tihvaxy of t^e trheolo^fcd ^cmimvy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of 
 Rev. Robert 0. Kirkwood 
 
 BX 6333 .M365 Y4 1905 
 Maclaren, Alexander, 1826- 
 1910. [ 
 
 A year's ministry i 
 
A YEAR'S MINISTRY 
 
 FIRST SERIES 
 
A YEAR'S MINISlfRY^p 
 
 :j : 'H, 
 
 FIRST SERIES . 
 
 Alexander Maclaren d,d. 
 
 Orir,M 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 1905 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 fKRlfOH PAGE 
 
 L—The Purifying Influence op Hope - - l 
 
 n. — " The Bridal of the Earth and Sky " - - 13 
 m.— The Work and Armour of the Children of 
 
 THE Day 27 
 
 IV. — The Last Beatitude of the Ascended Christ 41 
 
 V. — Luther — a Stone on the Cairn - • - 55 
 VI. — What the World called the Church, and 
 
 What the Church calls Itself - - 69 
 
 VII. — Faith Conquering the World- - - - 83 
 
 VIII.— "In Remembrance of Me" - ... 97 
 
 IX.— How to Sweeten the Life of Great Cities 109 
 
 X.— The Triple Rays which make the White 
 
 Light of Heaven ..... 123 
 
 XI.— The Secret of Gladness . - • • . 137 
 
 Xn. — Thi Lesson of Memory - . • • . 149 
 
 Xni.— Nowl Now!— Not Bv-and-byb ... 163 
 
 XIV. — Salt without Savour - - - . - 177 
 
 XV. — Thb Lamp and thr Bushf(. . • • . 189 
 
 XVL— Man's True Treasure l^ Goo • - * - 203 
 
X^T:I.— QoD*8 True Treasure in Mah - • • •219 
 
 XVIII. The Present and Future Inheritance — God's 
 
 IH Us, AND Ours in God . - - - 281 
 
 XIX.— The Servant of the Lord and His BLBSSiva 245 
 
 XX.— The Gradual Healing of the Blind Mam - 261 
 
 XXI.— The Name above every Name- • • -271 
 
 XXII.— The Son of Man ••--•• 287 
 
 XXIII. — Two Fortresses- •••••• 801 
 
 XXIV.— A Living Sacrifice -•••»• 318 
 XXV.— What Faith makes of Death- • • 827 
 
 XXVI.— How thi Little may bb Used to Gp» mmm 
 
 Great 8W 
 
THE PUEIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. 
 
SERMON L 
 
 THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. 
 
 And erery man that hath thi« hope In Him purifleth himself, eren as He is p«re. 
 1 John iii. 3. 
 
 That is a very remarkable " and " with which this 
 ferse begins. The Apostle has just been touching the 
 very heights of devout contemplation, soaring away up 
 into dim regions where it is very hard to follow, — " We 
 shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 
 
 And now, without a pauii^t^, and linking his thoughts 
 together by a simple " and " he passes from the unimagin- 
 able splendours of the Beatific Vision to the plainest 
 practical talk. Mysticism has often soared so high above 
 the earth that it has forgotten to preach righteousness, 
 and therein has been its weak point. But here is the 
 most mystical teacher of the New Testament insisting on 
 plain morality as vehemently as his friend James could 
 have done. 
 
 The combination is very remarkable. Like the eagle 
 he rises, and like the eagle, with the impetus gained 
 from his height, he drops right down on the earth 
 beneath I 
 
 b2 
 
4: THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. 
 
 And that is not only a characteristic of St. John'to 
 teaching, but it is a characteristic of all the New 
 Testament morality — its highest revelations are intensely 
 practical. Its light is at once set to work, like the sun- 
 shine that comes ninety millions of miles in order 
 to make the little daisies open their crimson-tipped 
 Detals ; so the profoundest things that the Bible has 
 to say are said to you and me, not that we may know 
 enly, but that knowing we may do, and do because we 
 are. 
 
 So John, here : " We shall be like Him, for we 
 shall see Him as He is." " And " — a simple coupling- 
 iron for two such thoughts — " every man that hath 
 this hope in Him," — that is, in Christ, not in himself, as 
 we sometimes read it — " every man that hath this hope," 
 founded on Christ, " purifies himself even as He is 
 pure." 
 
 The thought is a very simple one, though sometimes 
 it is somewhat mistakenly apprehended. Put into its 
 general form it is just this : — If j^ou expect, and expecting, 
 hope to be like Jesus Christ yonder, you will be trying 
 your best to be like Him here. It is not the mere 
 purifying influence of hope that is talked about, but it is 
 the specific influence of this one hope, the hope of 
 ultimate assimilation to Christ leading to strenuous 
 efforts, each a partial resemblance of Him, here and now. 
 And that is the subject I want to say a word or two 
 about this morning. 
 
 I. — First, then, notice the principle that is here, which 
 is the main thing to be insisted upon, namely, If we are 
 to be pure, we must purify ourselves. 
 
 There are two ways of getting like Christ, spoken 
 about in the context. One is the blessed way, that is 
 more appropriate for the higher Heaven, the way of 
 assimilation and transformation by beholding — " If we 
 
THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. f) 
 
 see Him " we shall be " like Him." That is the blessed 
 method of the Heavens. Yes ! but even here on earth it 
 may to some extent be realised. Love always breeds 
 likeness. And there is such a thing, here on earth and 
 now, as gazing upon Christ with an intensity of affection, 
 and simplicity of trust, and rapture of aspiration, and 
 ardour of desire which shall transform us in some 
 measure into His own likeness. John is an example of 
 that for us. It was a true instinct that made the old 
 painters always represent him as like the Master that 
 he sat beside, even in face. Where did John get his 
 style from .? He got it by much meditating upon Christ's 
 words. The disciple caught the method of the Master's 
 speech, and to some extent the manner of the Master's 
 vision. 
 
 And so he himself stands before us as an instance of 
 the possibility, even on earth, of this calm, almost passive 
 process, and most blessed and holiest method of getting 
 like the Master, by simple gazing, which is the gaze of 
 love and longinsr- 
 
 But, dear brethren, the law of our lives forbids that 
 that should be the only way in which we grow like 
 Christ. " First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
 in the ear " was never meant to be the exhaustive, all- 
 comprehensive statement of the method of Christian 
 progress. You and I are not vegetables ; and the Parable 
 of the Seed is only one side of the truth about the 
 method of Christian growth. The very word " purify " 
 speaks to us of another condition ; it implies impurity, it 
 implies a process which is more than contemplation, it 
 implies tne reversal of existing conditions, and not merely 
 the growth upwards to unattained conditions. 
 
 And so growth is not all that Christian men need ; 
 they need excision, they need casting out of what is in 
 them ; they need change as well as growth. " Purifying " 
 
6 TmE rLRlFYlNG INl^'LUilliJCB OF HOi'B. 
 
 they need because they are impure, and growth is only 
 half the secret of Christian progress. 
 
 Then there is the other consideration, viz., if there is to 
 be this purifying it must be done by myself. " Ah !" 
 you say, " done by yourself ? That is not Evangelical 
 teaching." Well, let us see. Take two or three verses 
 out of this Epistle which at first sight seem to be con- 
 tradictory of this. Take the very first that bears on Caj 
 subject: — "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleaiiscLh 
 us from all sin " (i. 7). " If we confess our sins He is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us 
 from all unrighteousness " (iv. 9). " He that abideth in 
 Him sinneth not "(iii. 6). " This is the victory that over- 
 cometh the world, even our faith " (v. 4). 
 
 Now, if you put all these passages together, and think 
 about the general effect of them, it comes to this : that 
 our best way of cleansing ourselves is by keeping firm 
 hold of Jesus Christ and of the cleansing powers that 
 lie in Him. To take a very homely illustration — soap 
 and water wash your hands clean, and what you have 
 to do is simply to rub the soap and water on to the hand, 
 and bring them into contact with the foulness. You 
 cleanse yourselves. Yes I because without the friction 
 there would not be the cleansing. But is it you, or is it 
 the soap, that does the work ? Is it you or the water 
 that makes your hands clean ? And so when God comes 
 and says, " Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil 
 of your doings, your hands are full of blood," He says in 
 effect, " Take the cleansing that I give you and rub it in, 
 and apply it : and your flesh will become as the flesh of 
 a little child, and you shall be clean." 
 
