented 
 this attitude of mind in the most marked way. Others, 
 through some of the hours of Easter Sunday, had put 
 aside the reports of the Resurrection as an idle tale ; 
 but he persisted in thinking so, after the Ten had been 
 convinced on Easter night. He was sure they had 
 been too easy of credence ; their wish had been father 
 to the thought. For his part, he would have tangible 
 proof, and the proof derived from touch as well as 
 from sight. He dared not dispense with this mode 
 of conviction; and so through "seven days" he 
 " dreamed on in doubt alone." 
 
 " Seven days of hope and joy nntold 
 For evermore were gone." 1 
 
 1 Lyra Innocentium, p. 109. 
 
THE CONFESSION OF ST. THOMAS. 1 29 
 
 He lost the first Easter octave. Then, as on this 
 Sunday, he was with the rest when Jesus appeared. 
 We know what Jesus said to him ; " Reach hither thy 
 finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy 
 hand, and thrust it into My side ; and be not faithless, 
 but believing." 1 
 
 And then we know what Thomas answered. It is 
 needless to dwell on the miserable evasion which, 
 ignoring the plain language of the Evangelist, "Thomas 
 answered and said unto Him" would treat the words 
 of that " answer," " My Lord and my God," as a 
 "doxology" addressed to the Father. The point to 
 which I would ask your attention is just this : Why 
 did he say, not only " My Lord," but " my God " ? 
 To say " My Lord " was like what St. John said on 
 a later occasion, " It is the Lord." Thomas might, 
 indeed, have " believed " sooner ; we may say that he 
 ought to have believed sooner, for he had had time 
 to weigh the evidence which had told so decisively on 
 the others. But now he goes beyond a simple recog- 
 nition of the fact that his Lord had really risen again : 
 he says more as to the personal majesty of that 
 Lord than even Peter had expressed, although not 
 more than Peter's words might imply. He calls 
 
 1 Compare with this the indulgence shown to Gideon's weak faith, 
 Judg. vi. 36, ff. 
 
 E 
 
130 THE CONFESSION OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 Jesus, plainly and unreservedly, his God as well as 
 his Lord. It is quite true that thus " the convinced 
 doubter becomes the deepest believer." 1 But what 
 brings this flash of conviction, so sudden, luminous, 
 and intense ? How does he gather strength for 
 this immense leap, so to say, from a depth of de- 
 spondent unbelief to this adoring, triumphant assur- 
 ance ? The answer is, That moment focussed for him 
 all the rays of light from his past experience of our 
 Lord's character and acts, in combination with His 
 death, and with His resurrection as now ascertained. 
 He saw at once what it all meant ; he caught the 
 sovereign truth which underlay it. He understood 
 why the presence and speech of his Master, especially 
 when the brief ministry was approaching its con- 
 clusion, had exercised over those who came in contact 
 with it an influence at once so commanding and so 
 attractive ; why he himself had been constrained to 
 say, in effect, " If He is resolved to go to His death, 
 our duty is clear — to share it with Qim." In a word, 
 the moral and spiritual wonders of such a life, consti- 
 tuting so full a manifestation of Divine glory, became 
 intelligible in connection with so magnificent a triumph 
 over death and the powers of darkness ; and the whole 
 taken together, and seen as a unity, was felt to point 
 
 1 Trench, Westminster Sermons, p. 43. 
 
THE CONFESSION OF ST. THOMAS. 1 3 I 
 
 to one transcendent fact. No one could be what He 
 was, could do what He had done, who was not really 
 Divine. Thus it is the Godhead of Jesus, the infinite 
 majesty of His Person, which gives atoning virtue 
 to His death, which illuminates the story of His life 
 on earth, which makes His resurrection simply inevi- 
 table, and which claims for Him from His believing 
 servants the fullest trust, the deepest loyalty, the 
 most entire and absolute devotion. It has been said 
 that on Christmas Day, as on Good Friday, we " owe 
 to our Lord and Saviour an especial acknowledgment 
 of His Divinity," 1 as shining through the veil of His 
 marvellous self-humiliation. It is most true ; but 
 Easter brings with it another occasion for such 
 acknowledgment, by helping us to understand the 
 Resurrection in the light of the pre-existent glory. 
 He who on the third day rose again from the dead, 
 He who "was raised up by the glory of the Father," 
 while yet He exercised His own " right " to resume 
 the life which He had temporarily surrendered, 2 was 
 no other than the Only-begotten, God from God, and 
 Light from Light, the consubstantial Son, by whom 
 all things were made. In this, His victory over that 
 dark dominion by which it " was not possible that He 
 
 1 Liddon, Univ. Serai, i. 198. 
 
 3 Cp. Roro. vi. 4 with John x. 18. 
 
132 THE CONFESSION OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 should be holden " in durance, we see Him " declared 
 to be the Son of God" in the unique significance of 
 that majestic title, and find in this great confession 
 of St. Thomas the underlying basis of Easter worship 
 and Easter joy. 
 
 But, then, it concerns us to remember that in taking 
 that confession on our lips, we accept a responsibility 
 of the most solemnly urgent kind. If we say to our 
 Master and Saviour, " My Lord and my God," we 
 ought to mean that we know what His claim is upon 
 us, that it is imperative amid its tenderness, that it 
 cannot be satisfied by a merely emotional homage. 
 The test will come when our feelings are not 
 kindled. Shall we then " carry in our hearts the 
 music " of genuine Easter devotion ? Shall we so 
 pass through days not illuminated by a flash of the 
 excellent glory, as to have with us on the plain that 
 Jesus whom we worshipped on the mount ? Let us 
 pray that it may be so. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 " Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord 
 Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the ever- 
 lasting covenant, make yon perfect in every good work to do His 
 will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight, through 
 Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." — Heb. 
 xiii. 20, 21. 
 
 We are still, in one sense, keeping Easter, although 
 the first fresh exuberance of " Paschal joy " has ceased 
 to characterise our worship. The Church is still, out- 
 wardly and inwardly, wearing her robes of festal 
 white. It has been well said that "the forty days 
 through which we now are passing are brighter far 
 than any others in the Christian year," 1 for those 
 who adore the Crucified and the Risen. But then let 
 us remember that they may be, and ought to be, as 
 fruitful in good to our souls as the forty days which 
 led us up to Easter. The temptation, for most of us, 
 is to lose sight of their practical aspect ; whereas, in 
 
 1 Liddon, Univ. Serm. i. 251. 
 
134 
 
 CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 truth, they call us to fresh efforts, and supply us with 
 new motives for moral and spiritual energy. " Christ 
 is risen " we ought each of us to say, " and I must do 
 something in consequence ; I must rise to a higher 
 level of thought, aspiration, purpose, conduct ; the joy 
 of the Lord must be my strength." Have we not all 
 felt the force of that Easter-day Collect, which assumes 
 that the intense gladness enkindled by our yearly day 
 of triumph has produced in us some good desires, and 
 bids us pray that they may be brought to good effect ? 
 Have not the Collects of the two following Sundays 
 spoken plainly of serving the Father in pureness of 
 living and truth, of daily endeavouring to follow the 
 blessed steps of our Lord's most holy life ? And is it 
 not significant that this Sunday's Collect 1 looks back 
 to the time when converts received baptism at Easter, 
 and bound themselves to a life which should make 
 their profession a reality ? 
 
 1. And now let us look at the words of our text, 
 the benediction which all but concludes the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. Does it not gather up into itself 
 all the elements of an appropriate prayer for Easter- 
 tide ? You know that it is a very old question. 
 Who wrote that Epistle ? and one which cannot, for 
 
 1 Third Sunday after Easter. The collect comes from the (so- 
 called) Leonine Sacramentary : Muratori, Lit. Rom. Vet. i. 301. 
 
CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 1 35 
 
 want of fuller evidence, be exactly settled, but as to 
 which this, at any rate, may be said, that the writer 
 was of a kindred spirit to St. Paul. Repeatedly 
 does he remind us of the Apostle's way of putting 
 things. Although the absence of St. Paul's name 
 is the absence of what St. Paul has called " the token 
 in all his letters," and although in one passage 1 
 he speaks in a tone unlike that of the Apostle who 
 habitually laid stress on his own personal communica- 
 tions with his Lord, yet one must not overstate the 
 difference between St. Paul's writings and this Epistle 
 on such matters as faith or the ancient law ; and here, 
 in the passage before us, a truly Pauline emphasis is 
 laid on two ideas — on the connection which should 
 exist between belief in a Risen Christ and the conduct 
 of the Christian believer, and on the efficacy of Divine 
 grace as working on the will, and as being in that 
 sense the source of those holy activities which proceed 
 from a will responsive to grace. Consider the deep, 
 condensed, far-reaching force of the solemn interces- 
 sion, that the God of peace, who has secured to us 
 all good things by that Resurrection of our great 
 Shepherd, which presupposed the establishment of a 
 new and perpetual covenant in His blood as shed on 
 the Cross, might confer on the Hebrew Christians 
 
136 CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 the fruits of this Divine miracle, by putting them 
 in a right condition for carrying out His will in all 
 irood works, and thus might show Himself to be the 
 true ultimate Worker in them of whatever was 
 pleasing in His sight, through the same Jesus Christ 
 His Son. Do we not hear an echo of other words — 
 " That as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
 glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in 
 newness of life ; " or, " Work out your own salvation 
 with fear, for it is God that worketh in you both the 
 willing and the working, for His good pleasure " ? 1 
 
 2. But let us pass from the general to the special. 
 Not only does our text enforce the obligation of 
 answering loyally to the enabling touch of grace, as 
 a consequence of our interest in the Resurrection of 
 Him " by whom grace came," but it lays a peculiar 
 stress on the scope and extent of that obligation. 
 Observe the phrase, " make you perfect in every good 
 work." The word rendered " make perfect " is more 
 than once used by St. Paul (and elsewhere in the 
 New Testament) to express the idea of completeness, 
 thoroughness, full efficiency, or of the restoration of 
 these qualities. Properly, it seems to mean " to put 
 into good working order," and so to readjust what 
 has got out of gear, to repair, to reunite, to fill up, 
 
 1 Rom. vi. 4; Phil. ii. 12, 13. 
 
CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 137 
 
 and so on. The Apostle once uses it just as it is 
 used here, for " filling up the deficiencies of faith ; " 
 and St. Peter, in a benedictory prayer, says, still 
 more closely in accordance with our text, " The God 
 of all grace Himself make you perfect." 1 Next, 
 observe how remarkably the text lends itself to 
 reconstruction in the form of a prayer ; it might be 
 even supposed to have suggested that type of prayer 
 which we find in our Collects ; " 0 God of peace, who 
 didst bring again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that 
 great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of 
 the everlasting covenant, do Thou make us perfect 
 in every good work to do Thy will, working in us 
 that which is well-pleasing in Thy sight ; through 
 the same Jesus Christ our Lord." But do we not 
 feel that, in thus praying, we commit ourselves very 
 seriously ? that we ask what, if granted, will carry 
 us a long way, impose on us a great responsibility, 
 and involve sacrifices, perhaps, which at present we 
 do not distinctly contemplate ? For we ask to be 
 made Christians in the full force of that term — not, 
 of course, perfect in the sense of "sinless," but in 
 general aim and effort; consistent Christians, thorough- 
 going Christians. Are we prepared for this ? 
 
 1 1 Thess. iii. 10; 1 Pet. v. 10, where R. V. gives a future, " shall 
 Himself perfect you " (na.T<xpT'i<rei). 
 
138 
 
 CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 3. Too often, people are not prepared thus abso- 
 lutely to place themselves under the treatment of the 
 Divine Physician of souls. They will take up a bit 
 here, and a bit there, of Christian duty ; will do some 
 things — perhaps, like Antipas under the Baptist's 
 influence, " many things " 1 — but they cannot bring 
 themselves up to the point of asking, in good earnest, 
 for help to do all that Christ's service requires of 
 them. They will go, perhaps, near the mark, but not 
 up to it. They keep something back ; they draw a 
 line ; they make reserves ; they act as if they thought 
 that certain religious observances, and certain absti- 
 nences from evil-doing, would satisfy their Master, — 
 that He would be content to leave them alone for a 
 great deal of their ordinary secular life. Or perhaps 
 they know better than this; they admit in theory 
 that if Christ is to be their Lord at all, He must be 
 their Lord for good and all ; religion is, indeed, to 
 them a matter of supreme interest; only, somehow, 
 they allow a worldly spirit to invade the spiritual 
 area; they cherish a partisan temper, which they 
 mistake for pious zeal ; they are not very scrupulous 
 as to the means which they employ for an object 
 which they deem sacred. Or they virtually substitute 
 
 1 Mark vi. 20, A. V. See Scrivener, Introd. to Criticism of N. T., 
 ed. 3, p. 582. 
 
CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 139 
 
 mere devout feeling for that obedience, towards which 
 feeling is meant to be an aid ; they will talk of holy 
 tilings, listen to holy words, luxuriate in festal 
 services, forgetting what one of the Apostles of this 
 day's festival 1 has said about persons who impose 
 upon their own selves, whose religion is vain, whose 
 faith is lifeless just because it is inactive. 2 
 
 4. Yes; here is the weak point of many a soul 
 that is fairly well satisfied with itself ; its habitual 
 life is spoilt by inconsistency. Does conscience say 
 nothing to us on this head ? Has not our Chris- 
 tianity been too often a patchwork, a thing of fits 
 and moods, as distinct from a whole with a real 
 internal unity ? If so, why not begin, amid the 
 spiritual glow and fragrance of this Eastertide, to 
 strive after more of thoroughness, more of complete- 
 ness, more of consistency ? Motives we have, enough, 
 and more than enough to stimulate us in this good 
 endeavour. The absolute whole-heartedness of our 
 Lord's self-devotion, throughout His three-and-thirty 
 years, gave a glorious significance to that sixth 
 " Word " from the Cross, " It is finished ; " and now 
 when we are thinking of His victory over the powers 
 of darkness, and praising God who, through Him, 
 "giveth us the victory," let us remember that no 
 
 1 SS. Philip and James. 4 James i. 22, 26; ii. 17- 
 
140 CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS. 
 
 conquest is ever achieved without thoroughness of 
 purpose, without sustained and persevering effort ; let 
 the thoughts which centre in Christ's Resurrection 
 take the form of a prayer that our Christian life may 
 be made more coherent, and therefore more true. 
 And let us take home one homely and simple piece 
 of counsel, confirmed by the experience of lives that 
 have been thus blest, — to offer up the employments 
 of each day, as it begins, to Him who can be glori- 
 fied in all of them ; and then, leaning on Him, to 
 face each duty as it comes, to throw ourselves into 
 it, ask to be shown just the next step, and then the 
 next, and so go onward. 1 It sounds very simple, but 
 it has the secret of true progress. We shall go from 
 strength to strength, in reliance on that grace which 
 can work in us, if we will but be true to it, an in- 
 creasing thoroughness of conformity to the mind of 
 the Master. 
 
 1 Pusey, Parochial Sermons, ii. 140, fiE. 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 THE ASCENSION. 
 
 " Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed 
 into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our pro- 
 fession." — Heb. iv. 14. 
 
 Efforts have been made, as we all know, of late 
 years, to recover for this great festival something 
 more of a reverential welcome, of a solemn and 
 devout observance, among the Church-going classes 
 of English people. Is it not a matter of shame that 
 such reminders should have been needed ? One might 
 ask whether Ascension Day is practically less emi- 
 nent, in a spiritual point of view, than Christmas 
 itself. It is the ending, as Christmas is the begin- 
 ning, of that series of holydays which, if they at all 
 fulfil their office, that is, if we respond to their call 
 on our attention, ought to bring home to us in its 
 several aspects, with vivid force increased by each 
 anniversary, the master-truth on which our Creed 
 rests — that God for our sakes became Man. It is, as 
 
142 
 
 THE ASCENSION. 
 
 it was called of old in the East, the day of the 
 " Assumption " of the Son of God into the glory of 
 His Father, the day of the " completion of His work 
 as Saviour," 1 the day of transcendent exaltation for 
 that Humanity which He had taken into Himself. 
 Surely it is a day to be much observed, both on 
 account of the Lord Himself, who now appears as a 
 King putting on His royal splendour, and also in 
 reference to the interests of His redeemed people, for 
 whom, in His Ascension, the everlasting doors were 
 most effectually lifted up. 
 
 And yet, we may confess, there are some special 
 difficulties presented by this event, when we contem- 
 plate it, ask what it means, consider what it involves. 
 It is not only that, whereas Christmas brings the 
 Eternal into our very midst, the Ascension "parts 
 Him from our sight," hides Him behind the veil of 
 the unseen world ; it is also impossible to answer 
 the questions that may be raised as to the actual 
 removal of Christ's human body into " the heavenly 
 places," or, as St. Paul once phrases it, " far above all 
 the heavens." 2 But can we expect to answer them ? 
 It has been well said that "physical difficulties, in 
 such a case, are practically trifling," because we do 
 not understand the conditions of existence attaching 
 
 1 See Bingham, xx. 6. 5. 2 Eph. iv. 10. 
 
THE ASCENSION. 
 
 143 
 
 to that which, as belonging to the Incarnate, is in 
 truth the " body of God ; " nor, in fact, do we know, 
 in any full sense, what is meant by "the highest 
 heaven," considered as the scene of our Saviour's 
 glorified life. A foreign writer has pointedly said 
 that " what the Gospels tell us of His glorious body 
 is apparently beset with contradictions just because, 
 in this world, we taste but a little of the powers 
 of the world to come." 1 Nor must we look for the 
 heaven of " God's right hand " among the skies which 
 astronomy has examined, and which, as St. Peter says, 
 " are in the way to be dissolved." 2 At the same time 
 we are well assured that the Resurrection of Christ 
 carries with it His Ascension ; given the one, the 
 other follows : He could not tarry on earth, — He could 
 not but go up on high, that is, transfer His bodily 
 existence into some inmost sanctuary of Divine glory, 
 some central home of eternal power and life. And 
 this is why St. Paul, whose language is so emphatic 
 and exuberant about the fact that He rose again, 
 refers but seldom — although he does, we all know, 
 refer in some heart-kindling words — to that fact 
 which is the complement of the other ; why two 
 
 1 Riggenbach, Vie du Seigneur Jesus, p. 628. 
 
 2 " We need to locate heaven without this material system which 
 waxes old and shall perish." Smyth, Old Faiths in New Ligiit, 
 p. 347 ; cp. Wace, The Gospel and its Witnesses, p. 167. 
 
144 
 
 THE ASCENSION. 
 
 Evangelists give no account of the event of Holy 
 Thursday, although one of them presupposes that his 
 readers will be assured that the Son of Man, ascending 
 up where He was before, 1 had gone to prepare a place 
 for all His faithful ones in the mansions of His 
 Father's house above. 
 
 The Ascension is thus an exercise of our faith. 
 It is good for us to have our thoughts thus beaten 
 back on themselves ; to be reminded that we see but 
 through a glass darkly ; to recognise what is implied 
 in that ancient obsecration, " By Thy marvellous 
 Ascension, O Lord, deliver us ! " The greatest of 
 Oxford preachers long ago dwelt on this humbling 
 side of the festival, as calculated to awaken wonder 
 and awe, to prostrate us, in keen " perception of our 
 emptiness, before the great vision of God." 2 Yes, 
 we may well adore Him, who, in the mode of His 
 departure from among us, constrains us to remember 
 that His ways are past finding out; that the very 
 clouds which received Him are but a visible symbol 
 of the mystery which surrounds a Christ who, in 
 His personal being, is the Infinite and the Most 
 High. 
 
 2. But if the miracle of this great day makes this 
 
 1 John vi. 62 ; cp. xx. 17. 
 
 2 Newman, Sermons, ii. 209; see the whole context. 
 
THE ASCENSION. 
 
 145 
 
 appeal to our faith and reverence, it is also a fountain 
 of the most serious, yet transporting joy. (1) First, 
 we rejoice when we look back, as it were, from the 
 hill of Olivet to the hill of Calvary. After all, 
 Christ has triumphed. He has not only risen from 
 the sepulchre, He has taken His seat at the right 
 hand of God, "crowned with glory and honour," 
 lifted up " above all principality and might and 
 dominion." (2) Then for ourselves : by ascending on 
 high, He has inaugurated our life everlasting ; He 
 has given us an interest in a heavenly inheritance ; 
 His presence there, wherever it be, secures to us, if 
 by His grace we will but persevere, a portion in that 
 beatific life, " a house not made with hands, eternal, 
 in the heavens." Marvellous it is to think how, in 
 the glowing words of a great Father, 1 our " nature," 
 in Him, "passed beyond Angels and soared above 
 the Seraphim, and stayed not until it was seated 
 on the throne, flashing with immortal radiance and 
 beauty." Again, it is cheering to remember how, 
 as a hymn saj r s, He still "in heaven pursues His 
 plan of grace," by His continuous Highpriestly inter- 
 cession, which operates through that presentation of 
 His once crucified humanity, as a Sacrifice of im- 
 perishable virtue, which is involved in the presence 
 
 1 St. Chrysostom, Horn, on the Ascension (Op. ii. 451.) 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 THE ASCENSION. 
 
 of the Lamb that has been slain, 1 and of which our 
 Eucharist in this world is a counterpart; or, once 
 more, how the throne of the ascended Christ is for 
 us the throne of all power and all mercy, on which 
 He reigns as our Protector, from which to us, as 
 truly as to the Pentecostal company, gifts of grace 
 perpetually descend, — for each one of us the gifts we 
 severally want, all help in time of temptation, all 
 strength to fight the good fight, to overcome as He 
 overcame, to follow where He has gone before. 
 
 3. Do we believe this ? Is it, to us, real ? Surely 
 for us, as Christians, the Incarnation, which, as on 
 this day, received its crown, is that which interprets 
 life, which illumines the awful future. What follows, 
 but that we should resolve to " hold fast our con- 
 fession," or, as it is called in a later passage of this 
 epistle, " the confession of our hope ? " That is, let 
 us cling closer to our Lord. It is surely a great 
 thing to be a Christian, to believe in a Redeemer 
 who has gone up on high, that He may be "in us 
 the hope of glory ; " whose exaltation is a guarantee 
 that " in another state of being, the most wonderful 
 future is within the certain reach of every single one 
 
 1 Milligan, On the Resurrection, p. 135, fully recognises this 
 heavenly self-presentation, but as an act of self-dedication, whereas 
 Catholic theology regards it as primarily a pleading of the sacrifice 
 of the Cross. 
 
THE ASCENSION. 1 47 
 
 of us, — that any one that will is intended to have his 
 place in the triumph and blessedness " 1 reserved for 
 those who love this Redeemer. Let us realise more 
 vitally the blessedness of being able to lift up our 
 hearts, the obligation of living as under the eye of 
 a King whose eyes are watching us from His unseen 
 place of glory ; whose heart at this moment — we may 
 dare to say it — is thrilled with a longing to bring us 
 one day where He is. This is the upshot of Ascension- 
 thought ; " let us hold fast our confession," let us try 
 to be more loyal to such a Lord. And loyalty means 
 living in this world as those who " look for a better 
 country, that is, a heavenly," whose highest "corpo- 
 rate life " is seated " in heaven ; " it means being in- 
 dustrious in everyday duties, and at the same time 
 endeavouring to walk with God; it means pouring 
 into earthly occupations the glow and the spirit of 
 devotion to His service, who, being God, became man 
 for our redemption, and now, "in the midst of the 
 throne," is the life-giving Head of our race. 
 
 1 See Church's Advent Sermons, p. 105. 
 
SERMON XIX. 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 " He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you." — St. John 
 xvi. 15. 
 
 If we were to ask ourselves whether Whitsuntide 
 was to us as happy a festival (I speak, of course, of 
 religious happiness) as Christmas or Easter, perhaps 
 some of us would, for sincerity's sake, he constrained 
 to answer, " No : somehow I cannot enter so fully 
 into the meaning or spirit of this great Christian 
 anniversary ; my heart is not so much enlarged or 
 uplifted. I do not seem to enjoy its services as I 
 can enjoy those which belong to our Lord's birthday, 
 or to the day of His victory over death." If this be 
 so, why is it so ? 
 
 Probably for this reason, at any rate, — that the 
 imagination has not so much to picture, the affections 
 have not so much to cling to with a definite grasp, 
 in the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Spirit to 
 abide in the Church, as when we are bidden to con- 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. 1 49 
 
 template, with wondering and adoring thankfulness, 
 the leading points, the cardinal moments, in the 
 earthly life of the Son of God made Man. The 
 working of the Spirit is peculiarly invisible ; our 
 Lord Himself says that it is like "the wind, which 
 bloweth " seemingly " as it listeth ; " and the symbols 
 of the Spirit's presence, which appeared at our Lord's 
 baptism and on the day of Pentecost, the likeness 
 of a dove and of fiery tongues, do not speak to us 
 as powerfully as the face of Christ can speak. The 
 thoughts which belong to the Spirit's operation may 
 seem, perhaps, too abstract for us ; we try to fix our 
 minds, but still they wander. Is there anything, we 
 ask, that can form and sustain in us a real, solid, 
 distinct idea of what is involved in the great event 
 of Pentecost, and of its interest for ourselves ? 
 
 I think that we can gain a point of view, from 
 which we may gradually and effectually learn to 
 appreciate, and year by year more cordially to wel- 
 come, a festival which is indeed, if one thinks rightly 
 of it, very beautiful, very consoling, very inspiriting, 
 a true Day of the Lord, a time for thanking God and 
 taking courage, — if we begin far enough back. 
 