 That is to say, the very deepest word about Christian 
 effort of self-purifying is this — keep close to Jesus Christ. 
 You cannot sin as long as you hold His hand. To have 
 Him with you — I mean by that to have the thoughts 
 
THE PURIFYl-XG INFLLEXCE OF HOPE. 7 
 
 directed to Him, the love turning to Him, the will sub- 
 mitted to Him, Him consciously with us in the day's 
 work — to have communion with Jesus Christ is like 
 bringing an atmosphere round about us in which all evil 
 will die. If you take a fish out of water and bring it up 
 into the upper air, it writhes and gasps, and is dead 
 presently ; and our evil tendencies and sins, drawn up 
 out of the muddy depths in which ^hey live, and brought 
 up into that pure atmosphere of communion with Jesus 
 Christ, are sure to shrivel and to die, and to disappear. 
 We kill all evil by fellowship with the Master. His 
 presence in our lives, by our communion with Him, is 
 like the watch-fire that the traveller lights at night — it 
 keeps all the wild beasts of prey away from the fold. 
 
 Christ's fellowship is our cleansing, and the first and 
 main thing that we have to do in order to make ourselves 
 pure is to keep ourselves in union with Him, in whom 
 inhere and abide all the energies that cleanse men's souls. 
 Take the unbleached calico and spread it out on the green 
 grass, and let the blessed sunshine come down upon it, 
 and sprinkle it with fair water ; and the grass and the 
 moisture and the sunshine will do all the cleansing, and 
 it will glitter in the light " so as no fuller on earth can 
 white it." 
 
 So cleansing is keeping near Jesus Christ. But it is 
 no use getting the mill-race from the stream into your 
 works unless you put wheels in its way to drive. And 
 our holding ourselves in fellowship with the Master in 
 that fashion is net all that we have to do. There have to 
 be distinct and specific efforts, constantly repeated, to 
 subdue and suppress individual acts of transgression. 
 We have to fight against evil, sin by sin. We have not 
 the thing to do all at once ; we have to do it in detail. 
 It is a war of outposts, like the last agonies of that 
 Franco-Prussian war, when the Emperor had abdicated. 
 
8 THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OP HOPB. 
 
 and the country was really conquered, and Paris had 
 yielded, but yet all over the face of the land combats had 
 to be carried on. 
 
 So it is with us. Holiness is not feeling ; it is charac- 
 ter. You do not get rid of your sins by the act of Divine 
 amnesty only. You are not perfect because you say you 
 are, and feel as if you were, and think you are. God 
 does not make any man pure in his sleep. His cleansing 
 does not dispense with fighting, but makes victory 
 possible. 
 
 Then, dear brethren, lay to heart this, as the upshot of 
 the whole matter. First of all, let us turn to Him from 
 whom all the cleansing comes ; and then, moment by 
 moment, remember that it is our work to purify ourselves 
 by the strength and the power that is given to us by the 
 Master. 
 
 II.— The second thought here is this : This purifying 
 of ourselves is the link or bridge between the present and 
 the future. — "Now are we the sons of God," says John, 
 in the context. That is the pier upon the one side of the 
 gulf. " It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but 
 when He is made manifest we shall be like Him." That 
 is the pier on the other. How are the two to be con- 
 nected ? There is only one way by which the present 
 sonship will blossom and fruit into the future perfect 
 likeness, and that is ; if we throw across the gulf, by God*B 
 help day by day here that bridge of our effort after 
 growing likeness to Himself, and purity therefrom. 
 
 That is plain enough, I suppose. To speak in somewhat 
 technical terms, the "law of continuity" that we hear 
 80 much about, runs on between earth and Heaven. 
 Which, being translated into plain English, is but this — 
 that the act of passing from the limitations and conditions 
 of this transitory life into the solemnities and grandeurs 
 of that future does not altei- a man's character, though it 
 
THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. » 
 
 may intensify it. It does not make him different from 
 what he was, though it may make him more of what he 
 was, whether its direction be good or bad. 
 
 You take a stick and thrust it into water ; and because 
 the rays of light pass from one medium to another of a 
 different density, they are refracted and the stick seems 
 bent ; but take the human life out of the thick coarse 
 medium of earth and lift it up into the pure rarefied air 
 of Heaven, and there is no refraction ; it runs straight 
 on. Straight on I The given direction continues ; and 
 in whatever direction my face is turned when I die, 
 thither my face will be turned when I live again. 
 
 Do not you fancy that there is any magic in cof&ns 
 and graves, and shrouds to make men different from their 
 former selves. The continuity runs clean on, the rail 
 goes without a break, though it goes through the Mont 
 Cenis tunnel ; and on the one side is the cold of the 
 North, and on the other the sunny South. The man i0 
 the same man through death and beyond. 
 
 So the one link between sonship here and likeness to 
 Christ hereafter is this link of present, strenuous effort 
 to become like Him day by day in personal purity. For 
 there is another reason, on which I need not dwell, viz., 
 unless there be this daily effort on our part to become 
 like Jesus Christ by personal purity, we shall not be able 
 to " see Him as He is." Death will take a great many 
 veils off men's hearts. It will reveal to them a great deal 
 that they do not know, but it will not give the faculty of 
 beholding the glorified Christ in such fashion as that the 
 beholding will mean transformation. " Every eye shall 
 see Him," but it is conceivable that a spirit shall be so 
 immersed in self-love and in godlessness that the vision 
 of Christ shall be repellent and not attractive ; shall have 
 no transforming and no gladdening power. And I be- 
 seech you to remember that about that vision, as about 
 
10 THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. 
 
 the vision of God Himself, the principle stands true ; it 
 18 " the pure in heart that shall see God " in Christ. And 
 the change from life to the life beyond will not necessa- 
 rily transform into the image of His dear Son. You 
 make a link between the present and the future by cleansing 
 your hands and your heai-ts, through faith in the cleansing 
 power of Christ, and direct effort at holiness. 
 
 III. — Now, I must briefly add finally : that this self' 
 cleansing of which I have been speaking is the offspring 
 and outcome of that " hoi^e " in my text. It is the child 
 of hope. Hope is by no means an active faculty generally. 
 As the poets have it, she may " smile and wave her golden 
 hair ;" but she is not in the way of doing much work in the 
 world. And it is not the mere fact of hope that generates 
 this effort ; it is, as I have been trying to shew you, a 
 certain kind of hope — the hope of being like Jesus Christ 
 when " we see Him as He is.*' 
 
 I have only two things to say about this matter, and 
 one of them is this : of course, such strenuous effort of 
 purity will only be the result of such a hope as that, 
 because such a hope will fight against one of the greatest 
 of all the enemies of our efforts after purity. There is 
 nothing that makes a man so down-hearted in his work 
 of self -improvement as the constant and bitter experience 
 that it seems to be all of no use ; that he is making so 
 little progress ; that with immense pains, like a snaii 
 creeping up a wall, he gets up, perhaps, an inch or two, 
 and then all at once he drops down, end further down 
 than he was before he started. 
 
 Slowly we manage some little patient self-improve- 
 ment ; gradually, inch by inch and bit by bit, we may 
 be growing better, and then there comes some gust and 
 outburst of temptation ; and the whole painfully re- 
 claimed soil gets covered up by an avalanche of mud and 
 stones, that we have to remove slowly, barrow load by 
 
THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF HOPE. 11 
 
 barrow load. And then we feel that it is all of no use to 
 strive, and we let circumstances shape us, and give up all 
 thoughts of reformation. 
 
 To such moods then there comes, like an angel from 
 Heaven, that holy, blessed message, "Cheer up, man! 
 * We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is ; ' 
 Every inch that you make now will tell then^ and it 
 it not all of no use. Set your heart to the work, it is a 
 work that will be blessed and will prosper." 
 
 Again, here is a test for all you Christian people, who say 
 that you look to Heaven with hope as to your home and rest. 
 
 A great deal of the religious contemplation of a future 
 state is pure sentimentality, and like all pure sentimen- 
 tality is either immoral or non-moral. But here the two 
 things are brought into clear juxtaposition, the bright hope 
 of Heaven and the hard work done here below. Now is that 
 what the gleam and expectation of a future life does for you ? 
 
 This is the only time in John's Epistle that he speaks 
 about hope. The good man, living so near Christ, finds 
 that the present, with its " abiding in Him, " is enough 
 for his heart. And though he was the Seer of the 
 Apocalypse, he has scarcely a word to say about the 
 future in this letter of his and when he does it is for a 
 simple and intensely practical purpose, in order that he 
 may enforce on us the teaching of labouring earnestly in 
 purifying ourselves. 
 
 My brother, is that your type of Christianity ? Is that 
 the kind of inspiration that comes to you from the hope 
 that steals in upon you in your weary hours, when 
 sorrows, and cares, and changes, and loss, and disappoint- 
 ments, and hard work weigh you down, and you say, "It 
 would be blessed to pass hence " ? Does it set you harder 
 at work than anything else can do ? Is it all utilised ? 
 Or, if I might use such an illustration, is it like the 
 electricity of the Aurora Borealis, that paints your winter 
 
12 THE PITRIFTrNG INFLUBNCE OF HOPB. 
 
 gky with vanishing, useless splendours of crimson and 
 blue ? or, have you got it harnessed to your tramcars, 
 lighting your houses, driving sewing-machines, doing 
 practical work in your daily life ? Is the hope of Heaven, 
 and of being like Christ, a thing that stimulates and stirs 
 us every moment to heroisms of self-surrender and to 
 strenuous martyrdom of self-cleansing ? 
 
 All is gathered up into the one lesson. First, let us go 
 to that dear Lord whose blood cleanseth from all sin, and 
 let us say to Him, " Purge me, and I shall be clean ; wash 
 me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And then, receiv- 
 ing into our hearts the powers that purify, in His love 
 and His sacrifice and His life, " having these promises ** 
 and these possessions, " Dearly beloved, let ns cleanse 
 ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perf ectinf 
 holiness in the fear of the Lord.** 
 
"THE BRIDAL OF THE EARTH AXD SKY/' 
 
SERMON IL 
 
 THE BRIDAL OP THE EARTH AND SKY. 
 
 "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kiased eacli 
 other. Truth shall spring out of the eartii ; and righteousness shall look down ft-om 
 heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good ; and our land shall jield her 
 increase. Righteousness shall go before him ; and shall set ua in the way of his stops." 
 Psalm Ixxiv. 10-13. 
 
 This is a lovely and highly imaginative picture of the 
 reconciliation and reunion of God and man, " the bridal 
 of the earth and sky." 
 
 The Poet-Psalmist, who seems to have belonged to the 
 times immediately after the Return from the Exile, in 
 strong faith sees before him a vision of a perfectly har- 
 monious co-operation and relation between God and man. 
 He is not prophesying directly of Messianic times. The 
 vision hangs before him, with no definite note of time 
 upon it. He hopes it may be fulfilled in his own day ; 
 he is sure it will, if only, as he says, his countrymen 
 " turn not again to folly." At all events, it will be fulfilled 
 in that far-off time to which the heart of every prophet 
 turned with longing. But, more than that, there is no 
 reason why it should not be fulfilled with every man, at 
 the moment. 
 
16 " THE BRIDAL OP THE EARTH AND SKY.'* 
 
 It is the ideal, to use modern language, of th© relations 
 between Heaven and earth. Only that the Psalmist 
 believed that as sure as that there was a God in Heaven, 
 Who is likewise a God working in the midst of the earth, 
 the ideal might become, and would become, a reality. 
 
 So, then, I take it, these four verses all set forth sub- 
 stantially the same thought, but with slightly different 
 modifications and applications. They are a four-fold 
 picture of how Heaven and earth ought to blend and 
 harmonise. This four-fold representation of the one 
 thought is what I purpose to consider now. 
 
 I. — To begin with, then, take the first ^ erse : — " Mercy 
 and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have 
 kissed each other." We have here the heavenly tivin 
 sisters^ and the earthly pair that corresponds, ** Mercy 
 and Truth are met together " — that is one personification ; 
 •* Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other " is 
 another. It is difficult to say whether these four great 
 qualities are to be regarded as all belonging to God, or as 
 all belonging to man, or as all common both to God and 
 man. The first explanation is the most familiar one, but 
 I confess that, looking at the context, where we find 
 throughout an interpenetration and play of reciprocal 
 action as between earth and Heaven, I am disposed to 
 think of the first pair as sisters from the Heavens, and 
 the second pair as the earthly sisters that correspond to 
 them. Mercy and Truth — two radiant angels, like virgins 
 in some solemn choric dance, linked hand in hand, 
 issue from the sanctuary and move amongst the dim 
 haunts of men, making " a sunshine in a shady place," 
 and to them there come forth, linked in a sweet embrace, 
 another pair whose lives depend on the lives of their 
 elder and heavenly sisters. Righteousness and Peace. 
 And so these four, the pair of heavenly origin, and the 
 answering pair that have sprung into being at their 
 
17 
 
 coming upon earth ; — these four, banded in perfect accord, 
 move together, blessing and light-giving amongst the sons 
 of men. Mercy and Truth are the Divine — Righteousness 
 and Peace the earthly. 
 
 Let me dwell upon these two couples briefly. " Mercy 
 and Truth are met together " means this : That these two 
 qualities are found braided and linked inseparably in all 
 that God does with mankind ; that these two springs are 
 the double fountains from which the great stream of the 
 river of the Water of Life, the forthcoming and the 
 manifestation of God, takes its rise. 
 
 " Mercy and Truth. ** What are the meanings of the 
 two words ? Mercy is love that stoops, love that departs 
 from the strict lines of desert and retribution. Mercy is 
 love that is kind when justice might make it otherwise. 
 Mercy is love that condescends to that which is far 
 beneath. Thus the " Mercy " of the Old Testament 
 covers almost the same ground as the "Grace" of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 And Truth blends with the mercy. That is to say — 
 truth in a somewhat narrower than its widest sense, 
 meaning mainly God's fidelity to every obligation under 
 which He has come. God's faithfulness to promise, 
 God's fidelity to His past, God's fidelity, in His actions, 
 to His own character, which is meant by that great word, 
 " He sware by Hhnself' " 
 
 Thus the sentiment of mercy, the tender grace and 
 gentleness of that condescending love, has impressed 
 upon it the seal of permanence when we say : Grace and 
 truth, mercy and faithfulness, are met together. No 
 longer is love mere sentiment, which may be capricious 
 and may be transient. We can reckon on it, we know 
 the law of its being. The love is lifted up above the 
 suspicion of being arbitrary, or of ever changing or 
 fluctuating. We do net know all the limits of the orbits 
 
 G 
 
18 "THE BRIDAL OF THE EARTH AND SKY.** 
 
 but we know enough to calculate it for all practical pur- 
 poses. God has committed Himself to us, He has limited 
 Himself by His obligations, by His own past. We have 
 a right to turn to Him, and say : " Be what Thou art, and 
 continue to us what Thou hast been unto past ages." 
 And He responds to the appeal. For Mercy and Truth, 
 tender, gracious, stooping forgiving love, and inviolable 
 faithfulness that can never be otherwise, these blend in 
 all His works ; " that by two immutable things, wherein 
 it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong 
 consolation. '* 
 
 Again, dear brethren, let me remind you, these two 
 are the ideal two, which, as far as God's will and wish 
 are concerned, are the only two that would mark any of 
 His dealings with men. When He is, if I may so say, left 
 free to do as He would, and is not forced to His " strange 
 act" of punishment by my sin and your^, these, and 
 these only, are the characteristics of His dealings. 
 
 Nor let us forget — " We beheld His glory, the glory as 
 of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
 truth.'*'' The Psalmist's vision was fulfilled in Jesus 
 Christ, in whom these sweet twin characteristics, that 
 are linked inseparably in all the works of God, are 
 welded together into one in the living personality of Him 
 who is all the Father's grace embodied ; and is the Way 
 and the Truth and the Life. 
 
 Turn now to the other side of this first aspect of the 
 union of God ana man. " Mercy and truth are met to- 
 gether, " these are the Heavenly twins. " Righteousness 
 and peace have kissed each other " — ^these are the earthly 
 Bisters who sprang into being to meet them. 
 
 Of course I know that these words are very often 
 applied, by way of illustration, to the great work of Jesus 
 Christ upon the Cross, which is supposed to have recon- 
 •Ued, if not contradictory, at least divergently working 
 
••THE BRIDAL OP THE EARTH AND SKY.'* 19 
 
 •ides of the Divine character and government. And we 
 all know how beautifully the phrase has often been em- 
 ployed by eloquent preachers, and how beautifully it has 
 been often illustrated by devout painters. 
 