 Let us go back, then, for a moment, to the foun- 
 tain-head of all truly religious conviction, — to the 
 primary fact on which all religion, as such, is based, 
 
150 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 — the fact that we, as human beings, are spiritual 
 beings, holding relations with a Father of spirits, 
 Himself the centre of a world of spiritual energy. 
 Do we believe this ? Do we really feel sure that 
 such a world exists, higher, deeper, vaster, more 
 awful, more magnificent beyond comparison than 
 this world of which our senses can take cognisance ? 
 We know that there are those who tell us that the 
 existence of such a world is a mere assumption 
 which cannot be verified. For them, unhappy that 
 they are, religion is, therefore, impossible. But we, 
 in God's house, on this Pentecostal evening, may 
 take for granted about each other, as about ourselves 
 personally, that no such suicide of the higher life 
 has taken place. We have not silenced the inner 
 voices which assure us that the soul exists, that 
 the soul pre-eminently makes the man, and that by 
 the soul the man can know his God. Well, then, 
 observe that Whitsuntide, more explicitly than any 
 other festival, reminds us of this original truth, the 
 truth about our spiritual being; for it is when we 
 think of the Holy Spirit — " the Giver of fife," as 
 our Creed calls Him, the " Creator Spirit," as our 
 hymn calls Him — that we best understand how the 
 spiritual world is administered and organised. He 
 is its principle of life. From the very outset of 
 
THE HOL Y SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. I 5 1 
 
 man's history, He has been pleading and striving 
 with man, educating, reclaiming, illuminating, leading 
 upwards. Wherever there has been, in any soul, a 
 movement after better things, a craving to get clear 
 of evil, to get hold of goodness, this has been the 
 work of the Spirit, the effect of His strong and tender 
 touch, of His " still, small voice," to which all that is 
 best in human souls must needs respond. 0 that we 
 could more worthily apprehend the greatness of this 
 work of Divine love, the versatile richness of its 
 manifold, continuous activity, going on steadily and 
 persistently throughout all ages, in all lands, within 
 such thousands of souls, wherever man has been 
 living, thinking, struggling, and the Infinite Pity has 
 been watching from above ! And then consider how 
 a special work was carried on by the same Divine 
 Agent, within the bounds of the covenant-people, as 
 lawgiver and prophet and psalmist were empowered 
 to speak, because " the Spirit of the Lord came upon 
 them ; " and yet further, how at last the ancient 
 words, which had upheld so many hopes, were ful- 
 filled when the Spirit of the Lord rested in absolute 
 completeness on " the Branch that sprang from the 
 root of Jesse ; " when, as a beautiful Eucharistic Collect 
 expresses it, He "gave life to the world by His 
 death, according to the will of the Father, and by 
 
152 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 the co-operation of the Holy Spirit ; " and when, 
 exalted to God's right hand, " He received of the 
 Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, and shed it 
 forth " as His own royal gift, the crown and con- 
 summation of all previous spiritual outpourings, 
 that " the Lord God," the Third Person of the Trinity, 
 " might dwell " permanently in the Church of the 
 Word Incarnate, and make Himself a sanctuary in 
 every soul among the baptised. 
 
 Observe here the intimate co-operation between 
 the Son and the Holy Spirit in the economy of grace. 
 It was only by way of compensation for the loss of 
 Christ's visible presence that the Spirit was to come 
 instead of Him. The Holy Spirit, it has been well 
 said, " did not so come that Christ did not come, but 
 rather He so came that Christ might come in His 
 coming." 1 He came to secure this spiritual presence 
 of Christ, whose " entrance into glory " was the neces- 
 sary antecedent to the coming of the Paraclete, even 
 as that coming was required in order that the whole 
 work of the Incarnate Saviour might have its due 
 effect, — might be explained, illustrated, provided with 
 a sphere of operation. Thus, as the Holy Spirit had 
 presided over the formation of our Lord's immaculate 
 flesh, so did He form the company of believers into 
 
 1 See Newman, Sermons, vi. 126. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. I 53 
 
 a body mystical of Christ. So He "took of" the 
 teaching which our Lord had given during His 
 ministry, brought it back into full remembrance, 
 illuminated its far-reaching significance, and vitalised 
 it as a continuous " Word " for the perpetual in- 
 struction of the Church. The same law of Divine 
 co-operation holds good in regard to all the means of 
 grace. By them the Spirit unites us to the life- 
 giving manhood of our Redeemer. Baptism is a 
 birth " from water and the Spirit," 1 and " by one 
 Spirit we are all baptised into one body." And He 
 has always been regarded as the consecrating Agent 
 in the Holy Eucharist — an idea vividly set forth in 
 ancient rites, and still in the rites of two of our 
 sister Churches, by what was called the Invocation 
 on the elements. " Send down," they prayed of old, 
 "Thy Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these gifts 
 now lying before Thee, that He may hallow and 
 make this bread to be the holy Body of Thy Christ, 
 and this cup the precious Blood of Thy Christ, that 
 they may be to us a means of remission of sins, and 
 of sanctification of soul and body." 2 If we of the 
 
 1 The R. V. of John iii. 5 corrects A. V. 
 
 2 Abridged from the " Liturgy of St. James." A Roman offertory- 
 prayer of the fifth century attributes the sacramental presence of 
 Christ's Body and Blood to "the operation of the Holy Spirit;" 
 Muratori, Lit. Rom. i. 4G9. 
 
154 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 English Church could recover this Invocation in 
 some form, our service would contain a fuller expres- 
 sion of the true spirituality of Sacraments ; but we 
 know more than enough to be responsible for the 
 use of our august privilege of access through Christ, 
 by one Spirit, unto the Father. 
 
 Such is the mighty and manifold operation of the 
 life-giving Spirit as dwelling in the Church, and in 
 all Christians as its members. May we not look 
 back into our own past, and find there a comment 
 on such language ? Assuredly, if we turn over the 
 pages of our own internal history — in a Christian 
 fashion, under the light of Christian belief — we 
 shall feel that there have been dealings on His part 
 with us. We have had our tokens. " In divers 
 degrees, in divers manners," at crises of fife, or in the 
 midst of its ordinary routine, we have heard His 
 voice saying, "This is the way, walk thou in it." 
 He has been leading us forth, if we would follow; 
 if we have not got farther in the path of peace, 
 the fault is ours. We grieved Him, we tempted 
 Him, perhaps we all but quenched the fire that He 
 had kindled. But now — but now, we would do 
 better ; and now, this Whit-Sunday, He speaks to us 
 again. 
 
 How shall we make answer ? 1. First, let us resolve 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT /.V THE CHURCH. 1 55 
 
 to recognise Him as our Paraclete, the Friend and 
 Helper ready at our side, the loving Spirit who 
 "pleads with groanings not to be uttered," who 
 desires, in spite of all our provocations, to perfect His 
 work in us. Let us believe in His longsuffering and 
 goodwill, that we may come to rejoice in His holy 
 comfort. 2. Let us realise His presence in, His own 
 sacred ordinances ; let us hear His witness, with that 
 of the water and the blood, — the Divine facts of 
 cleansing and atonement as brought home to us in 
 the two great Sacraments of the Gospel ; let us so 
 use all the forms of Church worship that they shall 
 be filled with spirit and life, and serve to maintain 
 our fellowship with Him. 3. And then, to come 
 closer home, for a last point, let us ask what is it 
 in ourselves that has hitherto chiefly resisted His 
 influence, — what sin lurks in us that has not been 
 thoroughly repented of, and therefore remains to 
 cancel the effect of grace ? He has resources for 
 every need, healing for all forms of moral sickness. 
 He is the Spirit of counsel, who can tell us what 
 we should aim at ; the Spirit of wisdom and ghostly 
 strength, of holy fear, of prayer and worship, of love 
 and self-control, of joy, peace, longsuffering, gentle- 
 ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. " Under 
 His teaching," in the language of a great hymn- 
 
I56 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 writer, 1 " nothing is obscure ; in His Presence nothing 
 unclean can live. He gives joy to the purified con- 
 science ; He stirs up the sluggish mind. The love 
 which He gives makes the heart prone to what is 
 good; and apart from His grace, nothing is really- 
 pleasant, healthful, serene, sweet, perfect." And the 
 same poet bursts forth into a true Whitsuntide in- 
 vocation — 
 
 " Thou, who once, in visitation, 
 Strength and lofty consolation 
 
 To Thy waiting Church didst send, 
 Visit, if it be Thy pleasure, 
 Even us, and in like measure, 
 All who at Thine altars bend." 2 
 
 And if we believe that we have thus an interest in 
 His visitations, let us frankly submit ourselves to His 
 strong, sweet influence ; let us, especially through 
 this week, and frequently afterwards, entreat His 
 help in the words of that most familiar of all Pente- 
 costal hymns, of which a writer 3 has said, that " if 
 the mind goes with the voice, the Holy Spirit cannot 
 but come in His sevenfold fulness of bounty upon 
 those who repeat the lines ; " 
 
 " Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
 And lighten with celestial fire . . . 
 
 1 Adam of St. Victor. 
 
 4 Prom Philip Worsley's translation of the hymn, Qui procedis ab 
 utroque. 
 
 3 Daniel, Thesaur. Hymnol. i. 214. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH. 1 57 
 
 Thy blessed unction from above 
 Is comfort, life, and fire of love : 
 Enable with perpetual light 
 The dulness of our blinded sight . . • 
 Anoint and cheer our soiled face 
 With the abundance of Thy grace : 
 Teach us to know the Father, Son, 
 And Thee, of Both, to be but One," — 
 
 one in the undivided essence of absolute Godhead, 
 one in the mystery of Divine intercommunion and 
 coinherence, and one, also, in the continuous energy 
 of that love whereby the Perfect Being delights to 
 bestow Himself on the creatures whom He has made 
 capable of enjoying Him, 
 
SERMON XX 
 
 THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 "And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him ; and 
 they were full of eyes within : and they rest not day and night, say- 
 ing, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is 
 to come. " — Rev. iv. 8. 
 
 We sometimes hear it said that our received Chris- 
 tianity must be revised, or even reconstructed, if it 
 is to have a hold ,-upon the future. Persons who 
 honestly appreciate what they call its moral spirit 
 assure us that, if we will put it into their hands, and 
 allow them to clear it of some encumbering elements, 
 it will secure a new career of healthy influence ; that 
 its form may be altered, but its life will continue ; 
 but that on no other terms can it hope to mould the 
 thought, or guide the conduct, or even command the 
 respect of cultured men. In a word, they say, it 
 must be simplified, or else must die out as a spiritual 
 force, and take its place among obsolete systems and 
 creeds outworn. And this simplifying process is 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 159 
 
 explained with succinct clearness. Christianity must 
 reduce its theology to a minimum, and thereby pur- 
 chase a better reception for its ethical precepts, which 
 are now over-weighted and compromised by con- 
 nection with dogmas uncongenial, or even offensive, 
 to modern habits of thought. We, for our parts, 
 my brethren, may well think that such a programme 
 is at variance, in general, with religious experience, 
 and, in particular, with the structure of Christianity. 
 For a religion, to be strong, must be solid, not fluid ; 
 and if, on such supremely important subjects as the 
 realities of the unseen world, it can give us only 
 hypotheses or sentiments, if it is vague and hazy 
 when speaking about God and our relations to God, 
 it is, for all practical and serious purposes, like water 
 spilt upon the ground. And the Christian Scriptures 
 emphatically associate their teaching about conduct 
 with their teaching about the God who watches over 
 conduct, and has given His own Son to be its 
 pattern. The ethics of Scripture are steeped in its 
 theology ; their motive power is drawn from what 
 is revealed about Him who gives them authority ; 
 and the doctrine, for its part, is best realised when 
 translated into the life. So closely akin, if you con- 
 sider it, are religious affections to the beliefs which 
 enkindle them ; so poor and shallow is the notion that 
 
160 THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 the Object of our faith and worship can be best loved 
 and best served when He is thought of most inde- 
 finitely. 1 Christianity, in short, must be to the end 
 what it has been from the outset, a theological or 
 doctrinal religion ; and if conceivably it could cease 
 to be such, it would cease, in the truest sense, to be. 
 
 It is on this character of our faith that attention 
 is fixed by the peculiar services of this day. Trinity 
 Sunday is a specially theological festival ; it turns 
 our thoughts away from the details of what was 
 once called the " Economy," the Divine plan as carried 
 out in the Incarnation of the Redeemer, to the " most 
 ancient of all mysteries," which underlies and yet 
 transcends the scheme of redemption, — the fact that 
 our God, the one, the living, the Eternal, exists in 
 what, for want of better terms, we call a Trinity of 
 Persons. We associate this mystery with the re- 
 splendent imagery of the Patmos vision, which opens 
 for us, in effect, a door into heaven, shows us the 
 throne and the lamps of fire, the four living creatures 
 and the four-and-twenty elders, and makes us hear 
 the celestial Tersanctus, and the response of " Thou 
 art worthy, 0 Lord." And the Collect, perhaps, from 
 our very childhood, has beyond all others brought 
 home to our minds, with yearly increasing emphasis, 
 
 1 See Hussey's Academical Sermons, p. 250, 2. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. l6l 
 
 the majesty of the Christian Faith. And alj great- 
 ness, recognised as what it is — even any grand physical 
 object, like the open sea viewed from a high cliff — 
 exercises over us a sort of tranquillising power. It 
 overawes, and yet it comforts ; its vastness or its 
 strength attracts us ; we feel that its presence, for 
 the time, gives us a sense of satisfaction, of repose. 
 Even so, assuredly, is it with any earnest attempt to 
 think of God. That thought is " the stay of the 
 soul." And, so far, a day specially consecrated to 
 the contemplation of God, as He has revealed Him- 
 self in the Gospel, must be a day of profoundest 
 peace, in fulfilment of that promise, ever ancient, yet 
 ever new, sustaining and cheering the spirit of man 
 throughout all ages : " Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
 peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee." 
 
 2. But we may hear it said, "This is sentiment con- 
 cealing the fact. The Sunday in question is pre- 
 eminently devoted to dogma; and dogma is not 
 associated with thoughts of rest, but rather with the 
 strife of tongues ; it does not soothe, it irritates. 
 And this dogma is peculiarly connected with con- 
 troversy ; it presents its hard, sharp outlines between 
 us and the calm beauty of God's love." But, first, 
 observe that if the word " dogma " is to any ears 
 repellent, — if it suggests, as its use in the New Tes- 
 
 il 
 
162 
 
 THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 tament might suggest, something imposed like a 
 decree or positive ordinance, there is nothing harsh 
 or strange in the essential idea of truth asserted as 
 from God, and stated so as to be held. And what is 
 called dogma is but this, in a single word. And if 
 we believe that the living God, in fatherlike regard to 
 man's deep need of truth for illumination, guidance, 
 and comfort, has really spoken to man by what we 
 call a revelation, we must believe that He has spoken 
 distinctly ; else why should He speak at all ? And if 
 He has spoken distinctly, and told us something that 
 can be apprehended, though not fathomed, it must be 
 capable of being substantially put into form, and 
 thus brought home to the mind and the heart. In 
 short, revelation must carry with it doctrine, and 
 doctrine practically means a creed. This is the 
 principle. The application of it may, of course, in 
 this or in that case, a hundred times over, be faulty. 
 Opinion may be insisted on as doctrine; or false 
 doctrine, of purely human and earthly origin, may 
 be urged on men as part of Divine truth; or that 
 which is part of such truth may be advocated 
 harshly, narrowly, without regard to charity or to 
 the just proportion of other parts of truth. All this 
 is quite obvious; but it does not in the least affect 
 the principle, which, in fact, is bound up with any 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 163 
 
 solid and effective Christianity, — let us say, with 
 loyalty to the Eternal Giver of truth ; and its accept- 
 ance is, in His mercy, well rewarded by the stimulus 
 thus given to "acts of religious worship and obedi- 
 ence." 1 
 
 3. And then, as to those various formal statements 
 which have been brought into the service of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, by way of indicating both 
 its aspects, the essential oneness of the Eternal 
 Essence, and the real distinction between the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; do not all of these run 
 up into what is comparatively a simple proposition — 
 " There is one God, but He exists in Three Persons ; " 
 or, "The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy 
 Ghost is God ; and yet They are not three Gods, but 
 one God " ? All of them seem, in fact, to be abso- 
 lutely implied in the affirmation, " We worship one 
 God in Trinity," 2 that is, as existing in three " per- 
 sonalities." For instance, if the Son or the Spirit 
 is really God, He is, He must be, Almighty, uncreate, 
 and co-eternal ; and to say that He is so is but to 
 say what has virtually been said in the words, " He 
 is God." And again, to say after St. Augustine, that 
 
 1 Newman, Arians, p. 150. 
 
 * The assertion that " the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in 
 Unity is to be worshipped," is found verbatim in St. Gregory Nazi- 
 anzen, Orat. xxv. 17. 
 
164 
 
 THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 " there are not three Almighties," or, as St. Ambrose 
 phrased it, " not three Holies," 1 means simply this, 
 that there are not three Gods. In short, we could 
 not gainsay any one of the sentences which enforce 
 in different phraseology the idea that the Father, 
 the Son, and the Spirit, while really and distinctly 
 existing, are yet inseparably one in Godhead, without 
 so far weakening that idea itself. Insepax*ably one ; 
 for the word " Person," of course, is not used as when 
 we speak of separate individual human persons, but 
 so as to be consistent with that transcendent Unity 
 by which the Son and the Spirit coinhere in the 
 Father as " Fount of Godhead," and from which our 
 thoughts in this doctrine ought to start, according to 
 the guidance of Scripture itself and of the Proper 
 Preface for this Sunday. It is true for us Christians, 
 as for Israel, that the Lord our God is " one Lord," 
 — while yet we believe that He is " not one only 
 Person, but three Persons in one Substance ; " in 
 other words, that the Son is God, and the Spirit is 
 God, being from, and with, and in the Father. One 
 might illustrate this characteristic of the Athanasian 
 Creed, as it is called (although it has far more of 
 Augustine than of Athanasius 2 ), by observing how, 
 
 1 St. Aug. de Trin. v. 9 ; St. Ambr. de Sp. Sancto, iii. 109. 
 * There can be no doubt that the " Quicunque " was compiled by 
 BOme one familiar with St. Augustine's language about the Trinity 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 1 65 
 
 in the second part of it, the statements as to our 
 Lord's Godhead and Manhood are but " expositions " 
 and " prolongations " of the one fundamental state- 
 ment, " that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
 is God and Man," or that in Him " God and Man is 
 one Christ." He who believes this, and "worships 
 one God " as existing " in Trinity," does in effect hold 
 all that this confession proposes to him as matter of 
 necessary faith. 1 
 
 4. But it may be said, " State the doctrine as you 
 will, reduce it to two main propositions, if you like, 
 — still it is baffling and confounding; it involves, 
 at least, an apparent contradiction; we cannot gain 
 a clear and consistent view of it." Be it so ; but 
 neither can we, in this sense, comprehend the co- 
 existence of a human free-will with the Sovereignty 
 of God ; we cannot imagine the conditions of a Life 
 which has existed from all eternity ; we may puzzle 
 ourselves in the effort to conceive a Being who is 
 One, infinite, and personal, — " immanent" as filling all 
 things, yet " transcendent" as apart from all things, — 
 yet this, we are sure, is characteristic of a living and 
 true God. If, then, difficulties of this sort do not 
 
 and the Incarnation, although some of its expressions are echoes 
 from Athanasius, as in verses 7, 24, 32, 35. 
 
 1 See Mozley's Lectures, p. 188; Church Quarterly Review, xviii. 
 385. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 hinder us from being Theists, others of the same 
 class need not hinder us from being Trinitarians. In 
 fact, if we think of the Most High God at all, we 
 shall soon come to see that a God whom our thoughts 
 could grasp aid completely comprehend, whose ways 
 were in no sense past finding out, would be but an 
 idol of our mind's invention. That " now we see 
 through a glass darkly," must be the confession of 
 all serious Theists, as well as of those who hold the 
 faith of Christendom. 
 
 5. And that faith, my brethren, may say this for 
 itself — that, without it, you could not do justice to 
 the whole sum of Scripture teaching, in regard to 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is a 
 sum of various particulars, a result of several com- 
 bining elements, to which the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity — " Catholic " also in this sense — gives utter- 
 ance in forms which do not profess to be adequate, 1 
 but which point out the fines in which we Christians 
 may think safely. It may say this — and something 
 more, too, which is not always well-remembered : that 
 without it our idea of God would be lacking in moral 
 and spiritual vitality. We can never think so vividly, 
 so worthily, so affectionately of Him, or seem to get 
 so near a sight of Him, as when we consider that 
 
 1 Cp. St. Aug. de Trin. vii. 7. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 within the One Infinite Life itself there has been, 
 from all eternity, this activity of love, this com- 
 munion of thought and will, this fulness of inward 
 relations, this unspeakable richness of moral per- 
 fection : 1 the Father always seeing and imaging 
 Himself in the Son, the Son ever existing in, or, 
 strictly, " towards the Father's bosom," the Holy 
 Spirit proceeding, as our Lord says, from the Father, 
 yet, also, as St. Paul says, " the Spirit of His Son." It 
 may truly be said, that if " God is " essential " Love," 
 this of itself indicates some personal distinctions in 
 the Godhead; and even apart from this, it is clear 
 that without <: Trinitarianism " our Theism would be 
 far poorer, far colder, far less able to hold up against 
 adverse forces, and give us strength or comfort. With 
 it, we guard that " sovereign thought " in its full 
 purity and energy, and realise the presence of a God 
 worthy of the name, because so intensely living and 
 loving. 
 
 6. And so, in conclusion, can we not see how the 
 " confession of this true faith " should be made prac- 
 tical and fruitful in our lives ? To whom do we 
 
 1 See Medd's Bampton Lectures, p. 14; R. H. Hntton, Essays, 
 i. 231. Theological students have found in the doctrine of the 
 Trinity a safeguard against Pantheism. It has secured the idea of 
 a will and character in God, and of that moral activity which draws 
 man into relation with Him. 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 belong ? Who made us, who has saved us, "who has 
 absolute claims upon us, who will judge us when our 
 trial-time is over ? We belong to God the Holy 
 Trinity ; we have our portion, as St. Paul's words so 
 frequently remind us, in the grace of the Son, the 
 love of the Father, the communion, or self-bestowal, 
 and indwelling of the Spirit, whereby He imparts 
 Himself to us as members of the Son and children of 
 the Father. We are called to be among those whom 
 the Father will love, with whom the Father and the 
 Son will make Their abode ; who have access through 
 the Son, by one Spirit, unto the Father; who have 
 the Spirit dwelling in their hearts, interceding in 
 their prayers, and showing them all the truth of Him 
 who is " the True." What a glory, what a solemnity, 
 what a preciousness should this belief shed over our 
 ordinary life, spent as it is in an atmosphere so 
 charged with blessing ! Let us resolve now, when 
 the second half of the Christian year, which is some- 
 times called the practical portion, is opening upon us, 
 to claim our part in this great store of happiness, by 
 living consciously as in the sight of our Creator, 
 Redeemer, and Sanctifier; by offering up each day 
 as it comes, and all our work, and all our interests, 
 to that Holy and Blessed Trinity, whose property is, 
 as an ancient preacher of this truth expressed it, to 
 
THE HOLY TRINITY. 
 
 169 
 
 be " long-suffering." 1 So, in the ancient form of this 
 day's Collect, our " steadfastness in this faith " may 
 be our " defence against all adversities ; " so may 
 we feel the " sustaining, satisfying power of " our 
 " Creed," as " something above us and beyond us, 
 holding us up with a supremely powerful grasp;" 2 
 and so may we go forward, with humble and cheerful 
 confidence, to face whatever lies before us, as those 
 who know whom they have believed, and to whom 
 they have again devoted their whole being, — even to 
 Him, the one Lord God Almighty, in whom we live 
 and move and are, whose character and whose gracious 
 purpose towards us are set in full light by the reve- 
 lation of His Triune glory, — God the Father, God the 
 Son, and God the Holy Ghost. 
 
 1 St. Greg. Naz., Orat. xxiii. 13. 
 
 * Bishop Wordsworth, Bamp. Lcct. p. 187. 
 
SERMON XXI. 
 
 PERSONAL RELIGION IN CHURCH 
 LIFE. 
 
 " O Lord, Thou hast searched me out, and known me : Thou 
 knowest my down-sitting, and mine up-rising ; Thou understandest 
 my thoughts long before. Whither shall I go then from Thy Spirit : 
 or whither shall I go then from Thy presence?" — Ps. cxxxix. I, 6. 
 
 We are told 1 that a J ewish writer has called this the 
 crown of all the Psalms. And certainly, as we read 
 it, we gain a wonderfully vivid idea of two great 
 facts ; the reality of God, and the reality of man as 
 belonging to God, and yet as distinct from Him. 
 Nowhere, it has been well said, are the great attributes 
 of God set forth more strikingly ; nowhere is there a 
 deeper consciousness of His encompassing, all-pene- 
 trating presence ; and yet nowhere a more emphatic 
 assertion of the true personal existence of man. The 
 soul is made to stand before the Most High, to appre- 
 hend Him as its Maker and its Master, while yet it 
 feels that it, too, is a real being with a " self," in pre- 
 
 1 Dean Perowne, Commentary on the Psalms, in loe. 
 
PERSONAL RELIGION IN CHURCH LIFE. I J I 
 
 sence of the eternal Self or personality of the Living 
 God. He is dealing with it ; His eye is upon it, ob- 
 serving, watching, judging; His hand follows, sustains, 
 grasps it; though it were to flee into all corners of 
 His universe, it would still be confronted by Him. 
 The soul is not, in His sight, a mere thing ; it can hold 
 intercourse with Him, plead with Him, appreciate His 
 claims on its obedience ; it can also, if it chooses, dis- 
 obey Him. What it cannot do is to escape Him, or 
 to understand its own life, its " whence and why and 
 whither," apart from Him. There is a certain freedom 
 assigned to it, within, so to speak, a limited area ; but 
 all around is the vast ocean of the Divine sovereignty, 
 as exercised by One who understands His creature's 
 thoughts before they are uttered, even as He presided 
 over the very origin of its life. There are mysteries 
 in human life, from its outset to its close, which 
 only One eye can fathom. Each of us feels that he 
 cannot share his whole experience with any other* 
 that there are depths in his being wherein he must 
 dwell alone; yet not wholly alone, for even there he 
 meets his God. This is the true greatness of man's 
 destiny, the fearfulness and wondrousness of his con- 
 dition, that he can say, " My God." For to say this 
 is to own that he has an interest in God, while yet 
 he belongs to Him. The Psalmist, to be sure, appears 
 
172 PERSONAL RELIGION IN CHURCH LIFE. 
 
 at first to be simply overawed by the closeness of this 
 relationship ; and yet he could not contemplate a fact 
 so tremendous without seeing that it had also a benig- 
 nant side. If God thus besets, occupies, dominates 
 him, God must surely care about him very much. The 
 very urgency with which the Divine claim is pressed 
 is a guarantee of mercif ul intentions ; and thus, in the 
 words of a true poet, " seeing that he cannot fly from 
 God anywhere, he flies to Him." " How dear are Thy 
 counsels unto me ! " Then again, " Try me, and seek 
 the ground of my heart." You see that just because 
 God is so great, so ever-present, therefore the soul 
 casts itself, in uttermost confidence, upon Him. What 
 else can it do ? What other resource has it ? Here 
 is infinite power, and insight before which the dark- 
 ness is as the day ; and the voice which it hears is 
 that of One who knows all, and can do all, and has 
 rights over it which nothing can supersede. Surely 
 this majesty attracts, this vastness charms. The soul 
 prays that God will make it such as He would have 
 it, and, — one step further, — appeals to Him as to a 
 Friend and Guide. The psalm dies away in tones as 
 sweet and trustful as those which speak of the Lord 
 as a shepherd ; " Lead me in the way everlasting." 
 I put myself into Thy hands ; do something for me, 
 make something of me ; O my God, I am wholly and 
 absolutely Thine. 
 
PERSONAL RELIGION IN CHURCH LIFE. 1 73 
 
 The consciousness of nearness to God as one's true 
 good (in the words of another psalmist 1 ), and as, when 
 thus used, the most animating and sustaining of all 
 fellowships, is the very root of personal religion. 
 But has it, you ask, so very much to do with 
 the special purpose of a Dedication festival ? Yes, 
 surely, everything. Why do we enjoy such festivals ? 
 Because they help us to realise our corporate re- 
 ligious life, as members of the great society of the 
 Church, and specially of some particular congrega- 
 tion which sets forth the Church to us, which is 
 the Church in this or that place. Patriotism, we 
 know, is very enkindling ; so, yet more, is the spirit 
 of "Churchly" fellowship. The sense of isolation goes, 
 the fact of brotherhood stands out, larger and larger 
 yet, more satisfying and heart-cheering. We feel 
 that we are free of a noble company, we stand side by 
 side in a great army ; sympathy passes from soul to 
 soul, and binds them into one ; the old words, so often 
 heard, become freshly significant, " We walked in the 
 house of God as friends;" "I was glad when they 
 said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord ; " 
 "For my brethren and companions' sake, 0 Jerusalem, 
 I will wish thee prosperity." Our feet are set in a 
 large space; we know how good it is to dwell to- 
 
 1 Ps. lxxiii. 28. 
 
174 PERSONAL RELIGION IN CHURCH LIFE. 
 
 gether. And yet, there is some force in the warning 
 often addressed to us Church-people, " Take care that 
 what you call your corporate x - eligion does not swallow 
 up your personal. You make so much of the Church, 
 that you are in danger of forgetting your own soul, 
 its singleness, its needs, its responsibility, its future. 
 Take care lest the solemn gathering, the inspiriting 
 service, the array of Church observances and interests, 
 become gradually a substitute for personal walking 
 with God ; lest at the end you wake up to find that 
 you have been too much of a Churehman, and too 
 little of an interior Christian ! " 
 
 Well, let us seek to profit by all earnest counsel, 
 and see, at any rate, the truth which underlies it. 
 True it is, then, that a Churchmanship of taste, or 
 feeling, or party zeal, if not so common as some 
 think, is yet to be found existing, and is always a 
 source of weakness. If people take up " Catholic " 
 ideas in this way, superficially and self-complacently, 
 that will be a case of salt losing its savour. But 
 whose fault is it? Surely the fault of those who 
 misuse truths that should be for" the wealth of their 
 souls, but are thus perverted into occasions of falling. 
 Let us see to it that our Churchmanship is solid, 
 practical, spiritual; let us hold Church principles, 
 as they are called, in connection with our own 
 
PERSONAL RELIGION IN CHURCH LIFE. 175 
 
 souls' life ; let us do them the justice to treat them 
 seriously, and then we shall see how they touch 
 us, as Christians, on all sides of our being. They 
 guard us against the moral perils and the spiritual 
 poverty of a popular individualism ; but they deepen 
 our sense of responsibility for the privileges which 
 surround us in the visible Kingdom of Christ ; they 
 enclose the personal within the corporate ; they 
 bring the whole force of God's sacramental ordi- 
 nances to bear upon the individual heart, and mind, 
 and will. If we would but look at those ordinances 
 as so many points of contact with a very present 
 Saviour, — if we would believe, and act on the belief, 
 that through them a personal Lord is drawing near 
 to us personally, and applying His grace to our 
 needs, — we should then profit better by the teaching 
 of those who, in the last fifty years, have revived 
 Church life in England, and have also been pre- 
 eminent as preachers of conduct, self -training, inward 
 growth ; and so, by seeking the Christ of the whole 
 Church amid the circle of His life-conveying instru- 
 ments, we should find Him, to our unspeakable comfort, 
 a perfect Christ for each individual souL 
 
SERMON XXII. 
 
 SELF-DEDICATION. 
 
 " They brought Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord." — 
 St. Luke ii. 22. 
 
 A dedication festival has always a serious side. 
 We do not spend it aright if we simply give our- 
 selves up to the sweep and rush of high-strung festal 
 joy. Such joy is good, and there are times when it 
 is specially good, — we may say a thing of obligation ; 
 but, for creatures like ourselves, there is a perpetual 
 significance in the Apostle's warning against what is 
 called " feasting without fear." Easter Day itself, by 
 its Collect, reminds us that it is one thing to entertain 
 good feelings, and quite another thing to carry them 
 out ; another thing, to be prayed for and striven for. 
 And so, a festival which by its very name speaks 
 of oblation, devotion, consecration, must needs have 
 a solemn undertone pervading its most exultant 
 hymnody ; we must hear and heed a voice which 
 
SELF-DEDICA TION. 1 7 7 
 
 says to us, " Do you mean this to have a reality 
 for yourselves ? Is your intention as to your own 
 life in unison and sympathy with this memorial of 
 the act which gave over your church to the service 
 of the Most Holy ? Or are you content that there 
 should be a discord between them ? Surely not," 
 the loving urgent voice pleads. "You have come 
 hither — have you not ? — with something like a genuine 
 resolve to dedicate yourselves anew, to give up, give 
 over, your hearts and wills to God ; to choose Him 
 more absolutely ; to put Him more consciously in 
 possession of your whole interior being ; to obey that 
 gracious and most fatherly invitation, ' My son, give 
 Me thy heart V" 
 
 Are they not sweet words, persuasive through their 
 tenderness ? Why should we draw back from hearing 
 them ? Let us consider what they ask of us. 
 
 Texts abound in Holy Scripture which go straight 
 to this one mark : God asks from us a single-minded 
 loyalty. " Unite my heart," cries the Psalmist, " to 
 fear Thy name." 1 Over and over .again the phrase 
 recurs, " a perfect heart." David bids his son acquire 
 it ; the historians speak of this or that king as having 
 it, or as not having it. Its meaning is illustrated in 
 the simple statement that " men of war came with a 
 
 1 I's. lxxxvi. 11. 
 
 N 
 
i ;3 
 
 SELF-DED1CA TION. 
 
 perfect heart to make David king in Hebron," 1 that 
 is, with one simple, resolute purpose, bent on one 
 object, — as we say in one word, thoroughgoing. 
 •'' David, in spirit," foretells that the people of " his 
 Lord " should be " willing," should be as free-will 
 offerings, " in the day of His power." Hosea describes 
 the moral disease of Israel, " Their heart is divided : 
 now shall they be found faulty ; " this is the condition 
 of those whom our Lord calls " hypocrites," who try, 
 in effect, to serve God and the world, whose " eye " 
 is not " single " but " evil," who import self-seeking 
 into the area of moral and spiritual life. Such 
 persons are alien from what St. Paul describes as 
 "simplicity towards Christ, 2 godly sincerity, faith 
 and love unfeigned ; " 3 on the contrary, they are 
 double-hearted, — they will go a certain way with 
 God, but they instinctively want to draw a line, 
 within which they may retire at pleasure. They 
 will do several things for Him, at His bidding, but 
 they make certain reserves ; they keep Him, practi- 
 cally, at arm's length ; they do not like to come to 
 close terms with Him. He may control certain 
 portions of their life, but for the rest — well, they 
 want, if they would speak out, to be independent of 
 
 1 1 Chron. xii. 38 j cf . ver. 33. 1 See 2 Oor. xi. 3, R. V. 
 
 * 2 Cor. i. 12; 1 Tim. i. 5; Rom. xii. 9. 
 
SELF-DED1CA T/OJV. 
 
 179 
 
 Him ; they act as if they would keep out of His way. 
 Like the prophet of old, they run away from His call, 
 make arrangements for hearing less about His claim 
 on them, pay the fare of a ship to Tarshish ; and 
 well for them if the tempest reminds them that, in 
 all corners of the earth, or " in the uttermost parts 
 of the sea," after all evasions, " His right hand will 
 hold them " in its grasp, He will force them to 
 confront Him, and to hear His " Where art thou ? " 
 
 We would not, you say, be like them. We do not 
 need to be told that dependence on God is happiness, 
 obedience to God is well-being. We wish, really and 
 in earnest, to be truthful, honest, loyal, towards our 
 Father and our Saviour ; we do not want, as it has 
 been said in regard to the double-hearted, 1 to be 
 somehow " by ourselves," to have in the house of our 
 spirit one room, at least, " where God is not." We 
 would fain admit Him into every corner, not as a 
 guest, but as " Lord and Owner ; " we wish to have 
 no secrets from Him, to be ever welcoming His pre- 
 sence into the inmost sanctuary of thought, feeling, 
 aim, purpose, and affection. We desire to assimilate 
 the spirit of the prayer, that as the Son of God was, 
 in His human infancy, "presented in the temple in 
 
 1 Newman, Sermons, v. 226 ff. Compare Bishop Butler, Sermon 
 on Balaam. 
 
i8o 
 
 SELF-DEDICA TION. 
 
 substance of our flesh, so we may be presented " to the 
 Father " with pure and clean hearts, by the same His 
 Son our Lord." 1 We wish, in a word, to imitate Him 
 in His self-dedication. This is what He means by 
 the request, " Give Me thy heart ; " this is true 
 Christian single-mindedness ; this is effectual self- 
 dedication and self -surrender, — this, nothing less than 
 this. 
 
 Now, what shall we do in order to this object ? 
 
 1. First let us take home the prayer of the Psalmist, 
 " Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart ; 
 prove me, and examine my thoughts." Let us put 
 our souls absolutely into His keeping, and ask Him 
 to purge them from all insincerity, and fill them with 
 " truth in the inward parts." Let us gather up the 
 whole force of our will into an act of conscious self- 
 surrender : " O my God, I am Thine ; I want to be 
 entirely and unreservedly Thy servant, Thy child, Thy 
 instrument, Thy property. Take possession of me, 
 make something of me for Thy service ; help me to 
 walk with Thee, and to see all things in Thy light." 
 
 2. And with prayer must be joined self-watching. 
 When we are tempted to make excuses to our con- 
 
 1 It has been said that the particular function of the Presentation, 
 considered as a moment in Christ's Mediatorial life, was " to impart 
 virtue and acceptableness to all our correspondent acts of self- 
 presentation and service." Christian Remembrancer, April, 1849. 
 
SELF-DEDICA TION. 1 8 1 
 
 science, to pass off motives which are not the true 
 motives, to lay the blame on others, or on circum- 
 stances, to avoid consulting our own sense of duty, 
 to go, as it has been said, " round about our duty," 
 not quite touching it, not quite coming up to the 
 required mark, acting as if something else would do 
 as well as simple obedience, — or, still more, — when 
 we discover in ourselves any symptom of a tendency 
 to make a compact between our inclinations and our 
 conscience, to presume upon its silence, or to make 
 sure of obeying it better hereafter, — then let us know 
 our danger, and remember that we have promised to 
 give our hearts to the Lord. This it is which makes 
 His commandments not grievous, His yoke light, His 
 service perfect freedom, — this practical renouncing 
 of any selfish interest, this acceptance, in all loyal 
 sympathy, of His purposes towards us ; this it is 
 which emphasises and realises the words so apposite 
 for a Dedication festival, " And here we offer and 
 present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and 
 bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice 
 unto Thee." 
 
SERMON XXIIL 
 
 SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF 
 GRACE. 
 
 "And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My 
 father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou 
 not have done it ? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, 
 and be clean ? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times 
 in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God : and his flesh 
 came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." — 
 2 Kings v. 13, 14. 
 
 " Naaman the Syrian," you remember, is selected by 
 our Lord as an instance of exceptional favour shown, 
 in the old time, to one who was not of the chosen 
 race. His story has a charm for us from our child- 
 hood ; and it should be full of lifelong interest, as a 
 vivid picture of human character, and as symbolising 
 some of the methods of the Divine education of 
 human souls. I do not mean to dwell on the con- 
 cluding scene, which is full of solemn warning to all 
 who are, by circumstances, familiar with sacred things, 
 
SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 1 83 
 
 but whose hearts have never been purged of worldly 
 selfishness. For the rest, how beautiful is the open- 
 ing of the tale ! The young captive slave-girl, who 
 has evidently fallen into kind hands, utters a word 
 or two of sympathy for her master. If he could but 
 see the man of God in her own land — the land which 
 she will never see again — he could be sure to obtain 
 healing. Thus, as Keble has said, she became an 
 instrument whereby " the healing Name " should 
 " be known on many a heathen shore." 1 Her words 
 are reported : Naaman consults his king, Benhadad, 
 who sends him with ample gifts to Jehoram of Israel ; 
 assuming, of course, that he will issue his orders 
 to the prophet who is said to have such power over 
 disease. The king of Israel, timorous and suspicious, 
 fears that his formidable neighbour is seeking to 
 draw him into a quarrel, by asking him personally 
 to do what was for him impossible : " Am I God, to 
 kill and to make alive ? " Elisha reassures him ; the 
 Syrian captain arrives, but is not greeted with the 
 observance which he had looked for ; Elisha simply 
 sends out word to him to go and wash seven times 
 in the Jordan. Pride, for the moment, prevails in 
 Naaman's mind over anxiety. " I took for granted," 
 he says in effect, " that he would at least come out, 
 
 1 Lyra Innocentium, p. 236. 
 
184 SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 
 
 and deal personally with me, would call on his God, 
 and wave his hand over the part affected : instead of 
 that, he bids me, by message, to go and bathe in a 
 river. I could have done that in Abana or Pharpar 
 at home." He turns away in wrath ; and then 
 other slaves of his come forward in a manner which 
 exhibits the condition of domestic servitude, in the 
 old Eastern world, as easier and happier, by far, than 
 we know it to have been in later ages (yes, and must 
 we not add that the relations of master and servant, 
 in Christian households, might often be improved by 
 means of this Syrian example ?). These slaves address 
 Naaman as their " father," and gently recall him to 
 his better self. The question, we see, is dexterously 
 shifted. It is not worth while to stand upon dignity, 
 and siickle for compliments ; it is worth while to do 
 what may promote one's serious object, especially 
 when the advice given can be followed and tested 
 with so little effort. " If the prophet had bid thee 
 do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it ? 
 how much rather then, when he does but say to 
 thee, Wash, and be clean ? " The appeal from self- 
 importance to good sense is at once successful ; and 
 Naaman, after travelling some thirty miles, finds 
 himself on the bank of the sacred river, which was 
 to become all the more sacred by contact with that 
 
SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 1 85 
 
 Flesh which could "sanctify water to the mystical 
 washing away of sin." He "dips himself seven 
 times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man 
 of God : and his flesh comes again like unto the flesh 
 of a little child, and he is clean." One need not 
 pursue the story, which illustrates so attractively the 
 grateful and generous temper of the Syrian, and the 
 baseness of the highly privileged Israelite, who, with 
 the Lord's name on his lips, could resolve to cheat 
 the wealthy and liberal convert for his own gain, — 
 we know with what result! But let us look at the 
 moral of the servants' question, and of Naaman's 
 acceptance of their advice. 
 
 1. Our text, then, has often been used, in order to 
 relieve a difficulty, involved in the apparent incon- 
 gruity between the outward aspect of the great 
 Christian ordinances and the effect ascribed to their 
 due application. The two, it is thought, do not fit ; 
 the antecedent is too small for the consequent ; a 
 few words spoken, a little water poured on the 
 forehead, the touch of an appointed hand, — "elements" 
 of bread and wine blessed and given, and eaten, and 
 drunk, — what, it is asked, can these things do in the 
 area of the spiritual life ? how powerless they must 
 be to affect the inward being ! Of course they are 
 powerless in themselves ; that is exactly the point : 
 
1 86 SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 
 
 it is, as has been well said, this very " simplicity " 1 
 of the vehicles of Divine gifts which fits them for 
 their peculiar function; it is their conspicuous lack 
 of all intrinsic efficacy which makes them all the 
 better qualified to serve as His organs, in whose sight 
 all created things are, as such, alike " insignificant," 
 but who, when He willed that His Son should become 
 Incarnate, established as a principle of His Kingdom 
 the operation of an all-powerful love through means 
 which proclaimed their own inherent insufficiency. 
 So it is that Sacramental agency is not only a test 
 and stimulus of faith, 2 but a standing rebuke to 
 spiritual pride ; it emphatically sets forth God as the 
 Bestower of grace, of that grace which flows from 
 the mystery of a supreme condescension ; it shows us 
 a " treasure " lodged " in earthen vessels " (to adopt 
 St. Paul's words about himself), just in order " that 
 the excellency of the power may be " — that is, be 
 seen to be — " of God," — the Sacrament, and indeed the 
 minister, being mere instruments of His soul-renew- 
 ing energy, — that neither flesh nor spirit should "glory 
 in His presence." Let us adore Him as working by 
 the means which His sovereign will has selected, and 
 
 1 Gladstone, Church Principles, etc., p. 179; Newman Sermons, 
 iii. 277. 
 
 2 Cp. Liddon, University Sermons, i. 205. 
 
SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 1 87 
 
 which depend for their virtue on the Incarnate life 
 of the Word who, for us, became Man ; let us use 
 them the more loyally and trustfully, because we can 
 look through them to Christ; let us avoid, as a 
 backward step, all recourse to our own Abanas and 
 Pharpars, when we have a Jordan to wash in, and a 
 Christ there to make us clean. 
 
 2. But the words have a yet wider application 
 than that which relates to the ordinances of His 
 Church. The simplicities of the kingdom of grace 
 encounter us, or rather, embrace us, wherever we 
 turn the glance of a soul enlightened by faith and 
 worship. Everywhere and always, God is at work 
 for us, using little things, common things, simple 
 things, as occasions of good to us, if we will but look 
 out for them, and accept them. Ah ! my brethren, 
 does not He know — far better than the most refined 
 and cultured spiritual insight could perceive — how 
 subtle, complex, all-pervading, is the array of evil 
 forces against our peace; how they watch against 
 our souls, at every corner of daily life, perverting, 
 tainting, spoiling what otherwise might be fair and 
 healthful ? Let us praise Him for surrounding us, 
 by way of compensation, with a spiritual atmosphere 
 amid which we can, so to speak, inhale grace at 
 every turn. We have not to go out of our way, and 
 
1 88 SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 
 
 attempt great things, in order to get good; our Jordan 
 is within easy reach — 
 
 " The herbs we seek to heal our woo 
 Familiar by our pathway grow." 1 
 
 In every walk of life, if we choose, we can walk with 
 God ; His hand is always held out to us. The most 
 ordinary occupations can be sanctified by being pur- 
 sued as in His sight; the sign of the Cross, as it 
 were, can be stamped upon them all. Morning prayers 
 earnestly offered; a few hearty aspirations for help 
 and grace, darted up at intervals of a busy day ; an 
 honest review at night of thoughts, words, and deeds ; a 
 childlike confession of sin as to a Father, a thoughtful 
 recognition of His goodness, a commendation of one's 
 self, and those whom one loves, to His protection, 
 — is this a " great " or painful thing to do ? Think, 
 too, of the benefit to be gained from a few verses 
 of Scripture, or a few words of a good hymn, learned 
 by heart and quietly said over, to be ready at the 
 right moment, when temptation comes in like a flood ; 
 think of what may come from the devout use of the 
 Holy Name of Jesus ; think also of the rich oppor- 
 tunities to be found in our daily intercourse with 
 others, — how the kindly word spoken, the unselfish 
 deed done, may be just that response to grace whereby 
 
 1 Christian Year : First Sunday after Easter. 
 
SIMPLICITY IN THE WORK OF GRACE. 1 89 
 
 grace can be increased, and a good step made in the 
 upward journey. Remember that "the intention 
 makes the work," and that a pure intention of 
 pleasing God can act on the routine of daily business 
 like the salt which the prophet cast into the waters. 1 
 Believe that " there is scarce an act, a word, a thought 
 through the day, but may have its fruit of grace," — 
 that "grace is spread round us like the manna." 2 
 Let us try, dear brethren, to-morrow and the day 
 after, and so on, for one day at a time, how best we 
 may please our Lord, being sure that if we mean it, 
 He will show us the way, and strengthen us to per- 
 severe in it. Ah ! believe it, He does desire our 
 salvation ; and if, in order to that end, we ask Him 
 to cleanse and heal us, He could as soon cease to exist, 
 as refuse to grant the prayer. 
 
 1 2 Kings ii. 21. 
 
 * Pusey, Lenten Sermons, p. 352. 
 
SERMON XXIV. 
 
 SAINTLINESS A WITNESS FOR 
 CHRIST. 
 
 " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have 
 washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
 — Rev. vii. 14. 
 
 It was once said by a very thoughtful and deeply 
 religious student of sacred truth, that whoever 
 enters on the study of Church history must be pre- 
 pared for many surprises. 1 That is to say, what we 
 see to have been actually the course of the Divine 
 Kingdom in this world repeatedly goes counter to our 
 natural expectations, and rudely shocks our idealising 
 dreams ; it sends us back, overawed and humbled, or 
 perhaps for the time bewildered, to acknowledge 
 that even in the management of His own sacred 
 cause, God's ways are incomprehensible, His counsels 
 profounder than the great deep. We see error follow- 
 ing upon error, controversy multiplying into more 
 
 1 Charles Marriott ; quoted in Masters of English Theology, p. 109. 
 
SAIA'TLIXESS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. I91 
 
 controversies, trials caused by unbelief succeeding 
 without a breathing-time to trials caused by persecu- 
 tion. Piety is often misguided until it proves a 
 stumbling-block ; institutions devised in single-hearted 
 zeal turn corrupt, and cumber the ground in the 
 Lord's vineyard ; the visible unity of Christendom 
 breaks up, and the primitive argument from the con- 
 cordant love of all who named the Name of the one 
 Redeemer becomes a sort of antiquarian curiosity. 
 And if this is written in large characters on the 
 history of the Church, it is not less legible in the 
 experience of individual Christians. Why, we ask, 
 in disappointment and despondency, why are good 
 impressions so easily effaced ? Why do characters 
 deteriorate so terribly ? Why do some, after wise 
 and tender training in boyhood, assert their freedom 
 as men by turning their backs upon God ? Why, for 
 instance, is a Confirmation a scene fraught with such 
 yearning anxieties ? Or, if persons look into them- 
 selves, they sometimes wonder why temptation has 
 been so strong, and duty so difficult. They are 
 tempted to fancy that if religion can help others, it 
 has somehow been unhelpful in their case; they almost 
 take upon their lips the fatalistic self-excuse that 
 some dark influence has made prayers for them 
 unreal, and means of grace ineffective ; and we seem 
 
192 SAINTLIA T £SS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 
 
 to know, too well, what they will do in the end 
 thereof. 
 
 Does, then, the law of " vanity " or failure prevail 
 within the domain of religion itself ? The question 
 places us on ground where our treadings may well- 
 nigh slip. The facts, we say, are unquestionable; they 
 cannot be ignored ; not only in human life as a whole, 
 but in religious life also, 
 
 " 111 masters good ; good seems to change 
 To ill with greatest ease : 
 And, worst of all, the good with good 
 Is at cross purposes." 
 
 The poet 1 proceeds — 
 
 " It is not so, but sc it looks ; 
 And we lose courage tnen ; 
 And doubts will come if God has kept 
 His promises to men." 
 
 And the adversaries of religion make their own 
 capital out of this difficulty ; and many who wish to 
 cling to Christ are, perhaps oftener than they would 
 venture to confess, harassed by misgivings which they 
 would fain silence, as to whether His Cross has ceased 
 to be the healing of the nations — whether, in fact, He 
 has not " had His day." 
 
 Something might be said, by way of suggesting 
 relief, as to the fact, familiar to all who read their 
 
 1 Faber. 
 
SAINTLINESS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 1 93 
 
 Bibles, that all this trouble was foretold. It may be 
 that as the Jews in our Lord's time habitually averted 
 their attention from those aspects of prophecy which 
 did not fit in with their cravings for a secular Christ, 
 so Christians have often dwelt on the predicted 
 triumphs of their religion, until they have forgotten 
 the conditions which, in a world like this, all such 
 predictions must presuppose. But the parables of the 
 Sower and the Tares have to be considered, before we 
 can take comfort from the parables of the Mustard- 
 seed and the Leaven. Our Lord Himself had raised 
 the question as to what should be the state of " faith " 
 at His return. Apostles had given warning that 
 " perilous times should set in," and " scoffers should 
 come," and "seducers wax worse and worse," and 
 Antichrist, or " the lawless one, be revealed." But the 
 Lord would not be " asleep in the ship." And, in fact, 
 we see how often the force of evil has been arrested 
 in mid-career ; how " the hour has come, and the man," 
 for deliverance ; how an influence has been exerted 
 to weaken the attractions of misbelief or unbelief; 
 how evil has been made the " servile minister " of 
 good ; how heresy or false philosophy has educated 
 the mind of the Church, quickened her powers of 
 self-defence, and constrained her to take a worthier 
 estimate of that Wisdom, which is concentrated in the 
 
 o 
 
194 SAWTLINESS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 
 
 simplest formulas of her creed. Or consider how, in 
 humbler instances, the very sins of a father become 
 warnings to a son. As Ezekiel says, he " considereth, 
 and doeth not suchlike." Or some woeful result of sin, 
 befalling a companion, startles others into that fear 
 which " is a fountain of life." 1 In ways too various 
 to mention, — thanks to the versatility of Divine grace, 
 — " out of the eater comes forth meat ; " the very 
 victory which Satan has gained in one case is the 
 occasion of his overthrow in another. 
 
 But we may feel the want of a more direct and 
 positive consolation ; and surely that want is supplied 
 in the thought of All Saints. The festival comes just 
 when nature in her sights and sounds, her very scents, 
 is speaking to us of decay ; and when the sad tones 
 of her voice evoke, as it were by sympathy, the 
 thought that — ■ 
 
 " Now is the autumn of the tree of life ; 
 Its leaves are shed upon the unthankful earth."* 
 
 Or the words of that prophet whose life has been 
 called " a lesson for the disappointed," come home to 
 us when the " fall " of the year seems to symbolise 
 the drearier side of the religious prospect : " Harvest 
 is passed, summer is ended, and we are not saved." 3 
 
 1 Prov. xiv. 27. 2 Newman, Lyra Apostolica, p. 171. 
 
 * Jer. viii. 20. 
 
SAINTLINESS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 19S 
 
 But then, just then, the gloomy atmosphere lights up, 
 the clouds lift, the sun breaks forth in splendour, as 
 we think of those, specifically called Saints, who have 
 represented the Christian idea of life with signal force 
 and fidelity; who, in the inspiriting words of the 
 Scottish Communion Office, " have been the choice 
 vessels of God's grace, and the lights of the world in 
 their several generations." 
 
 A great writer, to whom the Church owes much, 1 has 
 dwelt on the "awful rejoicing transport" awakened in 
 men of the earlier Christian ages by the discovery of 
 "a new and astonishing possibility, that men, not 
 here and there, but on a large scale, might attain to 
 real, inward, energetic goodness of the soul," that 
 " righteousness and love and purity " might after all 
 " have a visible seat in the world, and wield " an effec- 
 tive "power." He traces "this great surprise, this 
 great change," to "the visitation and presence of Divine 
 and unearthly Goodness, in real human form, making 
 Himself like men, calling men to be like Him." In 
 a subsequent series of lectures he shows how that 
 supreme " unveiling of the love of God," producing, as 
 it did, a consciousness of mysterious union with Christ, 
 acted on various races, bringing out in each some 
 
 1 Dean Church, The Gifts of Civilisation, etc., pp. 183, 281 ; comp. 
 his Discipline of the Christian Character, p. 107. 
 