 But beautiful as the adaptation is, I think it is an 
 adaptation, and not the real meaning of the words, for 
 this reason, if for no other, that righteousness and peace 
 •re not in the Old Testament regarded as opposites, but 
 as harmonious and inseparable. And so I take it that 
 here we have distinctly the picture of what happens upon 
 earth when Mercy and Truth that come down from 
 Heaven are accepted and recognised — then Righteousness 
 and Peace kiss each other. 
 
 Or, to pui a.vay the metaphor, here are two thoughts, 
 first that in men's experience and life righteousness and 
 peace cannot he rent apart. The only secret of tranquil- 
 lity is to be good. " First of all, King of Righteousness, 
 and after that King of Salem, which is the King of 
 Peace." " The effect of Righteousness shall be peace," as 
 Isaiah, the brother in spirit of this Psalmist, says ; and on 
 the other hand, as the same prophet says, " The wicked is 
 like a troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up 
 mire and dirt ; there is no peace, saith my God, to the 
 wicked." But where affections are pure, and the life is 
 worthy, where goodness is loved in the heart, and followed 
 even imperfectly in the daily life, there the ocean is quiet, 
 and " birds of peace sit brooding on the charmed wave." 
 The one secret of tranquillity is first to trust in the Lord 
 and then to do good. Righteousness and peac. kiss each 
 other. 
 
 The other thought here is that Righteousness and her 
 twin sister, Peace, only come in the measure in which the 
 mercy and the truth of God are received into thankfui 
 hearts. My brother, have you taken that mercy and that 
 truth into ^ our soul, and are you trying to reach peaoft 
 
 c2 
 
JO ••the bridal op the earth and skt.** 
 
 in the only way by which any human being can ever 
 reach it — ^through the path of righteousness, self-suppres- 
 sion, and consecration to Him ? 
 
 II. — Now, take the next phase of this union and co-oper- 
 ation of earth and Heaven, which is given here in the 
 11th verse : — Truth shall spring out of the earth, and 
 Righteousness shall look down from Heaven." That is, 
 to put it into other words — God responding to man's 
 t7'uth. Notice that in this verse one member from each 
 of the two pairs that have been spoken about in the 
 previous verse is detached from its companion, and they 
 are joined so as to form for a moment a new pair. Truth 
 is taken from the first couple ; Righteousness from the 
 second, and a third couple is thus formed. 
 
 And notice, further, that each takes the place that had 
 belonged to the other. The Heavenly Truth becomes a 
 child of earth ; and the earthly Righteousness ascends 
 " to look down from Heaven." The process of the previous 
 verse in effect is reversed. " Truth shall spring out of 
 the earth, Righteousness shall look down from Heaven." 
 That is to say : Man's truth shall begin to grow and 
 blossom in answer, as it were, to God's Truth that came 
 down upon it. Which being translated into other words 
 is this : where a man's heart has welcomed the mercy and 
 the truth of God there shall spring up in that heart, not 
 only the righteousness and peace, of which the previous 
 verse is speaking, but specifically a faithfulness not all 
 unlike the faithfulness which it grasps. If we have a 
 God immutable and unchangeable to build upon, let us 
 build upon Him immutability and unchangeableness. If 
 we have a Rock on which to build our confidence, let us 
 see that our confidence that we build upon it is rocklike 
 too. If we have a God that cannot lie, let us grasp His 
 faithful Word with an affiance that cannot falter. If we 
 have a truth in the Heavens, absolute and immutable, od 
 
"THE BRIDAL OP THE EARTH AND SKY." 21 
 
 which to anchor our hopes, let us see to it that our hopes, 
 anchored thereon, are sure and steadfast. What a shame 
 it would be that we should bring the vacillations and 
 fluctuations of our own insincerities and changeablenesa 
 to the solemn, fixed unutterableness of that Divine Word 1 
 We ought to be faithful, for we build upon a faithful God. 
 
 And then the other side of this second picture. Right- 
 eousness shall " look down from Heaven." Not in iis 
 judicial aspect merely, but as the perfect moral purity 
 that belongs to the Divine Nature, which shall bend 
 down a loving eye upon the men beneath, and mark the 
 springings of any imperfect good and thankfulness in our 
 hearts ; joyous as the husbandman beholds the springing 
 of his crops in the fields that he has sown. 
 
 God delights when He sees the first faint flush of green 
 which marks the springing of the good seed in the else 
 barren hearts of men. No good, no beauty of character, 
 no meek rapture of faith, no aspiration Godwards is ever 
 wasted and lost, for His eye rests upon it. As Heaven, 
 with its myriad stars, bends over the lowly earth, and in 
 the midnight when no human eye beholds, sees all, so 
 God sees the hidden confidence, the unseen " truth " that 
 springs to meet His faithful Word. The flowers that 
 grow in the pastures of the wilderness, or away upon the 
 wild prairies, or that hide in the clefts of the inaccessible 
 mountains, do not " waste their sweetness on the desert 
 air " for God sees them. 
 
 It may be an encouragement and quickening to us to 
 remember that wherever the tiniest little bit of truth 
 springs upon the earth, the loving eye — not the eye of a 
 great taskmaster — but the eye of the Brother, Christ, 
 which is the eye of God, looks down. " Wherefore we 
 labour, that whether present or absent, we may be well- 
 pleasing unto Him." 
 
 III. — And then there is the third aspect of this ideal 
 
22 "THE BRIDAL OP THE EARTH A^D SKY.'' 
 
 relation between earth and Heaven, the converse of the 
 one we have just now been speaking of, set forth in the 
 next verse : "Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good 
 and our land shall yield her increase." That is to say : 
 man responding to God's gift. You see that the order of 
 things is reversed in this verse from the former one. It 
 recurs to the order with which we originally started. 
 " The Lord shall give that which is good." In figure, that 
 refers to all the skyey influence of dew, rain, sunshine, 
 passing breezes, and still, ripening autumn days ; in the 
 reality it refers to all the motives, powers, impulses, helps, 
 furtherances by which He makes it possible for us to 
 serve Him and love Him, and bring forth fruits of 
 righteousness. 
 
 And so the thought which has already been hinted at 
 is here more fully developed and dwelt upon, this great 
 truth, that earthly fruitfulness is possible only by the 
 reception of Heavenly gifts. As sure as every leaf that 
 grows is mainly water that the plant has got from the 
 clouds, and carbon that it has got out of the atmosphere, 
 80 surely will all our good be mainly drawn from Heaven 
 and Heaven's gifts. As certainly as every lump of coal 
 that you put upon your fire contains in itself sunbeams 
 that have been locked up for all these millenniums that 
 have passed since it waved green in the forest, so certainly 
 does every good deed embody in itself gifts from above. 
 And no man is pure except by impartation ; and every 
 good thing and every perfect thing cometh from the 
 Father of Lights. 
 
 So let us learn the lesson of absolute dependence for 
 all purity, virtue, and righteousness on His bestowment, 
 and come to Him and ask Him evermore to fill our 
 emptiness with His own gracious fulness, and to lead us 
 to be what He commands and would have us to be. 
 
 And then there is the other lesson out of this phase of 
 
•• THE BRIDAL OF THE EARTH AND SKY." 23 
 
 the ideal relation between eartli ind Heaven, the lesson 
 of what we ought to do with the gift. " The earth yields 
 her increase," by laying hold of the good which the Lord 
 gives, and by reason of that received good quickening all 
 the germs. Ah I dear brethren, wasted opportunities, 
 neglected moments, uncultivated talents, gifts that are 
 not stirred up ; rain and dew and sunshine, all poured 
 upon us and no increase — is not that the story of much 
 of all our lives, and of the whole of some lives ? 
 
 Are we like Eastern lands where the trees have been 
 felled, and the great irrigation works and tanks have 
 been allowed to fall into disrepair, and so when the 
 bountiful treasure of the rains comes, all that it does is 
 to swell for half a day the discoloured stream that carries 
 away some more of the arable land ; and when the sun- 
 shine comes, with its swift, warm powers, all that it does 
 is to bleach the stones and scorch the barren sand ? " The 
 earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, 
 and yieldeth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, 
 receiveth the blessing of God." Is it true about you that 
 the earth yieldeth her increase, as it is certainly true that 
 " the Lord giveth that which is good " ? 
 