196 SAINTLIAESS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 
 
 virtue that it specially needed, supplying a fresh moral 
 force, kindling a new and 1 igh enthusiasm, schooling 
 levity into seriousness, opening channels for pure 
 affection, applying to rough energy the discipline of 
 consecrated law. In such a work as this, the Saints 
 of Christendom, whatever may have been their mis- 
 takes and their shortcomings, were manifestly fore- 
 most. Thinking or reading of them, we see what the 
 Faith could do for human character ; how, under its 
 strong, sweet influence, these men and women of our 
 own flesh and blood, in all classes of society, were 
 verily " made strong out of weakness, wrought 
 righteousness, waxed valiant in the good fight, and 
 turned to flight the armies of the aliens." By faith, 
 as the Epistle to the Hebrews says of the Old Testa- 
 ment worthies, but by a faith which rested on the 
 Christ of the Gospels, which believed though it saw 
 not, which overcame the world because it had love 
 burning at its heart, — by this faith, age after age, 
 was formed that persuasive evidence for Christianity 
 which is contained in the fact of Christian holiness. 
 One cannot " cut down the tree and keep the fruit." 
 The Christian horror of sin, and the Christian 
 striving after " sanctification," will be impossible 
 for him who has ceased to believe in the "truth" 
 
SAIA'TLIXESS A WITNESS FOR CHRIST. 1 97 
 
 of Christianity as God's " word " spoken through 
 Christ. 1 
 
 Persons may disparage the Christian type of good- 
 ness on the very ground that it is theological in its 
 origin ; but if they admire it, they must give up the 
 notion of detaching it from the Creed. St. Paul, we 
 remember, derives from revealed " promises " a motive 
 for purity of conduct, and urges self-forgetfulness by 
 a reference to the supreme condescension. 2 And the 
 answer to the question of St. John is full of signi- 
 ficance : " These that are arrayed in white robes 
 are they that came out of great tribulation, and have 
 washed their robes, and made them white in the 
 blood of the Lamb." Belief in the efficacy of the 
 world-redeeming sacrifice, and loyalty to the Redeemer 
 for the sake of His great love, — these have been 
 proved, from the days of the Protomartyr down- 
 wards, to be the conditions of genuine sanctification. 
 And here is the practical result of Hallowtide thought 
 — to lift us up out of our baseness and our selfishness, 
 by the power of a hope that we too may yet do 
 better, by the dominant attraction of Love and Purity 
 incarnate, by faith in a Christ all-potent to cleanse 
 and to restore. 
 
 1 John xvii. 17. 
 
 * 2 Cor. vii. 1 ; Phil. ii. 4, ff. 
 
SERMON XXV. 
 
 THE TWOFOLD RESULT OF DIVINE 
 MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 *' Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising again of many in 
 Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against ; (yea, a sword 
 shall pierce through thine own soul also,) that the thoughts of many 
 hearts may be revealed." — St. Luke ii. 34, 35. 
 
 "When the Blessed Virgin Mary received the announce- 
 ment which we yearly commemorate in a specially 
 welcome festival, her answer compressed into a brief 
 sentence the whole idea of faith, as of absolute trust 
 involving a loyal self-surrender. " Behold the hand- 
 maid of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy 
 word." Elisabeth could truly say of her that she 
 was "blessed" in that "she believed;" she was already 
 securing to herself a beatitude more desirable than 
 any mere dignity, — even the dignity of that august 
 and peerless Motherhood, — for she was taking high 
 place among those true-hearted ones who " hear the 
 word of God, and keep it." 1 The phrase is signifi- 
 
 1 Luke xi. 28. Wlevovvye implies, " Yes, but look at it rather in 
 this point of view." Cp. Phil. iii. 8. 
 
TWOFOLD RESULT OF DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 1 99 
 
 cant when we apply it to her. The piety which she 
 exhibits is not emotional ; there is no transport, no 
 rapture, in her Song, but rather a singular gravity and 
 calmness, a sobriety which amounts to reserve. She 
 meditates, takes account of facts, contrasts one type 
 of character with another. She does not waste feel- 
 ing in expression ; her tone is quietly serious ; exci- 
 table temperaments might even deem it cold. When 
 she hears the story of the shepherds, she "keeps it all, 
 and ponders " it ; 1 she pieces it on to her own unique 
 experience, taking this point and then that, combining 
 them deliberately into a whole, assimilating their entire 
 significance, and thus enriching and consolidating her 
 faith, and forming by degrees " a sacred treasure, 
 which she guarded in her heart, and afterwards trans- 
 mitted to the Church." 2 It is the process appropriate 
 to a strong and self-collected mind ; and she is thus 
 unconsciously schooling herself for the first shock 
 which she has to encounter. 
 
 It comes, as shocks often do come, quite unex- 
 pectedly. She has gone with her husband to present 
 her Son, as a firstborn, in the temple, according to 
 "the law of the Lord;" and there the old man, "just 
 and devout," — in whose person the tenacious hope, 
 which for ages had sustained all faithful Israelites, 
 
 1 Luke ii. 19. 2 Pressense, Jesus-Christ, p. 275. 
 
20O 
 
 THE TWOFOLD RESULT OF 
 
 might seem to be concentrated and summarised, — 
 receives them with solemn thanks to that good 
 " Master," who has allowed him to live till his eyes 
 have seen the embodied salvation and glory of his 
 race. But, having thus poured out his soul before 
 God, he turns to the husband and wife, pronounces a 
 benediction over them, and then addresses himself 
 to Mary, the only real parent, and shows her the 
 sterner side of the glorious truth in which she has so 
 unique an interest. Let her attend to this point : she 
 thinks, no doubt, that nothing but good can come 
 from the birth of her " holy Offspring," who is to be 
 called Son of God, and of whose Kingdom there shall 
 be no end. Surely He will be the joy and strength 
 and light of all who have longed for the conso- 
 lation of Israel — that, and that only. Ah yes, He 
 will be that, but not that only ; — so the aged saint, 
 who in these last hours of life becomes a prophet, 
 assures her in words which must have been sadden- 
 ing, and may have been well-nigh overpowering. Let 
 her remember how Isaiah had predicted that the Lord 
 of hosts Himself should be a " sanctuary " for some, 
 but a " rock of offence " for others ; " x and if her Son 
 was to be, as in truth He was to be, " a precious 
 corner-stone of sure foundation," 2 still this would not 
 
 1 Isa. viii. 14. ! Isa. xxviii. 16. 
 
DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 20 1 
 
 be the invariable result. Some would stumble at 
 Him, would find difficulties in His teaching, would say 
 that He was not what they had expected, would mis- 
 conceive His mind, would on this or that pretext 
 refuse to follow Him. And, more than this, there 
 would be those who, like the traitor Apostle, would 
 be really the worse for having come into contact with 
 Him ; better for them had they never heard of Him, 
 and therefore never incurred a responsibility for 
 which they were morally altogether unfit. He was 
 to be a sign from God ; yes, but a sign not universally 
 accepted, a sign which some would contradict, per- 
 suading themselves that it was a mere illusion. And 
 then comes in the abrupt, appalling parenthesis, "And, 
 what is more, I have a word for thee personally, — a 
 sword shall pierce through thine own soul ; " — words 
 which are usually interpreted in reference to that 
 hour of desolation when 
 
 " At the Cross, her station keeping, 
 Stood the mournful Mother weeping," 
 
 but which, if we consider the context, seem to point 
 to some interior trial of faith, however brief, like a 
 stab ; and perhaps the commentator was not too bold 
 who asked whether it could be supposed that Mary 
 was perfected without any trials of this sort. 1 At 
 1 Beugel. 
 
202 
 
 THE TWOFOLD RESULT OF 
 
 any rate, such a view is in agreement with what 
 follows ; for Symeon, resuming the general statement, 
 affirms that this twofold result of the coming of 
 Christ into the world is to have the effect of bringing 
 forth into light, from the recesses of many hearts, the 
 modes of thought which habitually dwell there, and 
 by which conduct is determined, — even as in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews we read of God's word as 
 " sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the 
 dividing of soul and spirit, and well able to judge the 
 thoughts and intents of the heart." 
 
 What, then, is that law, belonging to God's inward 
 moral government, of which Symeon here foretells a 
 signal operation ? 
 
 It is this, that His presence, in whatever way it 
 comes near to men, acts, so far, as a test of human 
 character. It does so inevitably ; it must " reveal 
 thoughts out of hearts;" it must pull off disguises, 
 however thickly laid on, and set the realities of 
 character in the searching light of God's countenance : 
 even as St. Paul tells us that evil, when exposed, or 
 " manifested " in its true nature, is immersed in that 
 very light which has told upon it, so that it may in 
 a sense be called 1 light." 1 For good or for evil, the 
 visitation of Divine truth and love and holiness calls 
 » Eph. v. 13, R. V. 
 
DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 203 
 
 into action the dominant principle within us ; and 
 that action is the more pronounced, the more intense, 
 because of the call. We must, perforce, reply to the 
 appeal thus made : if we do not answer Yes, we are 
 in effect answering No. If we are morally indisposed 
 to meet God, to come to terms with Him, — in the 
 expressive Scripture phrase, to walk with Him, — we 
 go further back just because He is coming near ; we 
 hide ourselves from Him, as from some one who 
 would trouble and interfere with us, when we want 
 to be let alone and to take our own way ; or we 
 actually revolt, as if resentful of His claim when 
 thus made, and commit ourselves to some definite 
 step of irreligious self-assertion. So it is that a 
 Divine manifestation results in a taking of sides, in 
 a rehearsal, so to speak, of the awful scene of Dooms- 
 day. As we read in the Gospel which dwells so 
 solemnly on these contrasts and separations produced 
 by the presence of the Word Incarnate, " This is the 
 judgment, that the light is come into the world, — and 
 every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither 
 cometh to . the light, — but he that doeth the truth 
 cometh to the light;" and again in our Lord's own 
 words, " For judgment I am come into this world." 1 
 The substance of such texts is put into a terse, pro- 
 1 John iii. 19-21 ; ix. 39. 
 
204 THE TWOFOLD RESULT OF 
 
 verbial form by one whose pre-eminence as an Oxford 
 preacher was due in great measure to his insight into 
 the intricacies of man's spiritual history, and the far- 
 reaching consequences of some habitual moral drift: 
 " Wherever He visits, He divides." 1 
 
 Of course, when we say this, we must thankfully 
 remember that this judgment or severance is the 
 result of man's free-will as recognised in the provi* 
 dence of God. According to what has been called 
 His " principal " or antecedent will, 2 our heavenly 
 Father "willeth all men to be saved." He is con- 
 tinually reiterating the question, " Why will ye die ? 
 have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should 
 die ? " and the affirmation, " As I live, I have no 
 pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the 
 wicked turn from his way, and live." 3 This assur- 
 ance, given to the Jews, has been abundantly re- 
 newed to us Christians, the professed followers and 
 servants of Him who has declared that no one cominp- 
 to Him shall be cast out. Let us grasp it firmly, 
 and take it in ; it is literally and unreservedly true 
 that salvation, and therewith all the grace needful for 
 salvation, are offered to all who accept Christ; that 
 
 1 Newman, Discussions and Arguments, p. 114. 
 * Hooker, ed. Keble, ii. 573. 
 ■ Ezek. xviii. 31, 23 ; xxxiii. 11. 
 
DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 205 
 
 no sin which can be repented of is beyond the reach 
 of God's forgiving mercy ; that if we are not saved, it 
 will be, in the fullest force of the words, our own fault. 
 And therefore it is evident that our Lord and Saviour 
 desires to be a Corner-stone to all, and not a stum- 
 bling-stone to any ; that it is our doing, and not His, 
 if the manifestation of Divine truth and goodness in 
 His Person becomes for us a repellent and not an 
 attractive force ; if the pillar of fire is for us a cloud 
 and darkness, if the savour of life is turned into a 
 savour of death, if what was intended to be, and 
 might have been, for our wealth, is perverted into 
 an occasion of deeper falls. 
 
 To bring this briefly home. If we are fostering 
 any besetting sin, it is certain to destroy the possi- 
 bility of sympathy with God's will for us ; and when 
 that is gone, when a secret aversion from His will 
 supersedes it, any amount of services or sermons, or 
 of easy and frequent access to means of grace, will 
 be worse than useless, will be virtually " set for our 
 fall," will be signs which we shall not recognise, 
 which we shall practically disown and contradict. 
 
 Our wisdom and safety, therefore, lie in asking that 
 the light may be shed on all dark corners of our 
 souls ; that we may be taught to know the plague of 
 our own hearts ; that through His help, whose office 
 
206 TWOFOLD RESULT OF DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 it is to convict of sin, we may not go on deceiving 
 our own selves, but be enabled to discern the lurking 
 evil, and strengthened to pluck it forth and cast it 
 away. This will be, in truth, to take a step forward ; 
 it will be an act of responsiveness to grace. We 
 shall be no longer " hardening our hearts " against 
 the "Voice" which, in calling us to repentance and 
 obedience, is but calling us to peace and to salvation. 
 Yes, and let us for a moment look far onward, and 
 think what it would be, after all the trials of this 
 life, to pass into " that world " where the Presence 
 of the All-holy can never be aught but beatific, and 
 to receive the welcome from our Divine Redeemer's 
 lips, " To you I have been a Corner-stone." 
 
SERMON XXYI 
 
 CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 
 
 "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith 
 unto Him, Which?" — St. Matt. xix. 17, 18. 
 
 Of those who in our day have cast off, not only the 
 Clu-istian faith as such, but all distinct belief in a 
 living God, the Ruler of the world and the Judge of 
 human souls, it would appear that some are not with- 
 out anxiety about the question, What will be the 
 effect on morals, if men in general set religion aside ? 
 What practical sanction will remain for the law of 
 right conduct ? or, in plainer words, will the average 
 man, with his ordinary propensities, and in the midst 
 of what the old Bible language calls temptations, 
 be able to keep straight when he has been taught 
 not to look upward ? Others are of opinion that, 
 although a certain beautiful type of goodness must 
 vanish with the faith on which it depends, yet 
 morality of a fairly good working kind will last 
 very well without faith, — well enough, on the whole, 
 
208 
 
 CHRIST AXD SOCIAL DUTY. 
 
 for what life requires, when poetic ideals are sur- 
 rendered, and realities are accepted in their place. If 
 nothing can be known, to any purpose, about the 
 matters with which religion has concerned itself, yet 
 men can get through life with reasonable satisfaction 
 by occupying their minds and exerting their energies 
 in social virtue and philanthropic activity, — especially 
 if they work on system, and in concert. If they have 
 not a God to serve, there is always man, and to serve 
 him is task enough. And those who take this view 
 are likely to encourage themselves and others by 
 affirming that religion, in fact, has been too theo- 
 logical to be soundly ethical ; that its fears and its 
 hopes, its dogmas, its precepts, and its ordinances 
 have cramped, instead of supporting, morality. 
 
 This is freely said ; and it is therefore desirable to 
 remember that whatever criticism unbelief may direct 
 against the religious standard of conduct, — in what- 
 ever degree it may pretend to have improved upon 
 religious motives for well-doing, or amended the 
 religious conception of vice or of virtue, — one thing is 
 quite clear and certain, that very great stress is laid, 
 in Scripture, from the strictly religious point of view, 
 on the duties commonly called social. They are re- 
 peatedly referred to as tests of character. What 
 impresses one at first sight is, that where we might 
 
CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 209 
 
 have expected to find the more directly religious 
 duties insisted on, they seem to be put, for the time, 
 into the background, and what comes to the front, in 
 the first instance, is the obligation which binds us to 
 our fellow-men. Take, for instance, the fifteenth 
 Psalm ; it professes to answer the question, Who are 
 qualified for the Divine favour ? who shall rest upon 
 God's holy hill ? and answers by mentioning several 
 points of duty, of which only one belongs to what is 
 usually understood by piety, and it simply consists 
 in respect for those who fear the Lord. Or look at 
 some passages in the prophets, which adopt social 
 virtue, in one form or another, as the criterion of re- 
 ligious acceptableness. The blessing of security in 
 days of peril is for " him that walketh righteously 
 and speaketh uprightly, that despiseth the gain of 
 oppressions, and stoppeth his ears from hearing of 
 blood." Or the evidence that a king has " known the 
 Lord " is found in the fact that he " judged the cause 
 of the poor." Or, after a stern rebuke of a heartless 
 show of devotion, there comes a call for "judgment 
 and righteousness." Or the Divine commands are 
 summarised in such precepts as, " Speak the truth, 
 execute true judgment, let none of you imagine evil 
 against his neighbour ; and love no false oath." 1 The 
 
 1 Isa. xxxiii. 15; Jer. xxii. 16; Amos v. 24; Zech. viii. 16. 
 
 P 
 
2 10 CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 
 
 same way of speaking is found in the New Testament. 
 The great Christian virtue which St. Paul sets above 
 faith and hope is depicted as looking manward rather 
 than Godward, and is elsewhere described by him as 
 " the fulfilling of the law." St. J ames in like manner 
 reduces the whole law to the love of our neighbour, 
 and defines "pure religion" in terms which do not 
 expressly include worship. And, — not to speak of the 
 description of the judgment of " all nations " (that is, 
 apparently, of the heathen world), in which the 
 distinction between the " sheep and the goats " lies in 
 the fulfilment or neglect of social charities, — our Lord, 
 in the text, replies to the rich young ruler's question 
 as to the commandments which are to be kept, in order 
 to obtain life eternal, by reciting the precepts of the 
 second table, not of the first ; and what He afterwards 
 recommends as a form of " perfection " is almsgiving 
 on a very exceptional scale. No doubt, in other 
 passages, both sides of human duty are emphasised. So 
 Micah asks, " What doth the Lord require of thee, but 
 to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
 with thy God ? " And our Lord, when questioned by 
 the Pharisees, repeats first the " great commandment " 
 about love to God, and then the second, about love to 
 our neighbour. 1 And it would be really too absurd 
 
 1 Micah vi. 8 ; Matt. xxii. 37-40. 
 
CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 
 
 211 
 
 to take the former class of texts as, in any sense, dis- 
 paraging the direct service of God. What, then, is 
 their import ? How do they differ from the modern 
 " secularist " insistence on the duties of man to man ? 
 In this, assuredly — that they presuppose a religious 
 motive. They speak to persons who are thoroughly 
 possessed with the conviction, " We are always and 
 everywhere before the throne of God ; always and 
 everywhere under a law of obedience to Him." And, 
 from this point of view, they endeavour, if we may 
 so speak, to lead us, by means of the familiar, to the 
 transcendent ; they take the facts of social duty and 
 affection as well adapted for training us to estimate 
 aright our debt of love and allegiance to the Most 
 High. But they also admonish us, in His Name, to 
 pay attention to these facts. They guard us against 
 a narrow conception of religious duty, which, by its 
 very narrowness, is pretty sure to stiffen into formalism. 
 They protest against an unreality which would cause 
 the salt of religion to lose its savour, — the unreality 
 of imagining that assiduity in acts of devotion, or 
 the mere luxuriance of pious feeling, or expendi- 
 ture of time and money for sacred purposes, or a 
 fervid zeal for ecclesiastical interests when no selfish 
 object can be in question, will make up for want of 
 ingenuousness, want of considerateness, want of help- 
 
2T2 
 
 CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 
 
 fulness, or want of charity. It is quite possible for 
 a man to think himself loyal to a " cause," while he is 
 cherishing antipathy to its opponents, with whom, as 
 it happens, he has come into collision ; quite possible 
 to take refuge from a sense, for instance, of faults 
 of temper in the consciousness of capacity to enjoy a 
 " hearty service ; " quite possible to underrate veracity 
 and candour, fairness and justice, as "merely natural" 
 virtues, and to ignore the fact that they are adopted 
 by Christianity, are spiritualised by the power of a 
 supernatural motive, and make demands on the serious 
 moral effort of Christians as such. Again, these 
 urgent iterations of social duty bear witness for God 
 as the Master of the whole of our life, as presiding 
 over our discharge of the most ordinary social obli- 
 gations. They remind us that all the facts of our 
 humanity are of His ordering and under His cog- 
 nisance ; that His claim extends over our secular 
 transactions, instead of confining itself within the 
 precinct which is specifically termed sacred ; that the 
 servant of God is under his Lord's eye in his place of 
 business, in his professional routine, in travelling, in 
 conversation, yes, in the very pleasures which he 
 shares with everyday associates, as truly as when on 
 his knees before the altar. There is, indeed, a real 
 distinction between what is external and what is 
 
CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 21 3 
 
 internal to the innermost circle of spiritual life ; and 
 the attempt to make everything equally holy is 
 sure to end in making everything equally common. 
 But, nevertheless, no comer of our life, no fragment 
 of its mass of occupations, is alien to the visitations 
 of Divine grace, or free from the hond of Christian 
 responsibility. If we fancy that in any employment 
 whatever we can speak or act as if we had not known 
 Christ, " that which cometh into our minds shall not 
 be at all." And therefore the relations which link us 
 to each other, and which shape and determine so much 
 of our life, involve relations which link us to Him. 
 
 And, moreover, they derive a new and constraining 
 force from that supreme fact of the Incarnation 
 which gives a dignity to the homeliest " things of the 
 world," and makes the idea of humanity at once 
 more lovely and more imperative, by placing it full 
 in the sunlight of a condescension for which there 
 are no adequate words. We then remember how 
 the great Apostle, who had seen life at so many 
 points, whose sympathies were so versatile, who 
 attached such value to honest and duteous work, 
 enforces his warning against self-assertion and party 
 spirit by words which suggest so much more than 
 they say, " Let this mind be in you which was also 
 in Christ Jesus," — also in Him who, being in the 
 
214 CHRIST AND SOCIAL DUTY. 
 
 form of God, stooped to assume the form of a servant, 
 — and yet further humbled Himself even unto the 
 death of the Cross ! If it seems to us a startling 
 transition, for St. Paul it was quite natural and a 
 matter of course to impress on those who, as yet, 
 were not of the same mind, the lesson conveyed by 
 His unique self-abnegation. 
 
 In a word, this mind of Jesus Christ, and His will 
 for us, are in relation to what He calls the second 
 of the two great commandments, as well as to the 
 first. If we wish to please Him better, let us resolve, 
 by the aid of His grace, to be more observant of the 
 rights, the wants, the feelings of others ; more kindly, 
 more sympathetic, more equitable, more brotherlike, — 
 in the fullest sense more unselfish ; — in His Name, 
 and for His sake, who, as a youth, being all the while 
 personally Divine, worked as an underling in a 
 carpenter's shop ; who in His earthly ministry went 
 about doing good unto all men, and attracting souls, 
 in large measure, by His helpful pity for bodily 
 distresses; and who, in exalting our nature to His 
 throne, left behind Him, as a test of true discipleship, 
 the new commandment that we should love one 
 another, — and that not " in word nor in tongue," not 
 with fitful emotion looking out for its own pleasure, 
 but with affection vitalised into a principle of action, 
 * in deed and in truth." 
 
SERMON XXVII. 
 
 CHRIST'S PRESENCE AMID 
 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 
 
 " And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we 
 beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father,) full 
 of grace and truth." — St. John i. 14. 
 
 It is a happy circumstance for all connected with 
 this College, 1 that its annual festival recurs at the 
 end of the long series of solemnities which have 
 brought before us divers aspects of our adorable 
 Saviour's Person and work ; and that it follows so 
 closely on that great Sunday on which the thoughts 
 that have occupied us on the anniversaries from 
 Advent to Whitsuntide are united in our solemn 
 confession of the " most ancient of all mysteries," 
 the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost. A happy circumstance, because it 
 associates all the enjoyments of a festal gathering 
 with that steadfast, lovincr adorino* faith in the 
 
 1 Cuddesdon. 
 
2T6 
 
 CHR2SVS PRESENCE 
 
 Divine realities of the Gospel on which, as on a rock, 
 a College like this must stand, if it is to do any work 
 for Christ, if it is to be true to the idea of its founda- 
 tion. And we can hardly better respond to the call 
 which this anniversary seems to make upon us, than 
 by placing ourselves in thought at the central point 
 of Christianity, "refreshing our souls" in the truest 
 sense of the word, rekindling, if so it may be, and 
 reviving in our hearts the " fire of love " for the Lord 
 Incarnate, by dwelling on that wondrous verse, which 
 concentrates into so small a compass whatever is most 
 awful and most precious in the history of Divine 
 condescensions, and connects so pointedly the first 
 coming of the Emmanuel with His servants' vision 
 of His Divine and human perfectness. In this verse, 
 to adopt the ancient Church phraseology, the OtoXoyla 
 and the oiKovo/xla are united. To repeat it believingly 
 may well have that effect upon us which a thoughtful 
 writer, somewhat ab extra to the position of Catholic 
 Christians, has ascribed to the Creeds as recited by 
 those who heartily accept them ; as an act of " intel- 
 lectual adoration," it may alike enkindle and "fortify 
 the soul." So let us, my brethren, on this day, con- 
 template this inexhaustible saying. 
 
 We shall see its force the better by considering its 
 position, as preceded, first, by a series of assertions 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 21 7 
 
 as to the Word in His un-incarnate life, and then 
 by a description of His relations to His Precursor, 
 and to the various classes to whom at His coming 
 He appealed. We have Him set forth to us as 
 existing "in the beginning," before all worlds, that 
 is, as far back as thought can reach ; as co-existing 
 with God ; as Himself God ; as creating, life-giving, 
 illuminating; as bearing to be resisted by whatever 
 was alien to God's goodness and God's purity. 
 " Then," the Apostle seems to say, " let me help you 
 to combine these thoughts with the office of His 
 appointed witness and herald, who spoke of Him 
 as coming, and then saw Him as actually come ; 
 present within this sphere of human life, which He 
 had called into being; but neglected, unwelcomed, 
 and unloved. Mystery of human perverseness ! For, 
 remember, this scene was enacted in the Holy Land 
 itself, among the covenant people. They, His own, 
 received Him not : that is, they did not as a people : 
 but some of them did open their hearts to the sweet 
 influences of His love and holiness, and richly indeed 
 were they rewarded with the peerless privilege of 
 becoming His Father's children." And then, as if 
 in answer to the question, " But what was, in fact, 
 His coming ? " the Apostle proceeds, " And the Word 
 became flesh." Observe the force of this emphatic 
 
2lS CHRIST'S PRESENCE 
 
 assertion. He did not simply visit the world, and 
 converse with men, as in the days of the patriarchs. 
 He did not assume a mere semblance of manhood, 
 or adopt only a portion of that which forms its 
 essence. He did not part with aught of His own 
 original essence, as if His Godhead could be in any 
 wise " converted into flesh." He did not ally Himself 
 with a saintly human person, so as to use him as His 
 own selected organ, and enrich him with a special 
 fulness of His Spirit. No; all these statements of 
 the case would be inconsistent with the plain, positive, 
 definite language of St. John. What he says is, in 
 effect, that the eternal, co-existent, Divine Word really 
 condescended to become Man : " flesh " beino- used 
 here as it is in the words, "All flesh shall see the 
 salvation of God," " I will pour out My Spirit upon 
 all flesh." In the words of a great Eastern Father, 
 whose life-work as a Church teacher was the uphold- 
 ing of this truth, " He became man, without losing 
 His existence as God ; but being still what He was, 
 and abiding in the glory of the Godhead, and not 
 being changed or altered into what He was not, nor 
 again by any fusion of His nature with the flesh, He 
 was inconceivably and ineffably joined by union to 
 flesh that had a reasonable soul." 1 Or, in the words 
 1 Cyril Alex., Expl. Cap. 1 ; a sample of many passages. 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 
 
 2\g 
 
 of a great living writer, 1 He " took into His own 
 infinite essence man's nature itself, in all its complete- 
 ness, creating a soul and body, and at the moment of 
 creation making them His own, so that they never 
 existed by themselves, or except as in Him;" and 
 thus His acts in this lower sphere of His existence, — 
 as in its heavenly sphere which He had occupied from 
 eternity, — were the acts of the self -same Divine " Ego," 
 the Eternal Word, the Son of God, who had vouch- 
 safed to become man. Thus, if Scripture ascribes 
 Divine acts or properties to " man," or human to 
 "God," — if it speaks of the Son of Man as " in heaven," 
 while He was yet visibly on earth, or of the Word 
 of life being " handled," or the Lord of glory " cruci- 
 fied," 2 — it is because all His acts, Divine and 
 human, belong to the one single Person who is both 
 God and Man. 3 It is this mysterious adoption of 
 human relations into His inmost personality, so 
 essential to His work as a true Mediator and Atoner, 
 which Catholic theology has striven to express by 
 the phrase " Hypostatic Union," and by the well- 
 known adverbs 4 which exclude, respectively, a con- 
 
 1 Newman, Sermons, iii. 164; cf. ib. vi. 61, £f. Cp. Liddon, 
 Bampton Lectures, p. 262. 
 
 2 John iii. 13 ; 1 John i. 1 ; 1 Cor. ii. 8. See, too, Acts xi. 28 ; 
 1 Cor. xv. 47. 
 
 * Cyril, Expl. Cap. 4; so Theodoret, Dial. ii. p. 108 
 
 4 'AavyxvTws (a term used by Cyril adv. Th. 1) and oSiaipcTois. 
 
220 
 
 CHRIST'S PRESENCE 
 
 fusion of the manhood with the Godhead, and a 
 conception of separate personalities for the Son of 
 God and the Virgin-horn. It is this which our 
 familiar Christmas hymn, " Hark ! the herald angels," 1 
 proclaims in language as vivid and accurate as that 
 of the Ephesian Council; which faith has loved to 
 set forth in those majestic, rapturous antitheses, 2 
 
 \ " the Everlasting One is horn, the Impalpable is 
 enclosed in human hands ; He that is on the wings 
 of the wind is He that lies on the Virgin's bosom ; 
 while He sits at meat with publicans, He is adored 
 by the Angel host." These sayings, in truth, were 
 not flights of pious fancy ; they were simply aspects 
 
 V of that which is affirmed in the proposition, " The 
 Word became flesh." 
 
 But further, " He dwelt among us ; " He made His 
 cfkyivu, His tabernacle, among us, in that visible earthly 
 organism which was as truly His as His human 
 attributes of thought or feeling. And this reminds 
 St. John of that ancient " tabernacle of witness," 
 where the Divine Shechinah, the visible splendour 
 of God, was enshrined in the Holy of Holies. " Ah 
 
 1 So the " Adeste Fideles." 
 
 2 See Proclus, Horn. c. 9. Comp. St. Hilary, de Trin. ii. 25 ; St. 
 Augustine, Sermons, 184, etc. ; Hammond's Liturgies Eastern and 
 Western, p. 17. " Paradoxes, than which nothing is dearer to faith," 
 says Dorner. 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 221 
 
 yes ! " he seems to say, in a parenthesis full of thought- 
 ful exultation ; " and we did really gaze upon that 
 true Shechinah which beamed forth from the shrine 
 of His spotless flesh ; and worthy indeed it was to 
 be the glory of the Only-begotten from the Father, con- 
 sisting as it did in the perfection of grace and truth." 
 For, assuredly, although the final words of the verse 
 belong by construction to the clause, " He abode 
 among us," and are, thus far, parted from the paren- 
 thesis which follows it, they yet exhibit the character 
 of that sacred "glory" to which the parenthesis refers. 
 " We beheld His glory," the Apostle means, " in that 
 we found Him so full of grace and truth." " His 
 glory," says St. Hilary, 1 " was beheld, in that, as 
 belonging to the Only one from the Father, it is 
 perfect with grace and truth." His human soul was 
 the fitting, the only adequate receptacle of those 
 powers and gifts of Divine love, which energise in 
 the fruits of sanctity. Powers are they, and gifts, 
 not simple favour or good will: for we are dealing 
 with One whose will is power, whose favour is the 
 energy of love. This is the grace of God, — a rich 
 effusion of spiritual forces, which dwelt in complete- 
 ness, and acted without let or hindrance, in the soul 
 of Jesus Christ, from whence they were, as the Apostle 
 
 1 De Trin. i. 10. 
 
222 
 
 CHRISVS PfiESEKCE 
 
 afterwards tells us, diffused in portions to those who 
 adhered to Him. And in Him, also, resided all truth ; 
 — all fulness of Divine reality, as distinct from all 
 foreshadowing symbols ; and all fulness, too, of Divine 
 faithfulness, whereby the promises of God were con- 
 spicuously fulfilled, having, as St. Paul says, "in Him 
 their yea and amen, unto the glory of God by us ; " 1 
 and all fulness, lastly, of Divine revelation, centring 
 itself, as it did, on His Person, who is the Sovereign 
 Teacher, and in whose teaching alone is contained 
 the truth which makes men free. 
 
 " We beheld His glory." The Evangelist, indeed, 
 seems conscious of having, through his intercourse 
 with the Lord Incarnate, realised those hopes of, and 
 cravings for, a Theophany, which had for ages been 
 the salt of life to holy and lofty souls. "I beseech 
 Thee," the great Hebrew lawgiver had prayed, — "I 
 beseech Thee, show me Thy glory." 2 And now at 
 last, by the appearance of the Son of God among men, 
 the fullest answer had been given to that entreaty 
 which it could ever receive in this world. In that 
 first Epistle, which Ebrard considers to be a kind of 
 postscript to the Gospel, St. John insists, at the outset, 
 on the fact of his having seen and heard all that 
 could be seen and heard of that eternal Word of 
 
 1 2 Cor. i. 20. * Exod. xxxiii. 18. 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 223 
 
 life, " which was with the Father and was manifested 
 unto us ; " and then he adds, " That which we have 
 seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may 
 have fellowship with us." As if to say, The gift of a 
 present living Christ, an object for the gaze of living 
 faith, is for all generations of Christ's people ; all and 
 each, till the day of His return, must " live by the faith 
 of the Son of God," and feed their souls on the vision 
 of His spiritual beauty. Yes ! if Christianity is to be 
 anything for any man, if it is to be a fact governing 
 his life, it must be, for him, a personal faith in 
 Christ's own Person. Ours is " the truth as it is in 
 J esus ; " the early Christians, " whose faith " we are 
 to " follow, considering the end of their conversation," 
 overcame the world, not by believing simply in the 
 Christian religion, but by believing, with a passionate, 
 soul-absorbing loyalty, in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 This was set forth when, of old, the candidate for 
 baptism, called to profess his belief, said, with face 
 turned eastward, and hands stretched forth as in 
 homage, " I attach myself to Thee, O Christ ! " 1 And 
 this is the vital truth which underlies the formula, 
 very current in the language of our time, — that what 
 we believe in is " not a creed or a system of doctrine, 
 but a Person." Doubtless, that formula may be 
 
 1 See St. Chrys. in Col. Horn. 6. c. 4. 
 
224 
 
 CHRISTS PRESENCE 
 
 accepted by some in a sense disparaging to the value 
 of creeds or doctrines : and such persons will need 
 to be reminded that the " form of sound words," 1 
 or rather, the "pattern of healthful teaching," is a 
 most efficacious instrument for the correct apprehen- 
 sion of the great Object of faith : that as a provision 
 for a vivid and effective conception of that object, it 
 is a powerful incentive to religious affection and 
 obedience : that if we cast away the use of it, we 
 forfeit very much of clearness in our view of God, 
 as revealed in Christ, and therefore, inevitably, of 
 heartiness in our love for Him. Let us, by all means, 
 remember this : but let us also remember, that this 
 great instrument is an instrument, after all ; that it 
 must carry us onward to a firmer hold of Him for 
 whom it witnesses, to a fuller acceptance of His 
 infinite claim on our devotion. We are virtually 
 exhorted by the Apostle, according to the real force 
 of his words, 2 to " confess J esus Christ come in the 
 flesh ; " not simply to confess that He is come, but to 
 confess Him. Creeds were indeed well called, by a 
 most earnest servant and worshipper of Christ, 3 hymns 
 of thanksgiving. They are so. They are truly akin 
 to the Gloria in Excelsis or Te Deum, in that they 
 are, in one aspect at least, outbursts of adoring love 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 13. 2 1 John iv. 2. 3 Dr. Arnold. 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 22$ 
 
 and joy, offered to Him whom they confess as revealed 
 to our faith, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit, the One God in Three Persons, " not one only 
 Person, but Three Persons in one substance ; " and we 
 do well when, for instance, on the third of our chief 
 Sundays, we first confess the Holy Trinity as one 
 God and one .Lord, and ascribe the same glory to 
 Father, Son, and Spirit, and then, with an emphatic 
 " Therefore," take up the song of Ter Sanctus. And 
 all our utterances in the way of teaching, and all 
 our thoughts in the way of learning, God's holy 
 truth, must be in Him, and to Him ; God Himself, 
 the living God, must be the first and last in all our 
 theology, as He is the Alpha and Omega of our faith 
 and hope and love. 
 
 This surely, brethren, is the point at which we 
 must aim. But is it not the case, that those who 
 are specially occupied in the study of sacred truths 
 will often encounter some difficulty in attaining it ? 
 Is there not a form of temptation, of hindrance, which 
 will beset at least some persons thus occupied, who 
 may be wholly, or almost wholly, free from tempta- 
 tions to heresy or unbelief ? who may, in fact, be 
 keenly alive to the richness, fulness, strength, sweet- 
 ness, majesty, and harmony of Christianity, as taught 
 and believed within the Church ? A person may be 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 CHRISrS PRESENCE 
 
 so absorbed in the intellectual consideration of these 
 truths as to seek them, if one may so say, for them- 
 selves, and to forget that, if they are anything at all 
 they are witnesses for a living Presence, which is at 
 once most benignant and most exacting, and in which, 
 all day long, he must consciously and obediently live. 
 And, forgetting this, he may go on thinking, reading, 
 working, until the work itself covers the whole field 
 of his thought; and while he is thus engaged upon 
 the scheme or the history of the salvation of his race, 
 he may forget his own personal relations to the 
 Saviour. Yes, it is possible for a soul thus fatally 
 to stop short of Christ Himself, while, perhaps, it 
 fears no evil, because it feels itself to be walking on 
 holy ground. Or if any sudden misgiving should 
 arise, the soul will begin by silencing it, on the ground 
 that the sacredness of its task is a safeguard against 
 any serious danger ; and then will go on to persuade 
 itself that the performance of this task will somehow 
 form a virtual substitute for the living warmth of 
 religious energy. The man will find himself colder 
 at heart than he was ; reluctant to put aside his 
 books when the hour calls him to God's worship ; 
 apt to thrust his own secret religious exercises into 
 little corners of a hard-working day ; and, most of 
 all, increasingly apathetic in regard to the highest 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 22"] 
 
 and holiest form of intercourse with the crucified 
 and life-giving Redeemer. And he may be con- 
 scious that all is not well with him, so far as this is 
 the case ; that it is not with him as in days past, 
 " when the candle of God shined upon his head, and 
 by His light he walked through darkness." Yet 
 any uneasiness, caused by this consciousness, will too 
 often and easily be allayed by the thought (which, 
 very likely, he cannot even then put into words) that 
 he is really interested in things sacred, and that on 
 the side of Christian orthodoxy, and therefore on the 
 side of Christ ; he will put his own sense on the 
 proverb, so often abused in our time, " Laborare est 
 orare ; " and will hope that a theological student 
 may stand excused in the sight of God, if he cannot 
 give himself earnestly or frequently to prayer. O 
 most false security ! 0 most disastrous history of a 
 soul, which like that " angel " of the Ephesian Church, 
 rebuked and warned by the heart-searching Lord 
 Himself, is strictly orthodox while secretly cold- 
 hearted, and zealous against false apostles while it 
 has put away its own first love ! 1 Truly has it been 
 said that the reading of " good books," as of books 
 written in exposition or defence of religious truth, 
 may be so carried on as to foster self -ignorance ; that 
 
 1 Rev. ii. 4. 
 
223 
 
 CHRIST'S PRESENCE 
 
 even knowledge of evidences, or of scriptural argu- 
 ments, or of the origin and growth of heresies, or of 
 efforts powerful to resist them, requires the love of 
 God in order to its own right guidance ; and that the 
 clear perception of Divine truths, if coupled with a 
 loveless temper, will result in practical atheism. 
 
 It is not, surely, enough to say that a person who 
 allows himself to fall into this state gives occasion to 
 the enemies of Christian dogma to cry out against it 
 as fraught with a deadly power to stiffen the soul's 
 true life. Nor, again, do we fathom the whole extent 
 of the evil when we say that as the greatness, theolo- 
 gically speaking, of Athanasius and Augustine de- 
 pended intimately on their personal devotion in heart 
 and spirit to Christ ; so a man's own insight into 
 Christian truth becomes poorer, fainter, feebler, in 
 so far as he holds aloof from such personal fellow- 
 ship with Him, who, while on earth, distinctly said 
 that His teaching would not commend itself except 
 where hearts were prepared for its reception. Of 
 course this is so ; when the will and affections are 
 not really given to Christ, there will be a failure of 
 power to enter into the meaning of Christianity, with 
 its spiritual wonder-works of grace, its gift of a 
 mysterious life, its foundation of a Divine kingdom. 
 But this is not all. The end of it is that the man 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 22g 
 
 himself becomes a fresh illustration of St. Paul's 
 tremendous saying about " a savour of death unto 
 death." 1 In him is realised what a great foreign 
 bishop and preacher 2 so piercingly set forth when 
 speaking to clergy, or to candidates for Holy Orders, 
 that a contact with holiest things, on the part of 
 those who do not strive to become holy, actually 
 hardens them against the grace of God. " That which 
 should have been for their wealth," as, in this in- 
 stance, Christian truth as apprehended by the intellect, 
 " becomes to them an occasion of falling." The man 
 whom we are thinking of is all the worse for having 
 learned so much about facts of the spiritual world, 
 which his own spiritual carelessness will not allow 
 to act as they should act — as often, by the grace 
 of God, they do act — on his affections and his will. 
 Others are enkindled, others are uplifted, others are 
 
 1 2 Or. ii. 16. 
 
 1 Massillon urges that if a priest does not respond to the spirit of 
 his vocation, the " usage familier et infructueux des choses les plus 
 saintes " produces a " secheresse " and an " insensibilite," which 
 gradually stiffen into a hopeless " endurcisseraent." CEuvres, ii. 372. 
 So, ib. 402, he says that this "insensibilite" is "la malediction la 
 plus generale et la plus terrible attacbeo aux saintes fonctions du 
 ministere ; " that " avec des mceurs au-dehors irreprochables," a 
 priest may find in the very celebration of the Eucharist only an 
 " augmentation de lethargie." He applies this observation to other 
 priestly duties, including the preparation of sermons, — "il semble 
 que les livres saints que nous parcourons ne sont pas faits pour 
 nous," — and the hearing of confessions, etc. 
 
230 CHRISTS PRESE.YCE 
 
 won to a closer walk with God, to a heartier love 
 of Christ, by the unfolding, perhaps, of the force of 
 some Apostle's argument, or of " the faith once for 
 all delivered " as to the Person or the offices of the 
 Eedeemer. He can go into all these things, and 
 carry a dead heart through all ; he does not find 
 Christ Himself in them, because he does not look for 
 Him ; he is but the more confirmed in the dull hard- 
 ness of his spiritual insensibility. 
 
 And what should be, then, the course taken by any 
 one who, placed amid these difficulties, exposed to 
 these temptations, is honestly desirous of overcoming 
 them, and of finding amid his earnest studies a true 
 Epiphany of the Incarnate Lord ? 
 
 1. First, he will do what he can to keep alive in 
 himself a real sense of his own position as a sinner. 
 He will think of his sins of time past, and of the sins 
 which, in time present, do most easily beset him. He 
 will force himself to look them in the face, and then, 
 looking up to Him who bore them on the Cross, will 
 say, " Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and 
 done this and that evil in Thy sight." Thus will he 
 gain a keener perception of the awful realities of the 
 soul's life ; he will feel his own utter need of a puri- 
 fying Comforter, an atoning Saviour, a pardoning 
 Father. Formalism, of the kind which he has so 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 23 1 
 
 much cause to be afraid of, can hardly fail to lose its 
 power, in proportion as he learns more, by personal 
 self-searching, of what sin is, and what repentance 
 should be, of the work that must go on in his own 
 soul, if he would prepare for death and judgment. 
 
 2. Again, he will, if he is in earnest, " redeem," 1 
 that is, carefully secure all occasions for exercising 
 his soul in the great work of real and hearty worship. 
 He will take pains to offer his own prayers with a 
 concentrated energy of thought and will, as one who 
 believes in the force and greatness of the act. He 
 will not, save in exceptional instances, allow his work 
 to keep him from God's public service on the week- 
 day. He will act upon the recorded experience of 
 thousands of earnest souls, that a single Communion 
 faithfully received often lets in fuller light upon the 
 spiritual consciousness than long hours, spent over 
 books, can give. And surely he will find himself a 
 gainer, if he inserts into his hours of work short 
 prayers for help, and light, and grace, to that Lord 
 whose "countenance," as he knows, can make him 
 "whole;" if, for instance, he lifts up his heart at 
 those three points in each day's course which have 
 long been hallowed by the recollection of the Passion, 
 in such words as — " O Saviour of the world, who by 
 
 1 Eph. v. 15. 
 
232 
 
 CHRISrS PRESENCE 
 
 Thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us, save 
 us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, 0 Lord ; " 
 " We worship Thee, O Christ, and bless Thee, because 
 by Thy Passion Thou hast redeemed the world;" "As 
 Thy arms, O my God, were spread out upon the 
 Cross, so vouchsafe to receive us into the arms of Thy 
 mercy, to extend Thy pity, and forgive our sins ; " — 
 or if, also, as the evening closes in, he gives thanks to 
 Him who in the fulness of time, out of His infinite 
 love and Divine pity, " became flesh and dwelt among 
 us," to be " our Jesus and our All." 
 
 3. Once more, the student of Christ's truth, who 
 thus craves to know Christ, will offer up his work, 
 day after day, consciously and purposely, not, in the 
 abstract, to the cause of religion, but definitely, and 
 in very deed, to Jesus Christ. " My Lord and my 
 God," he will say, " I confess Thee, I adore Thee : I 
 lay at Thy feet all that I am doing, and all that I can 
 do, simply and utterly for Thine acceptance. Look 
 down on this work which Thou hast set before me, 
 and give me strength to go about it in Thee and for 
 Thee ; mercifully look upon my infirmities, and make 
 Thine own strength perfect in them; send out Thy 
 light and Thy truth, that they may lead me, and 
 bring me, through my work, to Thy holy hill, and to 
 Thy dwelling." 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 233 
 
 And, be sure of it, he who offers up his work to 
 Jesus will offer up his whole self also. He will open 
 wide his heart and soul to their Redeemer and their 
 Owner ; he will be watchful against all tendencies in 
 himself which might interfere with Christ's absolute 
 reign over his being ; he will seek for that " perfect 
 heart" which casts out all hypocrisy, and for that 
 " single eye " which makes the whole man " full of 
 light." And what will follow from this earnest and 
 affectionate self-consecration ? Let us look to the 
 great scene of Elijah's sacrifice on Carmel. When he 
 had laid on the altar the whole flesh of the victim, as 
 if to signify the whole-heartedness with which those 
 would give themselves to God, whom He by His grace 
 had converted, "then the fire of the Lord fell, and 
 consumed the burnt sacrifice." Can we not well 
 imagine St. Paul saying jf this, as of another event, 
 " which things are capable of a further meaning ? " 1 
 While insisting on the verity of the incident, we may 
 see in it, as in so much else of the sacred history, a 
 mysterious symbolism full of teaching for ourselves. 
 That fire descending on the victim was, of course, the 
 sign of Divine acceptance ; but was it not also an 
 image of that special gift of the Holy Spirit, bestowed 
 on those who become a " living sacrifice," — that pre- 
 
 1 Gal. iv. 24, dWyyopov/xeva. 
 
234 CHRIST S PRESENCE 
 
 cious gift of spiritual fervour, 1 kindling love to God 
 in the heart, entering into and possessing the man's 
 whole being, and filling it "with the presence of Him 
 who is love ? For this we may well pray, in the 
 words of a noble hymn, the special gift of our 
 Church's saintly poet to the students of this College : 2 — 
 
 " Thou didst come that fire to kindle, — 
 Fain would we Thy torches prove, 
 I'ar and wide Thy beacons lighting 
 With the undying spark of love ; 
 Only feed our flame, we pray Thee, 
 With Thy breathings from above! " 
 
 Yes, indeed, He does will this, for each of us hi our 
 day, as of old for His first servants. He is what He 
 has ever been, " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and 
 to-day, and for ever ; " the changeless, ever-living, 
 ever-loving Christ of Apostles and Evangelists, of 
 Martyrs and Confessors, and of all who are departed 
 in His faith ; and our Christ also, as much as theirs, 
 ever willing to help us, enlighten us, enkindle us, 
 preside over our work, and reveal Himself to us as 
 Teacher, Master, Saviour, God, full of grace and truth 
 for our souls, if we will put ourselves frankly and 
 
 1 " Fervour does not mean emotion ; " it " consists in doing our 
 duty to God by rule, — punctually, at the right time, — and exactly, 
 that is, as perfectly as we can." Cardinal Manning, Sin and its 
 Consequences, p. 76. 
 
 s Keble's Miscellaneous Poems, p. 290. 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 235 
 
 heartily into His hands, and respond to the offers of 
 His love. If others, as once of old, — if some even of 
 those who have taken on them the vows of His priest- 
 hood, — "go back, and walk no more with Him," let 
 us cling to Him all the more earnestly ; if we seem to 
 hear Him ask again, " Will ye also go away ? " let us 
 practically, as well as in purpose and feeling, give 
 Him that answer of the great spokesman of the 
 Apostles, which may be called the earliest Christian 
 Creed ; " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the 
 words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure 
 that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living' God." 
 
 And, my brethren, we may be well assured of this, 
 that days are coming, perhaps are close at hand, in 
 which we shall need all the strength, all the light, 
 all the comfort, which can be secured by Christian 
 men through such a confession. I need not dwell 
 on the forces of evil, which are arraying themselves 
 against the Faith and Church of J esus Christ ; enough 
 to say that, all around us, the moral, political, intel- 
 lectual atmosphere is charged with elements of peril 
 and confusion ; that hostility to the kingdom of 
 Christ, to the institutions in which its life is organised, 
 and to the definite creed with which it is put in trust, 
 is assuming every day an aspect more determined. 
 Great and serious as would be the evils, in regard to 
 
236 
 
 CHRlSrS PRESENCE 
 
 the future of England, of the formal separation, in 
 England, of Church and State, there are trials nearer 
 at hand which will demand from us whatever the 
 grace of Christ can enable us to exhibit of patience 
 and firmness, of hopeful perseverance in His work, of 
 loyalty and devotion to His Xame. 0 that we might, 
 all of us, be faithful even to the end ! O that we 
 might, every one of us, prove ourselves true to the 
 teaching of this place, to its precious recollections, to 
 the examples which it has so richly and constantly 
 supplied ! Let us, on this day, gird up once more all 
 the energies of heart and soul, of mind and will, as 
 becomes soldiers of Christ, who know the greatness 
 of the contest to which they have offered up their 
 lives. How shall we face the dark future ? Let us 
 answer the question by thinking of the present. 
 What is it which gives joy and brightness to this 
 day's festival ? Surely, my brethren (we may say it 
 with humble hope and thankfulness), it is the presence 
 of our Lord. We are gathered together at His feet ; 
 we are looking up into His face ; we know that His 
 blessing has rested, is resting, on the College and its 
 work ; and therefore " the joy of the Lord " may well 
 be our strength, and we may be confident that He 
 whose love inspirits us now, will guide, enlighten, 
 uphold us hereafter. 
 
AMID THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 237 
 
 So let us pray with a full heart, before we leave 
 this beloved and favoured place, — pray with fervent, 
 importunate energy for the pardon of our past falls, 
 and the acceptance of our renewed resolutions ; for 
 grace to abide in His love, to abound in His work, 
 to be devout and single-minded, brave and patient, 
 pure and true. For this let us, in the words of the 
 Eastern Church, " commend ourselves, each other, and 
 our whole life, to Christ our God;" 1 for this let us 
 throw ourselves boldly on the infinite bosom of our 
 Eternal Father's pitying tenderness ; for this let us, 
 with Pentecostal echoes still in our ears, invoke the 
 benignant Paraclete whom our repeated perversities 
 have not wearied out, and say to Him, in words 
 familiar and dear to all of us, — 
 
 " 0 most blessed Light Divine, 
 Shine within these hearts of Thine, 
 
 And our inmost being fill s 
 Where Thou art not, man hath nought, 
 Nothing good in deed or thought, 
 Nothing free from taint of ill. 
 
 " Heal our wounds ; our strength renew ; 
 On our dryness pour Thy dew ; 
 
 Wash the stains of guilt away : 
 Bend the stubborn heart and will ; 
 Melt the frozen, warm the chill ; 
 
 Guide the steps that go astray. 
 
 1 See Hammond, Liturgies Eastern and Western, p. 92. 
 
238 
 
 CHRISrS PRESENCE, ETC. 
 
 " On the faithful, who adore 
 And confess Thee, evermore 
 
 In Thy sevenfold gifts descend : 
 Give them virtue's sure reward, 
 Give them Thy salvation, Lord, 
 Give them joys that never end." 
 