 IV. — And now the last thing which is here, the last 
 phase of the fourfold representation of the ideal relation 
 between earth and Heaven, is, " Righteousness shall go 
 before Him and shall set us in the way of His steps." 
 That is to say, God teaching man to walk in His footsteps. 
 There is some difficulty about the meaning of the last 
 clause of this verse, but I think that having regard to the 
 whole context and to that idea of the interpenetration of 
 the Heavenly with the human which we have seen 
 running through it, the reading in our English Bible gives 
 substantially, though somewhat freely, the meaning. The 
 clause might literally be rendered " make His footsteps 
 for a way." It comes to substantially the same thing as 
 
8ft **THB BKIDAL OF THE EARTH AND SKY. 
 
 \b expressed in our English Bible, Righteousness, God*8 
 moral perfectiiess, is set forth here in a twofold phase. 
 First a? a henild going before Him and preparing His piith. 
 
 The Psalmist in these words draws tighter than ever 
 the bond between God and man. It is not only that God 
 sends His messengers to the world, nor only that His 
 loving eye looks down upon it, nor only *' that he give^ 
 that which is good " ; but it is that the whole Heaven, as 
 it were, lowers itself to touch earth, that God comes down 
 to dwell and walk among men. The Psalmist's mind is 
 filled with the thought of a present God who moves 
 amongst mankind, and has His " foot^steps '' on earth. 
 This herald Righteousness prepares God's path, which is 
 just to say that all His dealings with mankind — which, as 
 we have seen, have mercy and faithfulness for their 
 signattire and stamp— are rooted and based in perfect 
 rectitude. 
 
 The second phase of the operation of righteousness is, 
 that that majestic herald, tlie Divine ptirity which moves 
 before Him, and " prepares in the desert a highway for 
 the Lord, " — that that very same righteousness comes and 
 takes my feeble hand, and will lead my tottering foot- 
 steps into God's path, and teach me to walk, planting my 
 little foot where He planted His. The highest of all 
 thoughts of the ideal relation between earth and Heaven, 
 that of likeness between God and man, is trembling on 
 the Psalmist's lips. Men may walk in God's ways — not 
 only in the ways that please Him, but in the ways that 
 are like Him. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your 
 Father which is in Heaven is perfect. " 
 
 And the likeness can only be a likeness in moral qual- 
 ities — a likeness in goodness, a likeness in purity, a like- 
 ness in aversion from evil, for the other attributes and 
 characteristics are His peculiar properly ; and no human 
 brow can wear the crown that He wears. But though 
 
••THB BRIDAL OP THE EARTH AND SKY." 25 
 
 His mercy can but, from afar off, be copied by na, the 
 righteousneBs that moves before Him, and engineera 
 God's path through the wilderness of the world, will 
 come behind Him and nurselike lay hold of our feeble 
 arms and teach us to go in the way God would have ua 
 to walk. 
 
 Ah, brethren ! That is the crown and climax of the 
 harmony bet^veen God and man, that His mercy and His 
 truth. His gifts and His grace have all led us up to this : 
 that we take His righteousness as our pattern, and try in 
 our poor lives to reproduce its wondrous beauty. Do not 
 forget that a great deal more than the Psalmist dreamed 
 of, you Christian men and women possess, in the Christ 
 Who of God is made unto us righteousness, in Whom 
 Heaven and earth are joined for ever, in Whom man and 
 God are knit in strictest bonds of indissoluble friendship ; 
 and Who, having prepared a path for God in His mighty 
 mission and by His sacrifice on the Cross, comes to us ; 
 and, as the Incarnate Righteousness, will lead us in the 
 paths of God, leaving us an example, that "we should 
 follow in His steps. " 
 
THE WORK AND ARMOUR OF THE 
 CHILDREN OF THE DAY. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 THB WORK Ain) ABMOUB OF THB OHILDBBN 
 OF THB DAY. 
 
 " Let OS, who are of the day, be lober, putting on the breastplate of tatth 
 lore ; and for a helmet, the hope of salTation." 1 Thea. t. 8. 
 
 This letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest book of the 
 New Testament. It was probably written within some- 
 thing like twenty years of the Crucifixion ; long, therefore, 
 before any of the Gospels were in existence. It is, 
 therefore, exceedingly interesting and instructive to 
 notice how this whole context is saturated with allusions 
 to our Lord's teaching, as it is preserved in these Gospels ; 
 and how it takes for granted that the Thessalonian 
 Christians were familiar with the very w^ords. 
 
 For instance : " Yourselves know perfectly that the day 
 of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." (Ver. 2.) 
 How did these people in Thessalonica know that ? They 
 had been Christians for a year or so only ; they had been 
 taught by Paul for a few weeks only, or a month or two 
 at the most. How did they know it ? Because they had 
 been told what the Master had said : " If the goodman of 
 
30 THE WORK AND ARMOUB 
 
 the house had known at what honr the thief would 
 come, he would have watched, and would not have 
 suffered his house to be broken up." 
 
 And there are other allusions in the context almost as 
 obvious — " The children of the light." Who said that ? 
 Christ, in His words : " The children of this world are 
 wiser than the children of light." " They that sleep, 
 sleep in the night, and if they be drunken, are drunken 
 in the night." Where does that metaphor come from ? 
 " Take heed lest at any time ye be over-charged with 
 surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, 
 and so that day come upon you unawares." "Watch, 
 lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping I " 
 
 So you see all the context reposes upon, and presupposes 
 the very words, which you find in our present existing 
 Gospels, as the words of the Lord Jesus. And this is all 
 but cotemporaneous, and quite independent evidence of 
 the existence in the Church, from the beginning, of a 
 traditional teaching respecting Christ in verbal cor- 
 respondence with the teaching which is now preserved 
 for us in that four-fold record of His life. 
 
 Take that remark for what it is worth ; and now turn 
 to the text itself with which I have to deal this morning. 
 The whole of the context may be said to be a little 
 dissertation upon the moral and religious uses of the 
 doctrine of our Lord's second coming. In my text these 
 are summed up in one central injunction which has 
 preceding it a motive that enforces it, and following it a 
 method that ensures it. " Let us be sober." That is the 
 centre thought ; and it is buttressed upon either side by 
 a motive and a means. *' Let us who are of the day," or 
 "since we are of the day, — be sober." And let us he it 
 by " putting on the breastplate, and helmet of faith, love, 
 and hope." These, then, are the three points which we 
 have to consider. 
 
OF THE CHILDREN OF THB DAT. 81 
 
 I. — First, this central injunction, into which all the 
 moral teaching drawn from the second coming of Christ 
 is gathered — " Let us be sober." Now, I do not suppose 
 we are altogether to omit any reference to the literal 
 meaning of this word. The context seems to shew that, 
 by its reference to night as the season for drunken orgies. 
 Temperance is moderation in regard not only of the evil 
 and swinish sin of drunkenness, which is so manifestly 
 contrary to all Christian integrity and nobility of charac- 
 ter, but in regard of the far more subtle temptation of 
 another form of sensual indulgence — ^gluttony. The 
 Christian Church needed to be warned of that, and if 
 these people in Thessalonica needed the warning I am 
 quite sure that we need it. There is not a nation on 
 earth which needs it more than Englishmen. I am no 
 ascetic, I do not want to glorify any outward observance, 
 but any doctor in England will tell you that the average 
 Englishman eats and drinks a great deal more than is 
 good for him. It is melancholy to think how many 
 professing Christians have the edge and keenness of their 
 intellectual and spiritual life blunted by the luxurious 
 and senseless table-abundance in which they habitually 
 indulge. I am quite sure that water from the spring and 
 barley-bread would be a great deal better for their souls 
 and for their bodies too, in the case of many people that 
 call themselves Christians. Suffer a word of exhortation I 
 and do not let it be neglected because it is brief and 
 general. Sparta, after all, is the best place for a man to 
 live in, next to Jerusalem. 
 
 But, passing from that, let us turn to the higher subject 
 with which the Apostle is here evidently mainly con- 
 cerned. What is the meaning of the exhortation " Be 
 sober ? " Well, first let me tell you what I think is not 
 the meaning of it. It does not mean an unemotional 
 absence of fervour in your Christian character. 
 