 1 The association of the thought of Ordination with Whitsuntide 
 should not only be helpful as against that " naturalistic " view of 
 the Church which would treat it as a mere development of the 
 national life for moral and, in a general sense, for religious purposes, 
 but as a reminder of the true method of dealing with prejudices 
 which assume that it is somehow " unspiritual " to lay stress on 
 forms or rites, or matters of external " organisation." One who 
 habitually recognises the Holy Spirit's presence as th6 vitalising 
 force of the Church and her ministrations, will be best able to 
 interpret and provide for the craving which this long popular theory 
 misrepresents. 
 
SERMON XXVIII. 1 
 
 CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS 
 MINISTERS. 
 
 "And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, 
 whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their 
 portion of meat in due season ? " — St. Luke xii. 42. 
 
 We are assembled to witness, and by our sympathy 
 and assent to take part in, one of the great acts which 
 perpetuate the life and operations of the Kingdom 
 which is not of this world. To thoughtful and well- 
 instructed Church-people an ordination might well 
 seem to preach its own sermon; but the Ordinal 
 requires a sermon to be preached before the beginning 
 of the rite, and recommends, as a subject, the spiritual 
 importance of the Order then to be conferred It is 
 of the utmost consequence, with a view to our own 
 profit, that we should on this occasion look through 
 
 1 Preached in Holy Trinity Church, Gainsborough, July 3, 1887, 
 at the ordination of an Assistant-Curate as Priest, by the Lord 
 Bishop of Lincoln, on whom the writer was attending as one of his 
 Examining Chaplains. 
 
240 CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 
 
 the outward to the inward, and recognise the spirit 
 and life which give significance to the consecrated 
 form. We are not concerned with a matter of mere 
 official arrangement, like the appointment of a f nnc- 
 tionaiy by the authority of a society which men have 
 formed for some religious or charitable purpose ; it 
 is a greater thing that is now before us, — an event 
 in that spiritual and supernatural world which is 
 centred in the throne of the Word Incarnate. Let us, 
 then, briefly consider the fight in which He, our Lord 
 and Saviour, the Sovereign Pastor and Teacher, the 
 Eternal High Priest, the Shepherd and Bishop of 
 souls, would have us regard the Ministry which He 
 has instituted in His Church. Let us go straight to 
 the fountain-head, and learn from His own words 
 and acts what is His interest in the Christian 
 Ministry, what is its relation to His Person and 
 His work. 
 
 The Twelve whom He carefully selected, and whom 
 He called Apostles, sustained thenceforth two cha- 
 racters. Disciples they were from the first, and dis- 
 ciples they were to the end, in a sense as absolute as 
 could belong to the position of the least distinguished 
 among all who owned Him as Master. They were 
 even bound to set an example of the simplest trust, 
 the most unreserved obedience, the most self-sacri- 
 
CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 2\\ 
 
 ficing devotion. In this respect they were to be, as 
 it were, specimen Christians ; and when He spoke to 
 them as such, He saw in them the whole body of 
 His future Church. But they had become something 
 more. He had drawn them into an interior circle, 
 had formed them into what we may call an Order. 
 It has even been said by an author whose theme was 
 " the Kingdom of Christ," that " if we called the 
 four Gospels the Institution of a Christian Ministry, 
 we might not go very far wrong, nor lose sight of 
 many of their essential qualities ; " 1 and he goes on to 
 dwell on the gradual process by which these men 
 were invested with these functions, as they grew into 
 fitness for higher powers and for heavier responsi- 
 bilities, from the day on which Christ sent them forth 
 to preach to the house of Israel, to that Easter night 
 when He breathed into them the enabling power of 
 the Holy Spirit, or that still later day when He bade 
 them "go and make converts of all nations, baptising 
 them into " the one thrice Holy Name. 
 
 Our text is clearly a central passage, in regard to 
 that office which He established in their persons, con- 
 sidered as His agents and His organs among men. 
 " Ministers of God," " ministers of Christ ; " any 
 account to be given of these solemn titles must 
 
 1 Maurice, Kingdom of Christ, ii. 148. 
 
 R 
 
242 CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 
 
 conform itself to the idea contained in the Lord's 
 answer to St. Peter's question, "Speakest Thou this 
 parable " about servants keeping watch " to us, or 
 even to all ? " For the answer, though itself in the 
 form of a question, shows that Jesus was referring 
 particularly to the Apostles in their capacity of 
 ministerial agents. " Who then is that faithful and 
 wise steward ? " Observe the force of the illustration. 
 A steward in any great Eastern household was the 
 trusted head-servant, who represented the master, 
 and acted for him towards the whole body of fellow- 
 servants, presiding over them, keeping them to their 
 work, serving out their supply of food, and generally 
 seeing to their interests. In one such case we are 
 told that the master " put all that he had into " the 
 steward's hand ; 1 and in a passage which may be 
 taken as symbolically corresponding to our text, 2 
 we read of Eliakim being set over the household 
 of a king of Judah in the room of Shebna. He is 
 " clothed with a robe " and a " girdle," and " govern- 
 ment is committed to his hand ; " " and the key of the 
 house of David will I lay upon his shoulder ; so he 
 shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and 
 none shall open." In all cases the office existed for 
 the good of the household ; the steward was but the 
 
 1 Gen. xxxix. 4j cp. xxiv. 2, 10. * Isa. xxii. 20-22. 
 
CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 243 
 
 image and instrument of his lord, responsible to him 
 at every turn, and, as a well-known parable indicates, 
 liable to be called in question for "wasting his goods." 
 
 Now, what did Christ intend to convey by speak- 
 ing, in this way, of stewards under Himself ? This, 
 assuredly ; that in His Church there should be officers 
 commissioned by Him, and clothed with power from 
 Him for the fulfilment of a high trust, as over- 
 seers bearing spiritual rule, and dispensers imparting 
 spiritual food ; generally, as His agents towards and 
 for the benefit of His people. In short, there was to 
 be a ministry formed not from below, but from above; 
 an essential element in a Divine economy, not consti- 
 tuted by the Christian people for themselves, but 
 provided for the people by Him who, in the fullest 
 sense, as Sovereign Head of the Church, holds in 
 His hand " the key of David." He constituted the 
 Church, so to speak, in the persons of the Apostles ; 
 around them, as a centre of life and action, the body 
 of believers was to be gathered ; 1 through them, and 
 through those who should succeed to any portion of 
 their office, He was to hold intercourse with that 
 body. This idea of the ministerial function, as 
 created by Christ for the Church, is in accordance 
 not only with the idea of the Sacraments, but with 
 
 1 Gladstone, Church Principles, etc., pp. 201, 217. 
 
244 CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 
 
 the entire conception of the Gospel as a thing " sent, 
 given, brought to us," to be received and used in 
 faith ; whereas the opposite view, which regards the 
 ministry as devised by the Christian society for its 
 own convenience, inverts the true order, and obscures 
 the principle, as it may be called, of grace. No 
 wonder that it is excluded by the whole tenor of the 
 Christian Scriptures. Again, the motive for the 
 creation of this ministry was to be Christ's own 
 pastoral care for the flock whom, as we shall soon be 
 reminded, "He bought with His death;" it was to exist, 
 not for the sake of mere external order, but for the 
 spiritual interest of the Church, that by its means the 
 body might be kept in vital union with the Head. 
 The stewards thus ordained were always to remember 
 their awful, though glorious and animating, responsi- 
 bilities ; never to " lord it over " their fellow-servants, 
 never to forget that they were but organs of their 
 Master. The word which they should preach was 
 to be His truth ; the ordinances which they should 
 minister were to be channels of grace from Himself 
 They were in all things to glorify Him, to sink their 
 own personality in their office, and to see in their 
 office a reflection of His Priesthood, of His Teacher- 
 ship, of His Royalty. He was to be their all in all. 
 The sense of a commission from Him was at once to 
 
CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 245 
 
 support them under a sense of weakness, and to shame 
 them out of a heartless self-assertion. 1 And their 
 order was not to be a temporary arrangement, adapted 
 to the conditions of a single age ; rather, as a pro- 
 vision for needs inherent in humanity, it was to last 
 as long as His Church itself; He was to find it in 
 force at His return ; — " Blessed is that servant whom 
 the Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing." 
 
 We have, then, in this passage an authentic charter 
 of the Christian priesthood, as regarded in its action 
 on Christ's part towards His Church as a whole. The 
 description is an outline to be filled in by help of 
 other words of His, or of Apostles who spake by His 
 Spirit. Thus the two words used in St. John's 
 account of the Pastoral Commission represent the 
 two functions of administering food and exercising 
 authority. 2 Thus the " portion of food" must be inter- 
 preted in the fullest sense, by what He said of the 
 Sacrament of His Body and Blood, and, secondarily, 
 as referring to all that revealed truth by which, in 
 a sense, He wills to nourish the soul. St. Paul, again, 
 takes up the idea of the text when he applies to him- 
 self and others the title of ministers, or " undcr- 
 officers," 3 of God or of Christ; not delegates of the 
 
 1 Cp. Gladstone, Church Principles, etc, p. 257, ff. 
 
 2 John xxi. 15, 16. 3 1 Cor. iv. 1. 
 
246 CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 
 
 Christian congregation, appointed by it as a society 
 might appoint a committee, but instrumental agents 
 ordained by Christ to maintain its corporate fellow- 
 ship 1 with Him ; stewards, as he expressly says, 
 responsible to the Lord of the sacred household ; yes, 
 " gifts " of that Lord as glorified ; bestowed on the 
 Church for the " perfecting " of its structure, until we 
 all come to " the measure of the stature of the fulness 
 of Christ." 
 
 The coUects for Ember week, and the collects of the 
 Ordinal, ascribe the " appointment " of Holy Orders 
 to God Almighty ; and we, my brethren, have good 
 reason to trace the historical ministry of the Church 
 to Apostolic institution, and thus to see in it a chain 
 which links us to the Church of the Apostles, and, 
 above all, to Him who ordained them to be His 
 stewards, and whose commission must be sought for 
 in connexion with those who first received it. This is 
 the thought which you should carry with you through 
 the solemn service now to begin ; Christ our Lord, 
 invisibly present in all the ministrations of His 
 
 1 The " individual priesthood " of the baptised depends on their 
 membership in the body corporate ; as individuals, they have the 
 fullest right of access to God in Christ; bnt when they come together 
 as members of the body, " the ministry is the necessary organ of the 
 functions" of that body; C. Gore, The Ministry of the Christian 
 Church, p. 86, a work in which the whole subject may be most 
 advantageously studied. 
 
CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS MINISTERS. 247 
 
 Church, the true Baptiser, Celebrant, Confirmer, 
 Absolver, is also the true Ordainer, now as of old. 
 Let us look up to Him, who will presently, we believe, 
 employ our Bishop's hands and voice as the instru- 
 ments of His own personal action ; and surely I need 
 not ask you of this congregation to pray earnestly for 
 the candidate who will advance, as it were, to the 
 foot of His throne, and receive from Himself the grace 
 and power of the priesthood, — to pray that he may 
 lead the rest of his priestly life according to this 
 beginning. 
 
SERMON XXIX. 
 THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 
 
 " But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of 
 Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their 
 inward parts, and write it in their hearts." — Jer. xxxi. 33. 
 
 The festival of the first evangelist, — at any rate, of 
 him whose Gospel stands first among the four, — is rich 
 in interest, not merely because its Saint is one -whom 
 grace, operating through the voice of the incarnate 
 Fountain of grace, transferred from his desk, as we 
 should say, in a custom office, to the seat of a prince 
 in the " Kingdom which is not of this world ; " not 
 merely because of the indications given us of his 
 character, who " rose at once, and left his gold," — 
 left, as St. Luke tells us, all that he had, — and forth- 
 with showed his serious affection for his old com- 
 panions in business, by bringing them face to face, at 
 a great feast, with the Teacher whose call had 
 revolutionised his own life; — not for these reasons 
 only, but also because his Gospel, — the Gospel, as we 
 may call it, of the Kingdom of heaven, — sets Jesus 
 
THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 249 
 
 forth in the aspect most attractive to those who had 
 been brought to own Him as the promised Fulfiller 
 of Israel's ancient and imperishable hopes. 
 
 Whether or not it was first composed in Hebrew, 
 it is full of the Hebrew spirit as Christianised. 1 And, 
 surely, whatever helps us to understand that spirit 
 removes so much of vagueness from our conceptions 
 of the first historic elements of Christian life and 
 thought. We must, I think, confess that we do not 
 very easily transport ourselves into the moral atmo- 
 sphere of Hebrew Christianity. We feel more at home 
 in St. Paul's Epistles, or in St. John's Gospel, than 
 in the early sermons of St. Peter : we find it hard 
 to appreciate those deep-seated scruples about " eating 
 with men uncircumcised," — still more, to make any 
 sort of allowance for the motives which impelled a 
 powerful, though extreme party among the believing 
 Israelites, to counterwork, with a passionate, sleepless 
 hostility, the influence of the great convert who pro- 
 claimed that " in Christ there was neither Greek nor 
 Jew." It might be well, indeed, if we would take 
 to heart some words of his own, and not forget that 
 "branches of the wild olive," which have been 
 
 1 " A Gospel designed for the pions Israelite, who desired to find 
 in Christianity the perfect flower, of which Judaism was the. root 
 and stem." Trench, Hols. Lect., p. 44. 
 
250 THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 
 
 "grafted into the good olive tree," have reason to 
 "fear lest they should be broken off" in requital of 
 a faithless self-reliance. 1 We know, of course, that 
 there was in the very coi*e of Christ's own teaching 
 a certain principle which had to grow, which was not 
 apprehended until a series of events had revealed its 
 vast importance, and for the expression of which He 
 chose, as His chief instrument, the man to whom, for 
 that high purpose, He vouchsafed to speak amid a 
 blaze of light from heaven. We know, in fact, that 
 Paul was — not, as some have fancied, the superseder, 
 but — on this subject of free and comprehensive grace, 
 the special interpreter of Jesus. At the same time, if 
 we wish to estimate those elements of the old Hebrew 
 Christianity, which are of permanent value for all 
 Christians of all time, the first Gospel will, of course, 
 be full of instruction for this end; especially when 
 compared with that other book of Christian Scripture, 
 which most nearly resembles it in tone, the Epistle 
 of St. James, " the Lord's brother " or near kinsman, 
 but yet more thankful to be " the servant " of Him 
 whom he describes by a title which could not have 
 been used by any Ebionitish denier of His Divine 
 pre-existence, — " our Lord of glory." 2 
 
 1 Rom. xi. 17-22. 
 
 * Cp. Schaff, Hist, of Apostolic Christianity, ii. 515, ff. In p. C18 
 he calls St. Matthew's " the didactic GospeL,'' 
 
THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 25 I 
 
 This " pastoral," addressed by him who acted as 
 Bishop in the city which Jesus had so deeply loved 
 to the whole body of Israelites who confessed Him as 
 their Messiah, should be read along with that great 
 collection of His words which we call the Sermon on 
 the Mount, and which forms, so to speak, the ethical 
 centre of the first Gospel. They fit well in with each 
 other : the voice of the Lord is echoed by the voice of 
 His servant. He is uttering, you remember, the laws 
 of the new Kingdom : His emphatic " i" say unto you," 
 announces the authority with which He speaks. He 
 begins by describing the qualities of character required 
 in those whom He and His Father can bless ; He goes 
 on to insist on real efforts after goodness in all its 
 forms, on active and single-hearted charity, on the 
 spiritual efficacy of true prayer, on pure simplicity 
 of aim, on humility and sincerity, on active and not 
 merely verbal obedience to " the will of the Father ; " 
 and He concludes with a piercing contrast between the 
 man of words and feelings, who " builds the house " 
 of his inward life " on the sand," and the man of 
 deeds, who can feel a " rock " beneath his feet. He 
 speaks throughout as a Lawgiver ; the law of His 
 Kingdom is a spiritual expansion, and, as He says, 
 a " fulfilment " of the old Law ; it is a Law, but a 
 law "written in the heart;" and thus, as the Psalmist 
 
252 THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 
 
 has it, a " law present within the heart," to which the 
 soul goes forth responsively ; which psalmists, again, 
 might speak of as a thing to love and rejoice in, a 
 commandment refreshing, inspiriting, " giving light to 
 the 'inward' eyes," — as St. John says, with a sort of 
 gentle irony, " not grievous," — no, far from that, when 
 taken hold of, as it were, by the right end. 
 
 And the same idea of duty to be welcomed, of 
 loyalty to be shown by conduct, pervades the Epistle 
 no less than the Sermon. Christians are bound to 
 obey " the royal law," the law of the heavenly King ; 
 and, if they " look fixedly at it," they will find it a 
 "law of liberty." But they must "mean work;" 
 the belief which they hold, and rightly hold, — their 
 orthodox conviction, as we might call it, — must be 
 made living by action taking the form of faithful 
 obedience. Apart from such action, it is " dead." 
 Feeling, and thinking, and talking, — yes, and criti- 
 cising others, — will never serve as substitutes for 
 doing. " Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers 
 only, deceiving your own selves." How real a 
 preacher he is ! how he persists in going to the very 
 heart of what is practical ! how austerely, though in 
 love, he sweeps away the excuses which blind men 
 to a sense of their own responsibilities, and points to 
 the absolute certainty, the possible speedy approach, 
 
THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 253 
 
 of death and of judgment ! He puts his finger on 
 moral unreality in all its forms; he condemns a 
 vulgar "respect of persons," a halving of obedience, 
 bitter jealousy, fierce partisanship ; he insists on the 
 government of the tongue ; he brings the thought of 
 the Lord's presence to bear on all the homeliest 
 details of life. Herein we observe the solemn awe 
 with which the pious Hebrew contemplates human 
 life as overshadowed by the presence of the Most 
 High God ; so that reverence was, with him, a 
 religious first-principle, and St. Luke could fitly 
 describe men of his spirit by a name 1 which pictures 
 the careful handling of sacred things. 
 
 One might carry out yet further the parallel 
 between the Sermon and the Epistle, especially on 
 such points as prayer, and kindness, and the bridling 
 of unruly tongues, and reliance on the changeless 
 goodness of the Father ; but I would rather ask 
 you to do this for yourselves, and, just now, to 
 gather from both books this one far-reaching lesson, 
 — that our estimate of grace, and of faith, however 
 conformable to St. Paul's inspired teaching, must not 
 for a moment obscure our sense of moral oblio-a- 
 tion, as being, in his own words, "not without law 
 to God, but under law to Christ." A "law of real 
 
 1 'EiM.a/8e?s. Cp. Trench on N. T. Synonyms, i. 39, 197. 
 
254 THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 
 
 liberty," as we have seen ; a " law of the Spirit of life," 
 a " law of Christ," a " law of faith," as St. Paul 
 elsewhere describes it; but still, binding upon us, 
 although even those who best observe it must come 
 short of completeness, and all must look, for the 
 meritorious cause of their acceptance, to the Passion 
 and Death of the perfect Son of Man. This being 
 understood, we see that as we are, at once, children 
 of a Parent and servants of a King, — of Him whose 
 " servants shall serve Him," in the courts of heaven 
 itself, through all eternity, — so the commandments 
 which He has laid upon us are not, for us, external 
 voices, awakening no reply from our affections, or 
 even provoking a resistance which tends to moral 
 death ; but they are " laws written in the heart," 
 understood by souls in sympathy with their Author, 
 accepted as the very conditions of " perfect freedom," 
 and therefore to be obeyed in the power of the life- 
 giving Spirit. This is the very contrast which St. 
 Paul draws between " law " in the sense of a series 
 of prohibitions, apart from the gift of grace and the 
 principle of filial love, and " law " as a claim founded 
 on our relation to a Father, a Redeemer, and a 
 Sanctifier, — between the letter which killeth, and the 
 spirit which giveth life. 1 
 
 1 See St. Augustine, de Spir. et Litt. s. 22-26 ; Adam of St. 
 Victor in Trench's Sacred Laiin Poetry, p. 158 ; W. H. Mill, Univ. 
 Serin., p. 359. 
 
THE KING'S LAW IN THE HEART. 255 
 
 Let us never be led astray by the imagination that, 
 as Christians, we have outgrown the principle of the 
 moral law. We never can get beyond it, for it grows 
 out of our relation to God and to each other ; our 
 happiness and our wisdom lie in accepting it, as 
 " freeing us from the law of sin and death," from the 
 principle of moral declension. We must have one law 
 or the other : let us take up the easy yoke of that 
 Master of loyal souls, whose government is the 
 effectual touch of His love. In all the details of 
 everyday life we can, if we try, find occasions for 
 serving and pleasing Him, — in St. Peter's words, for 
 " sanctifying Him in our hearts as Lord :" 1 if we will 
 but strive for this, He will reckon it as the love by 
 which faith works, and by which " the requirement 
 of the law " may be " fulfilled ; " and thus if, before 
 every choice or act, we place ourselves in His hands, 
 ask for His guidance and His help, and will, in good 
 earnest, to do just what He would have us to do, and 
 never even in thought to do otherwise, we shall be 
 giving full force to the prayer so frequently uttered, 
 "Write all Thy laws in our hearts, O Lord, we 
 beseech Thee." 
 
 1 1 Pet. iii. 15, R.V. ; o». Liddon, Bamp. Lecfc., p. 299. 
 
SERMON XXX. 
 
 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
 Churches." — Rev. ii. 7. 
 
 One could wish that these two chapters had been 
 secured for reading in our Sunday services as such, 
 so that ordinary churchgoers might be stimulated to 
 study them at home. In default of such an arrange- 
 ment, those who are not yet familiar with them 
 would do well to go through them, let us say, on so 
 many Sunday evenings, — taking each in its order for 
 one Sunday, and thinking it carefully over when 
 thus read. And however often we may read them, 
 we shall always be conscious of their singular and 
 imperishable charm. We shall feel what a splendour 
 is shed over them at the outset, by that august vision 
 of the Living One who was dead ; we shall be awed 
 by the majesty of those titles of His, with which they 
 severally open, and attracted by the richness of those 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 2 57 
 
 promises of His, with which they severally conclude. 
 The blessings pronounced on spiritual energy, on "love 
 and faith, and service and patience," and the " little 
 strength that keeps the word," the assurances of 
 rewards to those who overcome, have been inspiriting 
 and uplifting forces in every stage of Christian 
 experience ; and their power is as fresh as it was when 
 St. John returned from his exile. But, beyond this, 
 we shall find in these brief passages what, in one 
 sense, brings us yet nearer to our Lord than even His 
 discourses in the Gospels: for here we have utterances 
 of His mind and will coming straight down from 
 that condition of glory, in which, ever since He 
 ascended thither, He has been pleading for, and 
 watching over, and scrutinising thoroughly, all 
 Churches and all Christians. The Voice which we 
 hear does not come from Galilee or Jerusalem, but 
 from that heavenly throne before which we stand 
 every day and all day long, throughout our trial-time 
 on earth, in the changeless light of the countenance 
 of the Most High. 
 
 " The seven candlesticks " amid which our Lord 
 stood in the vision are, as He Himself explained, 
 symbols of these seven Asiatic churches; and the 
 " seven stars in His right hand " signified the Angels 
 of those churches. But who are the Angels ? The 
 
 S 
 
258 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 word cannot well be here used of an angelic patron 
 or guardian ; for the " Angel " is evidently addressed 
 as dwelling in his church, and as of like passions 
 with it, so that he can fitly represent it, and be 
 praised or blamed in reference to its condition. To 
 idealise the " Angel " as a symbol of the moral 
 condition or tendency characteristic of each several 
 church, would compel us to treat lukewarmness or 
 spiritual deadness as a star in our Lord's right hand. 
 On the other hand, the interpretation of " the Angel " 
 as " the collective body of presbyters " is so harsh and 
 forced, that it could hardly have occurred to any one 
 except in a controversial interest. 1 The simple view 
 that the Angel means the chief pastor of each church, 
 — the person, for instance, at Ephesus, who stood in 
 the place of St. Timothy, — appears to fit the whole 
 case ; 2 and it is exactly consistent with the tone of the 
 Apocalypse, which regards the earthly Church as in 
 direct union with the heavenly, that the officer whom 
 we should call the Bishop should be described under 
 the image of a messenger from above. Of the seven 
 churches, two are praised without any qualification : 
 
 1 The notion that the " church," e.g., of Ephesus was a single 
 " congregation " under a single presbyter, described here as an 
 "angel," is incompatible with Acts xx. 17. 
 
 • See " Speaker's Commentary," in loc. ; Trench on Epist. to 
 Seven Churches, p. 48. 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 2 $9 
 
 three are praised 011 the whole, but fault is found on 
 this or that head : a sixth is described as having but 
 a few good members : a seventh incurs a rebuke 
 unrelieved in its awful severity. Now, although it 
 would be more comfortable to dwell on our Lord's 
 words of encouragement and commendation, we may, 
 at least in the first instance, profit more by observing 
 the faults which, for love's sake, He censures. We 
 shall find four types or kinds of delinquency, thus 
 brought out under "the eyes that are as a flame of 
 fire," the eyes of the " Searcher of reins and hearts : " 
 and although the special forms of these faults would 
 be more or less coloured by the circumstances of that 
 time, it is obvious that, in their essence, they are such 
 as beset Christians in all ages. They are recorded in 
 a book which speaks ultimately to all Christians ; 
 they are "written for our admonition, upon whom the 
 ends of the world are come." 
 
 (1) Let us look at the case of the Church of 
 Ephesus. It is highly commended : St. Paul had 
 formerly exhorted its assembled presbyters to watch 
 against " perverse teachers," 1 and had afterwards left 
 St. Timothy at Ephesus with a special charge to 
 " hold fast the model of sound words, to reprove, 
 rebuke, exhort, to watch, to fight the good fight, to 
 
 1 Acts xi. 30. 
 
260 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 endure hardness as Christ's good soldier." 1 And the 
 Ephesian Church, under this teaching, had been 
 active, laborious, self-sacrificing, unwearied in the 
 cause of Christianity, zealous against "those who 
 were evil," keen-sighted in detecting Antinomian 
 impostors who "called themselves apostles, and were 
 not." 2 Strictness, orthodoxy, energy, — all these the 
 Church of Ephesus, and its Angel, had exhibited on 
 an ample scale ; and of these our Lord says, " I know 
 thy works." What was there, then, to be set against 
 this excellence ? Our Version makes our Lord say, 
 " Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee ; " — as if 
 the "somewhat" were not much. But it should be 
 " I have this against thee ; " and the thing which He 
 proceeds to specify is a grave matter indeed : " Thou 
 hast left thy first love," meaning, apparently, "thy 
 first love for Me, and for My Father ; " for the words 
 are clearly based on that pathetic remonstrance sent 
 to Judah through Jeremiah, " I remember thee, the 
 kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals ; " 3 
 as if to say, " Where is that love now ? why is that 
 kindness now chilled ? " Observe, — the fault is nol 
 tliis, that the first emotions of a soul converted to 
 God, as we say, — the warm passionate feelings which 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 13 ; iv. 2, 5 ; 1 Tim. vi. 12 ; 2 Tim. ii. 3. 
 * Eev. ii. 2, ft » Jer. ii. 2. 
 