32 THB WORE AND ABMOUB 
 
 There is a kind of religions teachers who are always 
 preaching down enthusiasm, and preaching up what they 
 call a " sober standard of feeling " in matters of religion. 
 By which, in nine cases out of ten, they mean precisely 
 such a tepid condition as is described in much less polite 
 language ; when the Voice from Heaven says, " Because 
 thou art neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of My 
 mouth." That is the real meaning of the " sobriety " that 
 some people are always desiring yon to cultivate. I 
 should have thought that the last piece of furniture which 
 any Christian Church in the nineteenth century needed 
 was a refrigerator I A poker and a pair of bellows would 
 be very much more needful for them. For, dear brethren, 
 the truths that you and I profess to believe are of such a 
 nature, so tremendous either in their joy fulness and 
 beauty, or in their solemnity and awfulness, that one 
 would think that if they once got into a man's head and 
 heart, nothing but the most fervid and continuous glow 
 of a radiant enthusiasm would correspond to their majesty 
 and overwhelming importance. I venture to say that the 
 only consistent Christian is the enthusiastic Christian ; 
 and that the only man that will ever do anything in this 
 world for God or man worth doing, is the man who is not 
 sober, according to that cold-blooded definition which 1 
 have been speaking about, but who is all ablaze with an 
 enkindled earnestness that knows no diminution and no 
 cessation. 
 
 Paul, the very man that is exhorting here to sobriety, 
 was the very type of an enthusiast all his life. So Festus 
 thought him mad, and even in the Church at Corinth 
 there were some to whom in his fervour, he seemed to be 
 " beside himself." (2 Cor. v. 13.) 
 
 Oh I for more of that insanity I Yon may make np 
 your minds to this ; that any men or women that are in 
 Ihorough earnest, either about Christianity or about any 
 
OF THB CHILDREN OF THE DAT. 33 
 
 Other great, noble, lofty, self -forgetting purpose, will have 
 to be content to have the old Pentecostal charge flung at 
 them : — " These men are full of new wine I '* Well for the 
 Church, and well for the men who deserve the taunt ; for 
 it means that they have learned something of the emotion 
 that corresponds to such magnificent and awful verities 
 as Christian faith converses with. 
 
 I did not intend to say so much about that ; I turn now 
 for a moment to the consideration of what this exhorta- 
 tion really means. It means, as I take it, mainly this : 
 the prime Christian duty of self-restraint in the use and 
 the love of all earthly treasures and pleasures. 
 
 I need not do more than remind you how, in the very 
 make of a man's soul, it is clear that unless there be 
 exercised rigid self-control he will go all to pieces. 
 The make of human nature, if I may so say, shews that 
 it is not meant for a democracy but a monarchy. 
 
 Here are within us many passions, tastes, desires, most 
 of them rooted in the flesh, which are as blind as hunger 
 and thirst are. If a man is hungry, the bread will satisfy 
 him all the same whether he steals it or not ; and it will 
 not necessarily be distasteful even if it be poisoned. 
 And there are other blind impulses and appetites in our 
 nature which ask nothing except this :— " Give me my 
 appropriate gratification, though all the laws of God and 
 man be broken in order to get it I " 
 
 And so there has to be something like an eye given to 
 these blind beasts, and something like a directing hand 
 laid upon these instinctive impulses. The true temple of 
 the human spirit must be built in stages, the broad base 
 laid in these animal instincts ; above them and controlling 
 them the directing and restraining will ; above it the 
 understanding which enlightens it and them ; and su- 
 preme over all the conscience with nothing between it 
 &nd Heaven. Where that is not the order of the inner 
 
 D 
 
34 THE WORK AND ARMOUR 
 
 man, you get wild work. You have set "beggars on 
 horseback, " and we all know where they go ! The man 
 who lets passion and inclination guide is like a steam- 
 boat with all the furnaces banked up, with the engines 
 going full speed, and nobody at the wheel. It will drive 
 on to the rocks, or wherever the bow happens to point, no 
 matter though death and destruction lie beyond the next 
 turn of the screw. That is what you will come to unless 
 you live in the habitual exercise of rigid self-control. 
 
 And that self-control is to be exercised mainly, or at 
 least as one very important form of it, in regard of our 
 use and estimate of the pleasures of this present life. 
 Yes ! it is not only from the study of a man*s make that 
 the necessity for a very rigid self-government appears, 
 but the observation of the conditions and circumstances 
 in which he is placed points the same lesson. All round 
 about him are hands reaching out to him drugged cups. 
 The world with all its fading sweets comes tempting him, 
 and the old fable fulfils itself — Whoever takes that 
 Circe's cup and puts it to his lips and quaffs deep, turns 
 into a swine, and sits there imprisoned at the feet of the 
 sorcerebs for evermore ! 
 
 There is only one thing that will deliver you from that 
 fate, my brother. "Be sober" and in regard of the 
 world and all that it offers to us — all joy, possession, 
 gratification — " set a knife to thy throat if thou be a man 
 given to appetite. " There is no noble life possible on 
 any other terms — not to say there is no Christian life 
 possible on any other terms — but suppression and mortifi- 
 cation of the desires of the flesh and of the spirit. You 
 cannot look upwards and downwards at the same mo- 
 ment. Your heart is only a tiny room after all, and if 
 you cram it full of the world, you relegate your Master 
 to the stable outside. " Ye cannot serve God and Mam- 
 mon. " " Be sober, " says Paul, then, and cultivate the 
 
OP THE CHILDREN OF THE DAT. 35 
 
 habit of rigid self-control in regard of this present. 
 Oh I what a melancholy, solemn thought it is that hun- 
 dreds of professing Christians in England, like vultures 
 after a full meal, have so gorged themselves with the 
 garbage of this present life that they cannot fly, and have 
 to be content with moving along the ground, heavy and 
 languid. Christian men and women, are you keeping 
 yourselves in spiritual health by a very sparing use of the 
 dainties and delights of earth ? Answer the question to 
 your own souls and to your Judge. 
 
 II. — And now let me turn to the other thoughts that lie 
 here. There is, secondly, a motive which backs up and 
 buttresses this exhortation. " Let us who are of the day " 
 — K)r as the Revised Version has it a little more emphati- 
 cally and correctly, " Let us, since we are of the day, be 
 sober. " " The day ; " what day ? The temptation is to 
 answer the question by saying—" of course the specific day 
 which was spoken about in the beginning of the section, 
 *the day of the Lord,' that coming judgment by the 
 coming Christ." But I think that although, perhaps, 
 there may be some allusion here to that specific day, still, 
 if you will look at the verses which immediately precede 
 my text, you will see that in them the Apostle has passed 
 from the thought of " the day of the Lord " to that of day 
 in general. That is obvious, I think, from the contrast he 
 draws between the " day " and the " night" the darkness 
 and the light. If so, then, when he says "the children of 
 the day" he does not so much mean— though that is 
 quite true— that we are, as it were, akin to that Day of Judg- 
 ment, and may therefore look forward to it without fear, 
 and in quiet confidence, lifting up our heads because our 
 redemption draws nigh ; but rather he means that 
 Christians are the children of that which expresses 
 knowledge, and joy, and activity. Of these things the 
 day is the emblem, in ©very language and in every poetry. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE WORK AND ARMOUB 
 
 The day is the time when men see and hear, the symbol 
 of gladness and cheer all the world over. 
 
 And so, says Paul, you Christian men and women 
 belong to a joyous realm, a realm of light and knowledge, 
 a realm of purity and righteousness. You are children 
 of the light ; a glad condition which involves many glad 
 and noble issues. Children of the light should be brave, 
 children of the light should not be afraid of the light, 
 children of the light should be cheerful, children of the 
 light should be buoyant, children of the light should be 
 transparent, children of the light should be hopeful, 
 children of the light should be pure, and children of the 
 light should walk in this darkened world, bearing their 
 radiance with them ; and making things, else unseen, 
 visible to many a dim eye. 
 
 But while these emblems of cheerfulness, hope, purity, 
 and illumination are gathered together in that grand 
 name — " Ye are childi-en of the day," there is one direc- 
 tion especially in which the Apostle thinks that that 
 consideration ought to tell, and that is the direction of its 
 self-restraint. " Noblesse oblige I " — the aristocracy are 
 bound to do nothing low or dishonourable. The children 
 of the light are not to stain their hands with anything 
 foul. Chambering and wantonness, slumber and drunk- 
 enness, the indulgence in the appetites of the flesh, — all 
 that may be fitting for the night, it is clean incongruous 
 with the day. 
 
 Well, if you want that turned into pedestrian prose — 
 Vhich is no more clear but a little less emotional — it is 
 just this : You Christian men aud women belong — if yon 
 are Christians — to another state of things from that which is 
 lying round about you ; and therefore you ought to live in 
 rigid abstinence from these things that are round about you. 
 