WARXIXGS FROM THE SEVEX CHURCHES. 
 
 26l 
 
 belong to " the beginnings of obedience," 1 — pass away 
 in course of time : no, they are meant to " give an 
 impulse that may carry the soul over its first ob- 
 stacles," and then they have done their work. The 
 fault is this, that these feelings have not been con- 
 solidated, as it were, into active principles; and 
 therefore that love which should be a steadfast habit 
 of practical devotion and single-hearted loyalty to a 
 Divine Friend, as the supreme Object of the soul's 
 affections, is sought for, and is not found. In this 
 most serious sense, it is written, " Thou hast left thy 
 first love." And this is, as our Lord says, a fall, which 
 needs repentance and return to the first works. Do 
 we not see here how easy it is for persons to be 
 zealous in their orthodoxy, and, beside this, ready to 
 spend and be spent in the work of the Church and 
 of religion, while yet their very activity in these 
 interests, excellent as it is, may blind them to the 
 fact that their love to Christ, as to a living and 
 personal Lord and Saviour, is waxing cold, — that He 
 does not reign in their hearts ? 
 
 (2) The character of the two Churches of Pergamum 
 and Thyatira is practically one and the same. Both 
 are praised, — the one for holding fast the faith in 
 specially trying circumstances, the other for charity, 
 
 1 Newman, Sermons, i. 115. 
 
262 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 and service, and faith, and patience, and good works 
 increasing as time went on. 1 And they have one and 
 the same fault, which is just the opposite to that of 
 the Church of Ephesus ; " I have a few things against 
 thee," or, " I have this against thee," says our Lord, 2 
 referring to a deficiency of zeal against teachers who 
 relaxed the Christian standard on questions of moral 
 conduct, thereby imitating, though unconsciously, him 
 who would not venture to curse Israel, but would 
 seduce them into heathenish impurity, or that wicked 
 queen of Ahab who made Baal-worship fashionable, 3 — 
 and verifying, as against themselves, the stern words 
 of St. Peter against those who "promised liberty" while 
 they were but the "slaves of corruption." These 
 Churches, and their Angels, did not themselves adopt, 
 but did not strenuously "hate" errors of this kind. 
 They ought to have testified boldly against such base 
 perversions of the idea of freedom ; to have said, in 
 effect, what a great English poet said long afterwards — 
 
 " License they mean when they cry Liberty, 
 For who loves that, must first be wise and good." 
 
 And is there no warning here for us English Chris- 
 tians ? The influences of our time are not very 
 favourable to that sort of zeal which firmly upholds 
 
 1 Rev. ii. 13, 19. 2 Kev. ii. 14, 20. 
 
 * Rev. ii. 20 probably refers to a living female exponent of anti- 
 nomian Gnosticism. 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 263 
 
 religious restraints. Public opinion would, of course, 
 condemn any flagrant patronage of immoral freedom 
 among Christians ; but, short of this, do we not see 
 around us indications of a temper which, to say the 
 least, requires to be watched by all who would 
 remember that freedom is perfected in the service of 
 God ? Popular writers have often been eloquent in 
 praise of the genial aspects of Christianity ; but have 
 they cared to remember that, as centred in the 
 Cross, it has also a stricter side ? Among those, too, 
 who are vehement against a Puritanic Sabbath-keep- 
 ing, one may fear that there are some who revolt 
 against that old and good principle of English Church- 
 men's family life, whereby some kinds of occupation 
 or of amusement are ruled to be unfitting and wroncr 
 on the Lord's Day. Assuredly we shall do well to 
 be on our guard, not only against a zeal which 
 forgets charity, but against a want of zeal which 
 means a want of faithfulness. Let us beware of a 
 secularised Christianity. 1 It may be, for a while, 
 popular ; but we are not to make religion attractive 
 by any method which may seem for the moment 
 promising; our duty is to be faithful witnesses, to 
 speak the truth in love. They " that love the Lord " 
 are as much bound as in the days of Psalmists to 
 1 See Newman, Serin, i. 312, ff. 
 
264 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 "hate the thing that is evil." He in whom, of all the 
 servants of Christ, love to God and man was most 
 eminently embodied, — he who saw the Patmos-vision, 
 and was commanded to write on Christ's behalf to 
 the Seven Churches, — he has said of all that mass 
 of social opinions, aims, habits, which refuses to be 
 subject to the law of God and the mind of Christ, 
 " If any man love the world, the love of the Father 
 is not in him ; " and has pointed out the principle of 
 " victory over the world " as consisting in a faith 
 which is inseparable from purity, and a love which 
 " keeps the commandments." 1 
 
 (3) There remain two other warnings to be derived 
 from the messages conveyed in the third chapter — 
 warnings of a yet severer kind, although in each case 
 it is . indicated that the ground which has been lost 
 may be surely, if laboriously, regained. Of both the 
 churches in question it has been observed 2 that they 
 appear to be free from adversaries without, and from 
 false teachers within ; but this immunity is far from 
 keeping them right. What, then, shall we say of the 
 fault found with the Church of Sardis ? It is described 
 in language somewhat indistinct ; but the vajmeness, 
 
 OO ' CD 7 
 
 in itself, is perhaps the more awe-striking. " I know 
 
 1 1 John ii. 15 ; v. 3-5. 
 
 * Trench on Epistles to Seven Chnrrhes, p. 149. 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 26$ 
 
 thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, 
 and art dead. Become watchful, and strengthen the 
 things " — meaning, it seems, the persons — " which 
 remain, which are going to die," or, " were at the point 
 of death. For I have not found thy works fully 
 done before God. 1 Remember how thou hast received 
 and heard." Then again, "Thou hast a few names 
 even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments ; 
 and they shall walk with Me in white : for they are 
 worthy." What do we gather from all this ? At any 
 rate, a combination of fair religious credit with a 
 grievous lack of religious vitality. This Christian 
 society had begun its course really well, and even 
 now it stands well in the opinion of its fellows ; it is 
 thought to be in a real sense " living." But He that 
 looks below the outward appearance sees all too 
 clearly that this show of life is hollow, that it has 
 fallen from the purity and simplicity of its earlier 
 faith. Now, it is, in the words of the old Greek poet, 
 " A fair outside with festering ills below;" 2 and the 
 allusion to those few who " have not defiled their gar- 
 ments " may indicate that an infection of unchristian 
 laxity had told largely, and all but fatally, on the 
 spiritual life of those Christians in Sardis who were 
 
 1 Or, " have found no works of thine . . . before my God," R.V. 
 
 2 Soph. (Ed. Tyr. 1396. 
 
266 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 not included among the few. Perhaps it will be 
 asked, " Why, then, does our Lord in one sentence 
 say, ' I have not found thy works fully accomplished,' 
 if He really perceived in the character of this Church 
 a condition so positively evil ? " The answer would 
 be, that here we have a sample of that solemn Scrip- 
 tural irony, whereby the true amount of evil in man 
 is sometimes understated, in order to bring home to 
 the human conscience what else has to be said, — what 
 is left for that conscience to do, in the way of filling 
 up the outline. Of Solomon in his fall it is written, 
 " His heart was not perfect with the Lord his God." 
 "No, indeed," we say, "very far from it:" and so here, 
 Christians who held " the form of godliness," but had, 
 in effect, made themselves alien from its "power," 
 are depicted, in this one sentence, as coming far short 
 of complete obedience; and the very guardedness of 
 this one rebuke, from the lips of that Judge who 
 alone is perfect in equity, seems the rather to enhance 
 one's estimate of the woeful deficiency. 
 
 To us, then, assuredly, the case of this Sardian 
 Church is eloquent on the imperative need of vigi- 
 lance against sins which do not affect our standing 
 before others, — which are consistent with our having 
 religiously a name that we live. " O cleanse Thou 
 me from my secret faults I " should be the urgent 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 267 
 
 prayer of one who desires to escape this censure. 
 "Do not leave me to myself, or to the good opinion 
 of my friends ; show me where I am intrinsically 
 wrong, and put me right, by whatever means, right 
 with Thee, down to the very roots of my inward 
 being, — Thou that desirest to find, and art so merci- 
 fully willing to create, truth in the inward parts, 
 who art so willing to call a heart perfect when by 
 Thy help it becomes upright and single. Help me to 
 remember," — let the soul add with all earnestness, — 
 " how I have received and heard, to hold fast, and 
 repent ; that what in me was dead or dying may 
 rise again to a fresh life, and my name may not be 
 blotted out of the book of life, but confessed, after 
 all, before the Father and His angels, when Thou 
 comest to judge the secrets of men." 
 
 (4) Last of all, we come to a case perhaps more 
 familiar than any of the others in this series. The 
 Church of Laodicea is a proverb for lukewarmness. 
 The awful words in which our Lord conveys His 
 rebuke to it have sunk deep into the heart of 
 Christendom. "I know thy works, that thou art 
 neither cold nor hot : I would thou wert cold or hot. 
 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold 
 or hot, — I am about" — the strong image used is one of 
 intensest loathing. But why should He say He would 
 
268 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 prefer to have them "either cold or hot"? The hot, of 
 course, are the fervent in faith ; He might well wish 
 them to be kindled with that fire. But the cold — 
 who are they ? It would seem that they are souls 
 as yet external to the influences of the Gospel : " un- 
 touched," as an excellent commentator words it, " by 
 the powers of grace." 1 Such, he adds, were the publi- 
 cans and the harlots, who had not wasted grace, 
 because it had not been theirs to trifle with. Such, 
 says an old Christian writer, 2 who was fired with 
 indignation at the bad lives of professing Christians, 
 were the heathens who stood outside, cold because 
 ignorant. There was hope of them, — that when they 
 should hear the word of life, they would welcome it, 
 as the first word from God that had ever sounded in 
 their ears, and wakened in their hearts a fresh sense of 
 glorious possibilities: — "What must I do to be saved?" 
 But the Christian who is not of this class, and yet is 
 not warmed and enkindled by the Religion which he 
 calls his own ; he who has, from earliest years, heard 
 all that can be told him about Christ, has " tasted the 
 good word of God," and lived within access to all 
 
 1 Trench on Epistles to Seven Churches, p. 185. 
 
 * Salvian, de Gnb. Dei, iv. 19. So Jeremy Taylor, Serm. 13, part 
 2, that although a lukewarm Christian is " absolutely nearer the 
 Kingdom of God than he that is not yet set out, yet accidentally 
 ... he is worse, in greater danger," etc. 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 2C9 
 
 the means of salvation, and yet is not in earnest, — 
 what is to be said or hoped of him ? The grandeur 
 and loveliness of the Creed which he professes, the 
 vastness of the truths which it reveals, the views 
 which it opens of the meaning of life and death, as 
 seen in the light of the Passion and Resurrection, — 
 these things do not really move him. He will own 
 them to be real, will say they must by all means be 
 held fast ; but his deepest interest is not in them. 
 It was said of old as to the Christians amid a heathen 
 society, that "they, as if by a law of their being, 
 craved for the Truth, and maintained it entire, as 
 men who cared for their own salvation." 1 Here is 
 the point: your lukewarm Christian does not care. 
 He will repeat any orthodox formula, — will attend 
 punctually on Christian ordinances, — will, perhaps, 
 give a good deal of thought to Church affairs, or, 
 perhaps, to details of ceremonial observance, or even 
 to questions of theology, — and be well content with 
 himself on that score ; but, after all, it is surface-work 
 with him, he has no true idea of striving to enter in at 
 
 1 Tertnll. Apol. 46. Compare St. Bernard, Serm. 3 on the 
 Ascension, c. 7, that " lukewarmnesa arises from the fact that 
 men's will is not yet cleansed, they do not wiah for good in propor- 
 tion to their knowledge of it, being drawn aside by earthly desire ; 
 so that they rarely direct their affections towards God, and their 
 compunction is not continuous, but a matter of an hour, or, more 
 truly, of a moment." Cp. Iinit. Chr. i. 11. 
 
270 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 the strait gate. He takes the things of the soul, and 
 of the eternal future, much too easily ; and therefore 
 his whole religious life, if one can call it so, is a sham, 
 — an odious sham in the pure eyes of Heaven, — while 
 yet, as our Lord proceeds to say, he thinks he is rich 
 and increased with goods, and has need of nothing, 
 and knows not that he is " the wretched and pitiable 
 one, and poor and blind and naked." Do you ask 
 why, amid his habitual apathy, he fancies liimself to 
 be in so hopeful a state ? Is not this the answer, — 
 that the immense, the terrible incongruity between 
 such a fact as the Christian Faith, and such a fact as 
 a languid and spiritless adhesion to it, puts all the 
 spiritual faculties out of gear ? One who is in this 
 state cannot see things as they are ; he becomes the 
 victim of any form of self-deceit; that which best feeds 
 his self-complacency, and fools him most completely 
 with the Pharisee's dream of being all that he ought 
 to be, and better than other men are, will hold him 
 most absolutely in its power, and blind him most 
 fatally to all that he should see, for his own soul's 
 sake, as to himself and God. Want of earnestness 
 means incapacity for the Truth ; and very hard it is, 
 in such a case, for the man to be roused from his gross 
 insensibility, and shamed into confessing, honestly 
 and humbly, how much he wants of the gold, and 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 2" I 
 
 the white raiment, and the eye-salve, which he may- 
 even yet buy of the Faithful Witness at the cost of 
 self -renouncing prayer. 
 
 Brethren, it is only too easy for us, amid our 
 atmosphere of comforts, to become lukewarm while 
 we think we are good Christians. Many English 
 people make a sort of god of their respectability, 
 especially when they can deck it in a Christian 
 garb; when they are church-goers, and perhaps 
 communicants, and would say, if asked, that they 
 thought themselves on the straight road to Heaven. 
 They have a Pharisaism of their own, while they 
 think the ancient Pharisaism alike shocking and 
 contemptible. They do not examine their own souls ; 
 they do not face their real condition ; they keep 
 searching thoughts about sin and judgment at arm's 
 length; they apply hard words, perhaps, to those 
 who treat God's Kingdom as a reality ; they have 
 subsided into a conventional relisnon: "and what will 
 
 O 
 
 they do in the end thereof ? " 
 
 One word more, for our comfort if we have ears to 
 hear, — if, having heard, we mean to profit. How 
 marvellously varied, how rich and versatile in its 
 aspects of gracious activity, is that presentation of 
 our Divine Redeemer's love, which relieves the austerity 
 of rebuke even in this seventh epistle, and there, 
 
272 WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 perhaps, more winningly than in any of the rest ! 
 It was much to say to a struggling Church that He 
 knew all its difficulties, how it dwelt even where 
 Satan's throne was, — as He might say in spirit to some 
 young servant of His who was striving to live purely 
 and devoutly amid godless fellow-workmen or un- 
 believing fellow-students ; it was much to take full 
 account of the "little strength," — nothing very heroic, 
 but still genuine and faithful, of those who had not 
 denied His Name ; but what was it to say even to 
 the lukewarm and the slothful, " As many as I love, 
 I rebuke and chasten," — and then, " Behold, I stand 
 at the door, and knock : if any man hear My voice 
 and open the door, I will come in to him, and will 
 sup with him, and he with Me " ? Do we not under- 
 stand something of that which is contained in these 
 deeply pathetic words ? When we have been drifting 
 into a fatal self -contentment, or pleasing ourselves 
 with a religiousness which is but sentimental and 
 unreal, we have sometimes been reminded by a casual 
 word, by a movement of feeling or thought, perhaps 
 by a sentence in a book, that this will not do, — that 
 if God and Christ are realities, we ought to be 
 different from what we are ; and this sudden flash of 
 conviction, this impulse towards a worthier life, what 
 are they but the tokens of One who stands at the 
 
WARNINGS FROM THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 273 
 
 door and knocks ? He stands there at this very- 
 moment ; He knocks, He speaks, He begs us to open 
 the door and let Him in. Assuredly our duty and 
 our happiness consist in throwing it wide as with 
 both hands, and praying Him to enter and take 
 supreme possession of the being which is His by the 
 rights of a Creator and Redeemer. And for those 
 who persevere in thus responding to His grace, He 
 reserves, in spite of all their former unfaithfulness, 
 the benediction ensured to a Philadelphia or a 
 Smyrna; Laodicea herself, if she is zealous and 
 repents, will be reckoned among those who "over- 
 come." 
 
 T 
 
SERMON XXXI. 
 
 FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 "Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, 
 until I went into the sanctuary of God. ... It is good for me to hold 
 me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God."-«-Ps. lxxiii. 15, 16, 
 27 (P.B.V.). 
 
 We sometimes hear persons talk of "favourite psalms," 
 as they do of favourite hymns or favourite collects. 
 The phrase, if looked at strictly, is hardly consistent 
 with that reverence which shrinks from even seeming 
 to patronise the word which cometh from the Lord. 
 But what is meant, of course, is that certain passages, 
 as in other books of Scripture, so in that wonderful 
 " book of sacred poetry which has nothing like it, or 
 second to it," 1 do come specially home to this or that 
 soul, and concentrate, for it, what Keble has said 
 generally of the " eye of God's Word " as " where'er 
 we turn, ever upon us." 2 They seem to single us 
 
 1 Church, Gifts of Civilisation, etc., p. 391. 
 
 2 Christian Year, St. Bartholomew. 
 
FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 27 S 
 
 out individually ; in one expressive phrase, they 
 " find us ; " in their voices we hear a significant 
 undertone, "I have an errand unto thee." Various 
 psalms will probably occur to us as likely, in various 
 ways, to speak thus emphatically to the heart. The 
 twenty-third, the fifty-first, the eighty-fourth, the 
 hundred and third, the hundred and thirtieth, or the 
 hundred and forty-fifth, are but a few of the many 
 which, as they come round in their course, are 
 welcomed as " dear familiar strains," which have 
 helped the worshipper just where he most needed 
 help, given him words which exactly suited his case, 
 and verified for him that deep experience of St. 
 Athanasius — " In this book I find delineated the 
 whole life of men, their dispositions of soul and 
 movements of thought." 1 
 
 And some of us, I think, must associate the four- 
 teenth day of the month with the exquisite rhythm 
 of that sweet, tranquillising, sustaining assurance 
 which breathes in the opening of its first evening 
 psalm, " Truly God is loving unto Israel, even unto 
 such as are of a clean heart," followed as it is by a 
 record of the stormy passage which had led the 
 Psalmist to that " desired haven." " Nevertheless 
 my feet were almost gone, my treadings " — at one 
 
 1 Athan. Epist. ad Marccll., 30. 
 
3/6 FAITITS RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 time — "had wellnigh slipped." It is the picture of 
 a severe internal trial ; and this, it has been said, 
 gives to the psalm "an increasing religious import- 
 ance as the world grows older." 1 We are apt some- 
 times to assume that the Biblical servants of God 
 were exempt from all such troubles ; that faith cost 
 them no effort; that they spent all their days in a 
 cloudless consciousness of the Divine presence ever 
 at hand ; that they never had to face doubts, or 
 ponder urgent spiritual questions. Whole books of 
 Scripture, if we think, will show us that this was not 
 so ; not to speak of Job or of " the Preacher," the 
 most sensitive of the prophets was for a time 
 bewildered with the tremendous obscurities which 
 appeared to veil the righteousness of God's universal 
 government : that it was, somehow, all righteous he 
 felt certain ; yet, as if to ease a bursting heart, he 
 craved leave to " reason " with the Eternal : " Where- 
 fore doth the way of the wicked prosper ? " 2 And 
 the last of " the goodly fellowship " had to deal witli 
 men who bitterly complained that it was " vain to 
 serve God, and keep His ordinance," while those who 
 tried His patience by pride or by wickedness did yet 
 so conspicuously get their way in this world. 3 And 
 
 1 A. S. Farrar, Bampton Lectures, p. 7. 
 2 Jer. xii. 1. • Mai. iii. 14, 15. 
 
FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 277 
 
 the Psalmist before us, like him who begins his song 
 with " Fret not thyself," has been sorely exercised by 
 this old problem, which would be specially difficult 
 for pious souls which had received no distinct revela- 
 tion as to the future, and were therefore apt to 
 assume that God's justice must assert itself in this 
 life, if it were to assert itself at all. The sight of 
 successful crime had roused in him that passion of 
 wrathful unhappiness which, long afterwards, a 
 master of Greek thought described as "just indigna- 
 tion." 1 Offenders against laws divine and human 
 were yet in the full tide of prosperity. " They come 
 in no misfortune like other folk ; they enjoy more 
 than heart can wish ; their lives are one long 
 arrogant triumph ; they laugh at the idea of God's 
 judgment : and He lets them die without pain, and 
 as they have lived. Why is it — why is it ? " He 
 feels as if he had " cleansed his heart in vain," as if 
 his religion had been all to no purpose. We can 
 imagine the hard struggle in his mind against the 
 impulse to find relief in a wild despairing outbreak ; 
 the grave and faithful self-restraint, which kept him 
 from doing harm to the average run of religious 
 people by venting the doubts from which they were 
 happily free. Those doubts were as yet not really 
 
 1 Arist. Rhet. ii. 9. 
 
278 FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 more than doubts ; a solution was still possible, and 
 we may be sure that he heartily longed to find it ; 
 and he tells us where and how it was found. 
 
 Most pathetic, most instructive, is the simple 
 account of that experience which finally brought 
 him, as " through fire and water, into a wealthy 
 place," where his soul could enjoy repose. " Then 
 thought I to understand this, but it was too hard, too 
 painful, for me, until I went into the sanctuary of 
 God ; then understood I the end of these men." 
 
 Worship, in company with fellow-believers, had at 
 once a quieting and illuminating power ; it freshened 
 and confirmed his sense of a righteousness which 
 was infinite and, in spite of all appearances, supreme ; 
 it furnished him with that sort of evidence which, 
 although partial, served him well at the time, as it 
 had sufficed for that other Psalmist who had "seen 
 the ungodly in great power, but as one passed by, 
 lo ! he was not." After all, wickedness did not really 
 answer; the reign of high-handed sinners was but 
 brief; he saw that in several cases it ended very 
 suddenly, as if by a fall from a lofty precipice. Now 
 he could breathe more freely, and even accuse himself 
 of having been stupid as an animal in vexing himself 
 about an apparent failure of Divine justice, instead 
 of staying his soul on the Most High. For the future 
 
FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 279 
 
 he would know better ; he would cast himself 
 absolutely upon God ; " whom else had he," — whom 
 else could he need to have, in heaven or on earth, as 
 his resource, his strength, his guide, his portion ? 
 In this he rises to a higher level of faith than had 
 been reached by the Psalmist just quoted. He looks 
 not to mere earthly readjustments, but straight to 
 the one satisfaction of man's being. 1 " They that go 
 far from Thee," he cries, " shall perish ; they that 
 are false to Thee shall be uprooted ; for me " — the 
 words are weighted with a new intensity of con- 
 viction — " for me it is good to draw near to God ; I 
 have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell 
 all Thy works," may testify to others of what Thou 
 hast done for me. 
 
 Modern Christians may not often be troubled by 
 the peculiar kind of trial which pressed so hardly on 
 a serious-minded Israelite. But other forms of the 
 same difficulty will be just as perilous to us, if we 
 do not meet them in the right spirit. The presence 
 of evil, moral and physical, in a world which is called 
 God's world, has become increasingly appalling to the 
 imagination, and often increasingly menacing to faith. 
 We are peremptorily told that we are trying in vain 
 to shirk a fact which our theology cannot account 
 
 1 See Bishop Perowne, in loc. 
 
28o FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 for. High ground is taken, and we are summoned 
 in the name of " veracity " to look this terrible 
 phenomenon in the face, and boldly to ask ourselves 
 whether religious belief can stand before it. We are 
 bidden to drop our sham supports, to dispense with 
 " consolations " which are artificial, and to accept, if 
 so it must be, a non-religious view of life, which may 
 be dreary at first sight, but which will approve itself 
 to sincere minds as being true. Of course, this 
 means practical, if not theoretic, atheism ; and we 
 may say with confidence that anything is more 
 probable than atheism for moral and spiritual beings 
 like ourselves. But, short of this extremity, we know 
 that questions which did not greatly, if at all, disturb 
 our fathers are nowadays causing many a foot to 
 slip ; questions raised by science or by criticism, as 
 well as questions growing out of the enormous mass 
 of misery, crime, and ignorance which lies all around 
 us, and seems to contradict our belief in a God who 
 cares for all His creatures, individually as well as 
 collectively. And then, very often when the spirits 
 are depressed, the imagination takes up with un- 
 believing suppositions, gives them a superficial import- 
 ance, and dreamily speculates as to the possibility 
 of their turning out true. There is, all the while, a 
 reserve of real belief in the background ; the man is 
 
FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 28 1 
 
 essentially on the side of faith ; but gloomy ideas, 
 inconsistent with faith, haunt him like sad faces in a 
 dream, and make him ask, in effect, like the solitary 
 Forerunner in his prison, " Art Thou He that should 
 come ? " What if Christianity should have to be 
 given up ? Nay, what if one were really without 
 a God to cling to, when " flesh and heart " and life 
 itself shall " fail " ? 
 
 Whether faith be actually shaken, or whether it 
 be only assailed, let the Psalmist's remedy be tried, 
 but on a sufficiently large scale. " Until I went into 
 the sanctuary of God." How often will it help the 
 troubled soul to do this quite literally ! The worship 
 of the Church of Christ is of itself a witness for 
 Him. It brings us into felt contact with the solidity 
 and the majesty of religion ; it lifts us up into a 
 serene and radiant atmosphere ; it sets in motion a 
 sympathetic force, which can suspend the power of 
 individual misgivings ; it takes us out of ourselves, 
 and reminds us of the Divine facts which are intended 
 to furnish an external ground of belief, independent 
 of our own changeful feelings, and thereby to supply 
 a most real and urgent need. But the Psalmist's 
 phrase has other applications : we do not find our 
 God merely in church. We enter into His sanctuary 
 whenever we exercise that faculty of the spirit which 
 
282 FA 1 TIPS RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 recognises Him as its true Father, as the source of 
 our interior personal life. We enter into His sanctuary 
 whenever we consciously lay ourselves open to those 
 spiritual influences which are thus akin to the deepest 
 elements of our being. We enter into His sanctuary 
 whenever we thus advance from the conviction of 
 our own spiritual personality to the thought of a 
 God, living and moral, who is its source, from whom 
 a further revelation was reasonably to be expected, 
 and who has, according to the creed of Christendom, 
 bestowed this boon in the person of Jesus Christ. 
 We enter into His sanctuary when in the strength of 
 that sovereign conviction, if distinctly called upon to 
 do so, we examine and confront the objections urged 
 against our faith. We enter into His sanctuary 
 whenever we give weight to the testimony borne by 
 the vast and beautiful world of Christian goodness ; 
 by those pious lives and peaceful deaths which could 
 not, we must feel, be dependent on a mere illusion ; 
 by those " greater works " of Christ in the renewal 
 of human character and the transformation of human 
 life, of which His outward healings wrought on the 
 blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers, the very dead, 
 were as shadows cast before. We enter into the very 
 Holy of Holies when we " look away from all else to 
 Jesus," and study that life which is the most per- 
 
FAITFTS RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 283 
 
 suasive of all evidences ; and when, with eyes fixed 
 on it, we earnestly try so to think and speak and act 
 as we believe that He would have us to do. 
 