 That is plain enough surely, nor do I suppose that 1 
 need to dwell on that thought at any length. We belong 
 
OP THE CHILDREN OP THE DAT. 37 
 
 to another order of things, says Paul ; we carry a day 
 with us in the midst of the night. What follows from 
 that? Do not let us pursue the wandering lights and 
 treacherous will-o'-the-wisps that lure men into bottomless 
 bogs where they are lost. If we have light in our dwel- 
 lings whilst Egypt lies in darkness, let it teach us to 
 eat our meat with our loins girded, and our staves in 
 our hands, not without bitter herbs, and ready to go 
 forth into the wilderness. You do not belong to the 
 world in which you live, if you are Christian men and 
 women ; you are only camped here. Your purposes, 
 thoughts, hopes, aspirations, treasures, desires, delights, 
 go up higher. And so, if you are children of the day, bi 
 self-restrained in your dealings with the darkness. 
 
 III.— And, last of all, my text points out for us a 
 method by which this great precept may be fulfilled :— 
 " Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an 
 helmet the hope of salvation. " 
 
 That, of course, is the first rough draft, occurring in 
 Paul's earliest epistle, of an image which recurs at inter- 
 vals and in more or less expanded form in other of his 
 letters, and is so splendidly worked out in detail in the 
 grand picture of the Christian armour in the Epistle to 
 the Ephesians. 
 
 I need not do more than just remind yon of the dif- 
 ference between that finished picture and this out-line 
 sketch. Here we have only defensive and not offensive 
 armour, here the Christian graces are somewhat differently 
 allocated to the different parta of the armour. Here 
 we have only the great triad of Christian graces, so fami- 
 liar on our lips— faith, hope, charity. Here we have faith 
 and love in the closest possible juxtaposition, and hope 
 somewhat more apart ; the breastplate, like some of the 
 tmcient hauberks, made of steel and gold, is framed 
 and forged onl of faith and love blended together And 
 
38 THE WORK AND ARMOUB 
 
 faith and love are more closely identified in fact than 
 faith and hope, or than love and hope. For faith and 
 love have the same object — and are all but cotemporane- 
 ons. Wherever a man lays hold of Jesus Christ by faith, 
 there cannot but spring up in his heart love to Christ ; 
 and there is no love without faith. So that we may al- 
 most say that faith and love are but the two throws of the 
 shuttle, the one in the one direction and the other in the 
 other ; whereas hope comes somewhat later in a somewhat 
 remoter connection with faith, and has a somewhat dif- 
 ferent object from these other two. Therefore it is here 
 slightly separated from its sister graces. Faith, love, 
 hope, — these three form the defensive armour that guard 
 the soul ; and these three make self-control possible. 
 Like a diver in his dress, who is let down to the bottom 
 of the wild, far- weltering ocean, a man whose heart is 
 girt by faith and charity, and whose head is covered with 
 the helmet of hope, may be dropped down into the wild- 
 est sea of temptation and of worldliness, and yet will 
 walk dry and unharmed through the midst of its depths, 
 and breathe air that comes from a world above the rest- 
 less surges. 
 
 And in like manner the cultivation of faith, charity, 
 and hope is the best means for securing the exercise of 
 sober self-control. 
 
 It is an easy thing to say to a man, " Govern yourself I " 
 It is a very hard thing with the powers that any man has 
 at his disposal to do it. As somebody said about an army 
 joining the rebels, " It's a bad job when the extinguisher 
 catches fire I " And that is exactly the condition of 
 things in regard to our power of self-government. The 
 powers that should control are largely gone over to the 
 enemy, and become traitors. 
 
 " Who shall keep the very keepers ? " is the old ques- 
 tion, and here is the answer :— Yon cannot execute the 
 
OF THE CHILDREN OF THE DAY 39 
 
 gymnastic feat of " erecting yourself above yourself " any 
 more than a man can take himself by his own coat collar 
 and lift himself up from the ground with his own arms. 
 But you can cultivate faith, hope, and charity, and these 
 three, well cultivated and brought to bear upon your 
 daily life, will do the governing for you. Faith will 
 bring you into communication with all the power of God. 
 Love will lead you into a region where all the tempta- 
 tions round you will be touched as by an Ithuriel spear, 
 and will shew their own foulness. And Hope will turn 
 away your eyes from looking at the tempting splendour 
 around, and fix them upon the glories that are above. 
 
 And so the reins will come into your hands in an 
 altogether new manner, and you will be able to be king 
 over your own nature in a fashion that you did not dream 
 of before, if only you will trust in Christ, and love Him, 
 and fix your desires on the things above. 
 
 Then you will be able to govern yourself when you let 
 Christ govern you. The glories that are to be done away 
 that gleam round you like foul, flaring tallow-candles, 
 will lose all their fascination and brightness, by reason of 
 the glory that excelleth, the pure starlike splendour of 
 the white inextinguishable lights of Heaven. 
 
 And when by Faith, Charity and Hope you have drunk 
 of the new wine of the Kingdom, the drugged and opiate 
 cup which a sorceress world presents, jewelled though it 
 be, will lose its charms, and it will not be hard to turn 
 from it and dash it to the ground. 
 
 God help you, brother, to be " sober," for unless you 
 are " you cannot see the Kingdom of God I ** 
 
THE LAST BEATITUDE OF THE ASCENDED 
 CHRIST. 
 
SERMON IV, 
 
 THE LAST BEATITUDE OF THE ASCENDED CHRIST. 
 
 " Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may haye right to th« 
 free of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. xxiL 14. 
 
 The Revised Version reads, " Blessed are they that wash 
 their robes, that they may have the right to come to the 
 Tree of Life." 
 
 That may seem a very large change to make, from 
 " keep his commandments " to " wash their robes, " but 
 in the Greek it is only a change of three letters in one 
 word, one in the next, and two in the third. And the 
 two phrases, written, look so like each other that a scribe 
 hasty, or, for the moment, careless, might very easily 
 mistake the one for the other. There can be no doubt 
 whatever that the reading in the Revised Version is the 
 coj-rect one. Not only is it sustained by a great weight 
 of authority, but also it is far more in accordance with 
 the whole teaching of the New Testament than that which 
 stands in our Authorised Version. 
 
 " Blessed are they that do His commandments, that 
 they might have right to the Tree of Life," carries us 
 back to the old law, and has no more hopeful a sound in 
 it than the thunders of Sinai. If it were, indeed, 
 amongst Christ's last words to us, it would be a most sad 
 
44 THE LAST BEATITUDE 
 
 instance of His " building again the things He had des- 
 troyed. " It is relegating us to the dreary old round of 
 trying to earn Heaven by doing good deeds ; and I might 
 almost say it is "making the Cross of Christ of none 
 effect. " The fact that that corrupt reading came so soon 
 into the Church and has held its ground so long, is to me 
 a very singular proof of the difficulty which men have 
 always had in keeping themselves up to the level of the 
 grand central Gospel-truth : " Not by works of righteous- 
 ness which we have done, but by His mercy, He saved 
 ns." 
 
 " Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may 
 have right to the Tree of Life, " has the clear ring of the 
 New Testament music about it, and is in full accord with 
 the whole type of doctrine that runs through this book ; 
 and is not unworthy to be almost the last word that the 
 lips of the Incarnate Wisdom spoke to men from Heaven. 
 So then, taking that point of view, I wish to look with 
 you at the three things that come plainly out of these 
 words : — First, that principle that if men are clean it is 
 because they are cleansed ; " Blessed are they that wash 
 their robes. " Secondly, It is the cleansed who have 
 unrestrained access to the source of life. And lastly, It 
 is the cleansed that pass into the society of the city. 
 Now, let me deal with these three things : — 
 
 First, If we are clean it is because we have been made 
 so. The first beatitude that Jesus Christ spoke from 
 the mountain was, " Blessed are the poor in spirit. '* The 
 last beatitude that He speaks from Heaven is, " Blessed 
 are they that wash their robes. " And the act commend- 
 ed in the last is but the outcome of the spirit extolled in 
 the first. For they who are poor in spirit are such as 
 know themselves to be sinful men ; and those who know 
 themselves to be sinful men are they who will cleanse 
 their robes in the blood of Jesus Christ 
 
OF THE ASCENDED CHRIST. 45 
 
 I need not remind yon, I suppose, how continually 
 this symbol of the robe is used in Scripture as an expression 
 for moral character. This Book of the Apocalypse is 
 saturated through and through with Jewish implications 
 and allusions, and there can be no doubt whatever that 
 in this metaphor of the cleansing of the robes there is an 
 allusion to that vision that the Apocalyptic seer of the 
 Old Covenant, the prophet Zecharias, had when he saw 
 the High Priest standing before the altar clad in foul 
 raiment, and the word came forth, " Take away the filthy 
 garments from him. " Nor need I do more than remind 
 you how the same metaphor is often on the lips of our 
 Lord Himself, notably in the story of the man that had 
 not on the wedding garment, and in the touching and 
 beautiful incident in the parable of the Prodigal Son, 
 where the exuberance of the father's love bids them cast 
 the best robe round the rags and the leanness of his long- 
 lost boy. Nor need I remind you how Paul catches up 
 the metaphor, aud is continually referring to an investing 
 and a divesting — the putting on and the putting off of the 
 new and the old man. In this same Book of the Apoca- 
 lypse, we see, gleaming all through it, the white robes of 
 the purified soul : " They shall walk with Me in white, 
 for they are worthy. " " I beheld a great multitude, 
 whom no man could number, who had washed their 
 robes and made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb. " 
 
 And so there are gathered up into these last words, all 
 these allusions and memories, thick and clustering, when 
 Christ speaks from Heaven and says, " Blessed are they 
 that wash their robes." 
 