 "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended, 
 shall not find occasion of stumbling, in Me." Could 
 words more tenderly express what St. Paul calls His 
 " gentleness " or His equity ? 1 He knew that there 
 would be " difficulties;" that faith would have to fight 
 her way through adversaries ; that questions would 
 be pressed to which, in this world, no full reply could 
 be given; that prejudice, misapprehension, or im- 
 patient cravings for " sight " or sensible evidence, 
 would lead many to "go back and walk with Him 
 no more." He knew it, He knows it now. But as 
 then, so now, He is ever ready to hear the honest, 
 not hopeless, petition : " I believe, help Thou mine 
 unbelief." For answer, He points to the open door 
 of His Father's spiritual sanctuary. Let us breathe 
 the air of that solemn precinct, in some one or other 
 of its many chambers, wherein we may be " kept 
 from the strife of tongues," and brace up again the 
 relaxed nerves of our faith ; let us beg Him to 
 attract us by the unexhausted power of His " up- 
 lifting," 2 to unfold to us, as we can bear it, the beauty 
 of His absolute truth and holiness, to guide us, amid 
 1 2 Cor. x. 1. 3 John xii. 32. 
 
284 FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 the bewilderments of this world, by His counsel, and 
 at last to receive us into His glory. 
 
 O well for those to whom at last, after any amount 
 of toil, or weariness, or anxiety, or, perhaps, prolong* d 
 bodily anguish, this comes, this supreme compensation, 
 to be " present, to be at home, with the Lord." ... It 
 has come, we doubt not, within the last few days, 
 to one of whom, just now, it is hard for his friends to 
 speak. Yet something must be said ; one could not 
 quite be silent under the oppressive sorrow of that 
 immense loss which has unexpectedly fallen upon 
 this House, upon Oxford, upon the whole Church of 
 England, upon many who for years have counted his 
 friendship among the chief blessings of this life. 
 Something must be said ; but what ? One cannot, 
 here and now, attempt to dwell on the great career 
 which has so lately closed, in what may be called its 
 public aspects. Of course we remember him as a 
 preacher of supreme excellence, as a constructive 
 Catholic theologian of the first order, as an unwaver- 
 ing defender of the spiritual character of the Church, 
 and of the rights which that character involved. But 
 now, while the grave in his own vast cathedral has 
 not yet opened to receive his corpse, we here in 
 Christ Church may be pardoned if we think rather 
 of the Henry Liddon whom we ourselves have known 
 
FAITITS RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 285 
 
 so long, and have loved so admiringly, and, let me add, 
 so gratefully. We recall the charm of that intense, 
 unique personality, at once so commanding and so 
 attractive ; that conversation, so enriching, so illumi- 
 minating, with its brilliance and its humour, its 
 fulness and energy of thought, its refined and perf ect 
 accuracy of expression ; we think of what he was 
 as a friend, — how tender, helpful, and faithful, how 
 pathetically generous in his estimate of the most 
 trivial kindnesses ; of the pains which he would take 
 in answering questions even when he was wellnigh 
 tired out, — of the sympathy which he would spend 
 on the difficulties or the anxieties of others, — of the 
 exquisite old-world courtesy which flowed forth, 
 simply and without effort, to persons of all sorts and 
 conditions, on the principle of " honour due to all 
 men " 1 for the Son of man's sake. Yes, and we must 
 needs also be mindful of the responsibility incurred 
 by frequent intercourse with one who could always 
 be relied upon as an example of high unselfishness, of 
 absolute superiority to the influences of what St. John 
 calls " the world," which, in the words of this day's 
 Epistle, was " crucified " for him through Christ. Even 
 those who did not always agree with him must always 
 have been sure of him on that point, and would have 
 1 See Lidilon, Univ. Serm. i. 7G ; cp. Adv. Serm. ii. 342. 
 
286 FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 understood him .had they heard him say, as I have 
 heard him say more than once, " Whatever happens, 
 one must keep one's loyalty to our Lord ; to com- 
 promise that would he the worst of all bargains; 
 nothing else will answer in the long run." The fact 
 was that he had his eye fixed, ever more and more 
 steadfastly fixed, on the end of life, on the world 
 unseen, on the judgment to come. Those who 
 know his published Advent Sermons will remember 
 passage after passage, in which the certainty and the 
 significance of death are pressed home on the mind 
 with an austere yet most charitable emphasis. " It 
 is certain," he says, " that we shall die, and in death 
 we shall be, each of us, alone. None other can enter 
 into that tremendous experience which awaits us all. 
 To prepare for death, then, is the true work, the 
 common sense of life." 1 " You do not know how you 
 will die, or when, or where." 2 In words which 
 perhaps were prompted by a well-known poem from 
 the hand of the great Cardinal who passed but 
 shortly before him into the world of spirits, 3 he 
 
 1 i. 82; cp. ii. 387. " ii. 303. 
 
 3 " For now it comes again, 
 That sense of ruin which is worse than pain, 
 That masterful negation and collapse 
 Of all that makes me man," etc. 
 
 Newman, The Dream of Gerontius. 
 
FAITITS RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 287 
 
 proceeds to speak of the " approach, stealthy or rapid, 
 of a sense of internal collapse and ruin," of "the 
 advancing, overwhelming darkness, the felt retreat 
 of life, first from this sense or organ, then from that 
 . . . the last spasm, the last sigh, and then," in " the 
 first five minutes after death," the awful " entrance 
 on a new and wonderful world," involving, "under 
 new conditions, a direct apprehension of God, such as 
 in this life is impossible." 1 
 
 Just a few more words, if you will bear with them. 
 He of whom we are thinking did live, ever more and 
 more consciously, in the presence of God, as it encom- 
 passes and dominates the soul that has learned to 
 behold the glory of the Father in the person of the 
 co-eternal Son, made flesh for us men and for our 
 salvation. Yes, on this " Holy Cross Day," 2 we may 
 well think of him as devoted to the Crucified 
 Redeemer, the infallible, impeccable, adorable Lord 
 Jesus. All his thoughts about religion, including his 
 contention for the Catholic faith as embodied in the 
 creeds of the Church, or for the operations of the 
 Incarnate life, by means of the Holy Spirit, through 
 sacramental ordinances, and ultimately even all the 
 convictions which, as an English Churchman, he held 
 
 1 Adv. Serm.,ii. 69, 76 : cp. ib. 15. 
 
 8 September 14, 1890, Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
288 FAITH'S RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 
 
 so fast, rose up into, and took their force and meaning 
 and sanction from that fact which for him was above 
 all, beneath all, around all — the reality, the presence, 
 the " rights," 1 the character of God as revealed in 
 Christ. " God and the Soul " is the title of the dis- 
 course which stands at the opening of that first 
 volume of his Oxford sermons, which was originally 
 entitled, " Some Words for God." One which I heard 
 him utter from this place, full thirty years ago, con- 
 cludes with an exhortation to rise above the world 
 of sense, to realise " the life of grace," to " pierce the 
 veil by prayer." 2 
 
 Here, then, is at least one lesson which the life of 
 this great Christian enforces on us : " Hold fast," it 
 says, "your religious loyalty to a living God and a 
 personal Christ." And if we could imagine him as 
 speaking to us now from the Paradise where assuredly 
 he sees, in more or less open vision, the Lord to whom 
 he consecrated that rich array of faculties with a 
 single-heartedness so entire and so consistent, we 
 might well suppose him to take up the Psalmist's 
 words, and to assure us that it is good, the truest 
 good, for us to draw near to God, to hold fast by God, 
 
 1 Adv. Serm. ii. 26; Univ. Serm. i. 13. 
 
 1 Univ. Serm. i. 305 (a sermon preached in Oxford Cathedral on 
 Ascension Day, 1860). 
 
FAITITS RESOURCE UNDER TRIAL. 289 
 
 to put our trust in His truth and love, to beg that 
 He will be the strength of our souls and the light of 
 our consciences, will " hold us by our right hand " in 
 our passage through this world, and be our " portion " 
 in life, in death, and for eternity. 
 
 v 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTE OX THE "EXIXAXITIOX" 
 AXD THE ATOXEMEXT. 
 
 Reference has been made in the second of the preceding 
 sermons to the necessity of guarding against an undue 
 extension of what is usually called the Kenosis, or 
 ■" Exinanition " (from the Vulgate of Phil. ii. 7, seme- 
 tipsum exinanivit). And while these pages are passing 
 through the press, I have observed a similar -warning 
 given in some excellent notes on that memorable context, 
 by the Rev. H. C. G. Moule (" The Epistle to the Philip- 
 pians with Introduction and Xotes," in the series called 
 " The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges "). It 
 will be well to quote the following : "Of recent years much 
 has been said upon this great mystery in the direction of 
 proving or suggesting that, during the days of His flesh, 
 the Lord (practically) parted with His Deity, becoming 
 the (Incarnate) Son of God only in His glorification after 
 death. Such a view seems to contravene many plain 
 testimonies of the Gospels, and most of all the pervading 
 tone of the Gospels, as they present to us in the Lord 
 Jesus on earth a Figure meek and lowly indeed, but 
 always infinitely and mysteriously majestic. ... It is 
 enough for us to know that His . . . Exinanition, Keyiosis, 
 was profoundly real ; that He was pleased, as to His holy 
 
THE "EX/NAN7TI0N" AND THE ATONEMENT. 29 1 
 
 manhood, to live in dependence on the Spirit ; while yet 
 we are sure that the inalienable basis of His Personality 
 was always, eternally, presently, Divine." 
 
 Theologians of eminence, ancient and modern, who have 
 firmly grasped this cardinal truth, have yet sometimes 
 spoken as if that of which our Lord " emptied Himself," 
 in the act of " assuming the form of a servant," was " the 
 form of God," fJ.op<f>r) ®eov, and have explained this phrase 
 to mean the Divine glory in its manifestations. But if 
 /j.op<j>r) in the case of the " servant," i.e. of man as the 
 servant of God, is to be carefully distinguished from the 
 o-^/xa in which He was " found as man " according to 
 verse 8, so that the former will mean the essential cha- 
 racter of manhood, or the human mode of existence, and 
 the latter the " outward presentation " of which other 
 men's senses could judge (as Archbishop Trench says in 
 his " Synonyms of the New Testament "), we must surely 
 give to p-opcf>r} ©eoO a sense which will make it practically 
 inseparable from, though not properly identical with, 
 ova-la} Given, then, the doctrine of Christ's Divinity as 
 belonging to, and inhering in, His eternal personality, it 
 must surely appear impossible for Him to lay aside His 
 " essential character " as God, or to suspend His Divine 
 " manner of existence," when He condescended to adopt 
 the " essential character " of humanity or the human 
 "manner of existence." One who is God cannot cease to 
 live as God : we might as well say that He could cease to 
 
 1 St. Hilary's assertion of an "evacnatio forma)" which was not 
 an "abolitio natnras" (de Trin. ix. 14) is accounted for by his identi- 
 fication of " forma " with " habitus." 
 
292 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE ON 
 
 live at all. The higher fiopfaj, in this sense of the term, 
 could not be superseded ; the lower fiop(pi] could but be 
 superadded. The mystery of the Incarnation must in- 
 volve the co-existence, in the Incarnate Christ, of two 
 distinct spheres of action and consciousness ; and if this 
 were not admitted, the gravest consequences would follow 
 iu regard to our idea of the immutability of Godhead, 1 
 and our estimate of the efficacy of that redemptive work 
 which Christ " finished " in the lowest depth of His to.tkC- 
 vcoo-is. As Dean Church has expressed it, the Christ who 
 is presented to us in the Gospel narrative " does what is 
 most human, but lives absolutely in the Divine : " in all 
 His human acts, " He of whom we are reading is yet all 
 the while that which His own words can alone express, 
 ' even the Son of Man, which is in heaven.' " a 
 
 Moreover, the context itself would suggest that as the 
 Son, at the moment of His condescension, was " already 
 existing in the form of God," that of which He " divested 
 Himself" was not that in which He then existed, but the 
 unlimited exercise of the prerogatives attaching to His 
 co-equality. This is further illustrated by the close con- 
 nection between the doctrinal statement as such and the 
 moral exhortation which it is brought in to emphasise. 
 The Apostle is deprecating self-assertion, and enforcing 
 self-forgetfulness. He says in effect, " You must not be 
 always insisting upon your own rights ; you must be ready 
 to waive them in certain circumstances, not having regard, 
 at all costs, to your own interests, but also to the interests 
 
 1 Compare St. Athanasius, ad Epict. 2 ; c. Apoll. i. 3. 
 * The Gifts of Civilisation, etc., p. 92. 
 
THE " EXINA NIT ION " AND THE ATONEMENT. 293. 
 
 of others." He might well say this, who had repeatedly 
 waived his " right " to be maintained by his spiritual 
 children. But he appeals to an infinitely more command- 
 ing, an infinitely more moving precedent. " Is it much 
 to ask this of you, who owe everything to the self-abne- 
 gation of a Redeemer ? Ought you not to be only too 
 thankful for opportunities of doing, in your way, what 
 He did for you in His ? " What He did is thus taken 
 as a pattern for their imitation ; and what they are to 
 do illustrates what He did. They are — not, indeed, to 
 attempt the impossible, to try to sever themselves from 
 what attaches to their own personality, but — to refrain 
 from pressing their rights to the full, when thus to press 
 them would be inconsistent with that "law of kindness " 
 which repeatedly presents itself as a law of self-sacrifice. 
 In this precept, then, we see a reflection of what St. Paul 
 believed Christ to have done by the very fact of becoming 
 man for men's salvation. That fact involved His accept- 
 ance, within the human sphere on which He thereby 
 entered, of restrictions, of subjections, of obscurations, 
 pertaining to the position of a " servant," as distinct from 
 the position of a Son co-equal with the Father. In other 
 words, it involved a " self-divesting " with reference to 
 the "glory" which He might, had he so willed, have 
 retained without qualification or limit. As Man, He 
 willed to live compassed with sinless infirmities, and in 
 dependence, as to His soul's life, on the word, the will, 
 the presence of His Father, — a dependence, be it always 
 remembered, not scenic, but genuine and actual ; but this, 
 when carried to its utmost point, could not require 01 
 
2J4 
 
 ADDITIONAL NO TIL ON 
 
 imply even a temporary abandonment of His properly 
 Divine "manner of existence" outside the lines of His 
 voluntary self-humiliation. 
 
 Expositors are now apparently agreed in treating the 
 clause, ovx apTrayjxov -rjyijcraTO to elvai icra ©eai, as descrip- 
 tive not of the Pre-existence, but of the Condescension. 1 
 The subsequent dAA' is felt to make this necessary. The 
 word dp7rayjaos must therefore be taken not of an act of 
 seizure, but of a thing seized, or to be seized : what, then, 
 is it which is negatived ? On one view, it is primarily, 
 that the co-equality was a thing which our Lord had 
 usurped, and inferential ly, that He could not, therefore, 
 afford to waive it, — that He must, as it were, tenaciously 
 clutch it, and insist upon the unqualified exercise of all 
 that by right it gave Him. Practically, this is the view 
 of St. Chrysostom ; and Dr. Dollinger paraphrases, " He 
 did not look on His equality with God as man jealously 
 watches over property which he has stolen and is always 
 fearing to be deprived of." 2 The other construction 
 makes that primary which the former makes inferential, 
 and renders apirayixov as having a present purport, " a 
 thing to be held fast as it were in a grasp," that is, to be 
 insisted upon to all lengths and without any modification, 
 or, " a means of self-aggrandisement " to be used without 
 regard to others. Either way, there is some inevitable 
 harshness ; but the general result is the same. The Son 
 might have declined to become in any sense " inferior to 
 
 ' It is so understood in the " Letter of the Churches of Vieune 
 and Lyons," Euseb. v. 2. Cp. Origen c. Cels. vi. 15. 
 2 First Age of the Clmreh, E. T., p. 163. 
 
THE "EXINANIT10N" AND THE ATONEMENT. 295 
 
 the Father : " for love of man He did not so decline, but 
 by becoming man became a " servant," and in that capa- 
 city did not display tbe majesty, nor exert all the powers, 
 which belonged to Him inalienably as God. 
 
 The retention by onr Lord, throughout His self-humili- 
 ation, of a real Divine existence and consciousness, along 
 with, and distinct from, the human existence and con- 
 sciousness which He had assumed, is forcibly illustrated 
 by the following extracts from Dr. Dale's excellent treatise 
 on " The Atonement : " — 
 
 " The Divine claims which sin resists, and the Divine 
 rights which sin refuses to acknowledge, are essentially, 
 different from the claims and rights which are in such a 
 sense personal that they can be remitted at pleasure. They 
 are claims and rights which it is morally necessary that 
 God should maintain. . . . God cannot be separated, even 
 in idea, from the law " (i.e. "the eternal law of righteous- 
 ness ") " which has been violated, and which affirms the 
 principle that sin deserves to be punished. Is it necessary, 
 or is it not, that this principle should be asserted, and 
 asserted by God Himself ? If it is not asserted, if it is 
 ignored and suppressed, then the eternal law of righteous- 
 ness can be no longer perfectly identified with the will of 
 God. . . . Such a separation . . . between the ideal law 
 and the Divine will is impossible ; God would cease to be 
 God if His will were not a complete expression of all the 
 contents of the eternal law of righteousness. Is it then 
 inevitable that God should inflict the penalties which sin 
 has deserved ? ... If the punishment of sin is a Divine 
 act, an act in which the identity between the will of God 
 
296 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE ON 
 
 and the eternal law of righteousness is asserted and ex- 
 pressed, it would appear that if in any case the penalties 
 of sin are remitted, some other Divine act of at least equal 
 intensity, and in which the ill desert of sin is expressed 
 with at least equal energy, must take its place . . . some 
 Divine act which shall have all the moral significance of the 
 act by which the penalties of sin would have been inflicted 
 on the sinner. The Christian Atonement is the fulfilment 
 of that necessity. . . . He through whose lips the sentence 
 of the eternal law of righteousness must have come . . . 
 He Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, laid aside His eternal 
 glory, assumed our nature, was forsaken of God, died on 
 the cross, that the sins of men might be remitted. It 
 belonged to Him to assert, by His own act, that suffering 
 is the just result of sin. He asserts it, not by inflicting 
 suffering on the sinner, but by enduring suffering Him- 
 self. . . . The conscience will grasp the assurance that since 
 the Moral Ruler and Judge of the human race has suffered, 
 to whom it belonged to inflict suffering, it must be possible 
 for Him to grant remission of sins/' 
 
 It will be observed that, in the above statement, the 
 " exinanition " is described as referring, not to our Lord's 
 Divine existence as such, but to His Divine " glory," — 
 to that unqualified and absolute manifestation of His 
 intrinsic majesty which would have been continuous but 
 for His Condescension. The whole argument, and the 
 subsequent repulse of the charge of " immorality " as 
 really relevant to a very different hypothesis, implies that 
 Christ, in the garden and on the Cross, existed alike " in 
 the form of God " and in "the form of a servant." If 
 
THE " EX IN A NITION ' ' AND THE ATONEMENT. 297 
 
 He had not a Divine existence when He thus submitted 
 to all the anguish which His human existence had in- 
 volved, He could not have been performing a " Divine 
 act." Further, Dr. Dale argues that whereas man, by 
 sin, had lost his true filial relation to God, its recovery 
 was made possible through the ideal relation of the 
 human race to Christ as the true " Son," 1 and that 
 He, " retaining . . . and revealing . . . the absolute per- 
 fection of His moral life, and the steadfastness of His 
 eternal union with the Father," did in His death, preceded 
 as it was by the " awful experience " of the " dereliction," 
 " express the truth of that relation into which we had come 
 through sin," and " not merely acknowledge that we 
 deserved to suffer " its penalties, but " actually submit to 
 the righteousness of the principle which those penalties 
 express . . . and through our union with Him, His sub- 
 mission renders our submission possible." This brings 
 out the theological significance of that — 
 
 " One word, the Eli twice wailed o'er — 
 "lis anguish, but 'tis something more ; 
 Mysteriously the whole world's sin, 
 His and not His, is blended in : " 2 
 
 and it gives a real and adequate force to the Scriptural 
 assertion that our sins were laid on Christ (compare 1 Pet. 
 ii. 24 with LXX Isa. liii. 11, etc., and see Dale on the 
 
 1 Here, however, some cantion is necessary ; we can hardly infer 
 any special relation of Christ to the human race from the assertion 
 of His general relation to all creation, and His special relation to 
 angels, in Col. i. 15-17. 
 
 1 Bp. Alexander, " St. Augustine's Holiday, and other Poems," 
 p. 85. 
 
298 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTE ON 
 
 Atonement, p. 459, that John i. 29 implies the same idea 
 while emphasising that of the consequent removal of "the 
 burden of sin "). 
 
 It has, then, been truly said that while theN. T. teaching 
 on the efficacy of Christ's Death employs such terms as 
 " ransom," " propitiation," " reconciliation," but does not 
 encourage us to press any one of them as representing the 
 whole truth, nor to put and answer all the questions which 
 they suggest if so treated, it does, in fact, supply us with 
 three grounds, so to speak, for that efficacy : (1) The 
 Divine dignity of the Sufferer's Person, which gave to His 
 human sufferings an infinite merit and value ; (2) the 
 expression in them of the Divine law of righteousness ; (3) 
 His representative relation to the human race as the ideal 
 Man, the One in whom the whole body was appropriately 
 gathered up, so that, in that sense, St. Paul could say 
 that Christ's love acted on him as a constraining motive 
 for entire and loyal devotedness, because he had "attained 
 the conviction that One died for all," and " therefore all 
 died," — that is, all men potentially shared in the effects 
 of His death, which had for its object "that they who 
 live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him 
 who for their sakes died and rose again," — in other words, 
 that they should actually assimilate those effects by a 
 personal self-surrender, involving the realities of separation 
 from sin and of vital conformity to the example and will 
 of Christ. And of these three grounds, the first un- 
 questionably implies the permanence of the fiop^rj ®eov 
 in the suffering and atoning Redeemer ; " He was truly 
 God, but He became as truly man, yet so as not to cease 
 
THE " EX IN A NITION " AND THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 299 
 
 in any respect being what He was before. . . . When He 
 suffered, it was God suffering; not that the Divine 
 Nature itself could suffer, any more than our soul can see 
 or hear; but, as the soul sees and hears through the 
 organs of the body, so God the Son suffered in that 
 human nature which He had taken to Himself and made 
 His own." And therefore " there was a virtue in His 
 death, which there could be in no other, for He was 
 God." 1 
 
 It may be well, perhaps, by way of safeguard against 
 Nestorian or Humanitarian tendencies, to put into more 
 succinct form what seems ascertainable as to the Kenosis. 
 Our Lord's " self-divesting " must have been such, and 
 of such an extent, as was involved in His assumption of 
 " the form of a servant," i.e. of the essential characteristics 
 of humanity, which He could not have assumed if He 
 had " insisted on retaining " without qualification His con- 
 dition of equality with God. But this assumption did 
 not involve any surrender of the character of Godhead ; 
 for such surrender would have been (1) impossible, (2) 
 needless, were it possible, for the purposes of His con- 
 descension, (3) directly adverse to those purposes. 
 What he divested Himself of, then, must have been that 
 unreserved exercise of Divine prerogatives which would 
 be incompatible with the acceptance of the limitations 
 attaching to humanity as He was to assume it. And 
 those limitations must have been such as, while befitting 
 His redemptive self-humiliation, could neither (1) involve 
 His human will in the possibility of a revolt from the 
 1 Newman, Serm. vi. 71. 
 
300 THE " EX IN A N1T10N ' ' AND THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 will of the Father, which was one with His Divine will, 
 nor (2) interfere with the full discharge of His function 
 as the Prophet and Light of the world. In regard to 
 this latter point, His human mind could receive, through 
 ordinary human media, real accessions of knowledge ; 
 even during His ministry He could humanly ask for 
 information on points which in no sense touched His 
 Messianic office ; on the very eve of His glorification, He 
 did not humanly " know " the appointed time of His 
 Second Advent. But it would be a strange inference 
 that, because He was in this sense non-cognisant of some 
 matters on which He did not affirm, He was therefore 
 capable of error, and could mislead His hearers, on other 
 matters on which He did affirm. Whatever He explicitly 
 or implicitly taught, whether as to the kingdom of God, 
 or the will of the Father, or His own unique claims, or 
 the Scriptures which testified of Him, must have been 
 the expression of a knowledge which flooded His mind 
 with Divine light ; He could not, without self-contradic- 
 tion, have been either peccable as Man or fallible as 
 Teacher. 
 
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8 
 
 A CATALOGUE OF WORKS 
 
 Jennings.— ECCLES I A ANGLICANA. A History of the 
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 SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 9 
 
 Lear.— Works by, and Edited by, H. L. Sidney Lear. 
 
 CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES. Crown 8vo. 3 s. 6d. each. 
 
 Madame Louise de France, Daughter of Louis xv., known 
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 Henri Perreyve. By A. Gratry. 
 
 St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and 
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 Fenelon, Archbishop of Cam- 
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 Henri Dominique Lacordaire. 
 
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 from Pascal's 
 
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IO 
 
 A CATALOGUE OF WORKS 
 
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 [continued. 
 
IN THEOLOGICAL LITER A TURE. 
 
 1 1 
 
 Luckock.— Works by Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., 
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 THE DIVINE LITURGY. Being the Order for Holy Communion, 
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12 
 
 A CATALOGUE OF WORKS 
 
 Mozley.— Works by J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ 
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 Newnham. — THE ALL-FATHER : Sermons preached in a 
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 PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Eight Vols. Cabinet Edition. 
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 [continued. 
 
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 13 
 
 Newman.— Works by John Henry Newman, B.D. (Cardinal 
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 [continued. 
 
14 
 
 A CATALOGUE OF WORKS 
 
 Oxenden. — Works by the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden, 
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 MAXIMS AND GLEANINGS FROM THE WRITINGS OF 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 <5 
 
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 Sanday. — THE ORACLES OF GOD : Nine Lectures on the 
 
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 Seebohm.— THE OXFORD REFORMERS— JOHN COLET, 
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 Stephen. — ESSAYS IN ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHY. 
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 Thoughts on the Study of the 
 
 Holy Gospels. 
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 Our Lord's Nativity. 
 Our Lord's MiNiSTRY(Second Year). 
 
 Our Lord's Ministry (Third Year). 
 
 The Holy Week. 
 
 Our Lord's Passion. 
 
 Our Lord's Resurrection. 
 
 [continued. 
 
1 6 
 
 A CATALOGUE OF WORKS. 
 
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