 Well then, I suppose we may say roughly, in our more 
 modern phraseology, that the robe thus so frequently 
 spoken of in Scripture answers substantially to what we 
 call character. It is not exactly the man— and yet it if 
 
46 THE LAST BEATITUDE 
 
 the man. It is the self — and yet it is a kind of projection 
 and making visible of the self, the vesture which is cast 
 round " the hidden man of the heart." 
 
 This mysterious robe, which answers nearly to what 
 we mean by character, is made by the wearer. 
 
 That is a solemn thought. Every one of ns, carries 
 about with him a mystical loom, and we are always 
 weaving — weave, weave, weaving — this robe which we 
 wear, every thought a thread of the warp, every action a 
 thread of the weft. We weave it, as the spider does its 
 web, out of its own entrails, if I might so say. We 
 weave it, and we dye it, and we cut it, and we stitch it, 
 %nd then we put it on and wear it, and it sticks to us. 
 Like a snail that crawls about your garden patches, and 
 makes its shell by a process of secretion from out of its 
 own substance so you and I are making that mysterious, 
 solemn thing that we call character, moment by moment 
 It is our own self, modified by our actions. Character is 
 the precipitate from the stream of conduct which, like the 
 Nile Delta, gradually rises solid and firm above the parent 
 river and confines its flow. 
 
 The next step that I ask yon to take is one that I know 
 some of you do not like to take, and it is this : All the 
 robes are foul. I do not say all are equally splashed, I do 
 not say all equally thickly spotted with the flesh. I do 
 not wish to talk dogmas, I wish to talk experience ; and I 
 appeal to your own consciences, with this plain question, 
 that every man and woman amongst us can answer if they 
 like — Is it true or is it not, that the robe is all dashed 
 with mud caught on the foul ways, with stains in some 
 of us of rioting and banqueting and revelry and drunken- 
 ness ; sins of the flesh that have left their marks upon 
 the flesh ; but with all of us grey and foul as compared 
 with the whiteness of His robe who sits above us there ? 
 
 Ah. 1 would that I could bring to all hearts that are 
 
OF THE ASCBNDBD CHRIST. 47 
 
 listening to me now, whether the hearts of professing 
 Christians or no, that consciousness more deeply than we 
 have ever had it, of how full of impurity and corruption 
 our characters are. I do not charge you with crimes ; I 
 do not charge you with guilt in the world's eyes, but, if 
 we seriously ponder over our past, have we not lived, 
 some of us habitually, all of us far too often, as if there 
 were no God at all, or as if we had nothing to do with 
 Him ? and is not that godlessness, practical Atheism, the 
 fountain of all foulness from which black brooks flow 
 into our lives, and stain our robes ? 
 
 The next step is, the foul robe can be cleansed. My 
 text does not go any further in a statement of the method, 
 but it rests upon the great words of this Book of the 
 Revelation, which I have already quoted for another pur- 
 pose, in which we read " they washed their robes, and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb." And the 
 same writer, in his Epistle, has the same paradox, which 
 seems to have been, to him, a favourite way of putting the 
 central Gospel-truth : — " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses 
 from all sin." John saw the paradox, and saw that the 
 paradox helped to illustrate the great truth that He was 
 trying to proclaim, that the red blood whitened the black 
 robe, and that in its full tide there was a limpid river of 
 water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the Cross 
 of Christ. 
 
 Guilt can be pardoned, character can be sanctified. 
 Guilt can be pardoned ! Men say : " No I We live in a 
 universe of inexorable laws : * What a man soweth that 
 he must also reap.* If he has done wrong he must inherit 
 the consequences." 
 
 But the question whether guilt can be pardoned or not 
 has only to do very remotely with consequences. The 
 question is not whether we live in a universe of inexor- 
 able laws, but whether there is anything in the universe 
 
48 THE LAST BEATITUDE 
 
 but the laws ; for forgiveness is a personal act and has 
 only to do secondarily and remotely with the consequen- 
 ces of a man's doings. So that, if we believe in a personal 
 God, and believe that He has got any kind of living rela- 
 tion to men at all, we can believe — blessed be His name I 
 — in the doctrine of forgiveness ; and leave the inexor- 
 able laws full scope to w^ork, according as His wisdom 
 and His mercy may provide. For the heart of the 
 Christian doctrine of pardon does not touch those laws, 
 but the heart of it is this : " Lord I Thou wast angry 
 with me, but Thine anger is turned away, Thou hast 
 comforted me ! " So guilt may be pardoned. 
 
 Character may be sanctified and elevated. Why not, 
 if you can bring a sufficiently strong new force to bear 
 upen it ? And you can bring such a force, in the blessed 
 thought of Christ's death for me, and in the gift of His love. 
 There is such a force in the thought that He has given 
 Himself for our sin. There is such a force in the Spirit 
 of Christ given to us through His death to cleanse us by 
 His presence in our hearts. And so I say, the blood of 
 Jesus Christ, the power of His sacrifice and Cross, cleanses 
 from all sin, both in the sense of taking away all my guilt, 
 and in the sense of changing my character into something 
 loftier and nobler and purer. 
 
 Men and women I Do you believe that ? If you do 
 not, why do you not ? If you do, are you trusting to 
 what you believe, and living the life that befits the con- 
 fidence ? 
 
 One word more. The washing of your robes has to be 
 done by you. " Blessed are they that wash their robes." 
 On one hand is all the fulness of cleansing, on the other 
 is the heap of dirty rags that will not be cleansed by 
 you sitting there and looking at them. You must bring 
 the two into contact. How ? By the magic band that 
 unites strength and weakness, purity and foulness, the 
 
OF THE ASCENDED CHRIST. 49 
 
 Saviour and the penitent ; the magic band of simple 
 affiance, and trust and submission of myself to the cleans- 
 ing power of His death and of His life. 
 
 Only remember, " Blessed are they that are ivashiyigj'* 
 as the Greek might read. Not once and for all, bnt a 
 continuous process, a blessed process running on all 
 through a man's life. 
 
 These are the conditions as they come from Christ's 
 own lips, in almost the last words that human ears, either 
 in fact or in vision, heard Him utter. These are the 
 conditions under which noble life, and at last Heaven are 
 possible for men, namely, that their foul characters shall 
 be cleansed, and that continuously, by daily recurrence 
 and recourse to the Fountain opened in His sacrifice and 
 death. 
 
 Friends, you may know much of the beauty and no- 
 bleness of Christianity, you may know much of the ten- 
 derness and purity of Christ but if you have not appre- 
 hended Him in this character, there is an inner sanctuary 
 yet to be trod, of which your feet know nothing, and the 
 sweetest sweetness of all you have not yet tasted, for 
 it is His forgiving love and cleansing power that most 
 deeply manifest His Divine affection and bind us to 
 Himself. 
 
 II. — The second thought that I would suggest is that 
 these cleansed ones, and by implication these only, have 
 unrestrained access to the source of life : " Blessed are 
 they that wash their robes, that they may have right * to 
 the Tree of Life. ' " That, of course, carries us back to the 
 old mysterious narrative at the beginning of the Book of 
 Genesis. 
 
 Although it does not bear very closely upon my present 
 subject, I cannot help pausing to point out one thing, how 
 remarkable and how beautiful it is that the last page of 
 the Revelation should come bending round to touch the 
 
 B 
 
50 THE LAST BBATITUDB 
 
 first page of Genesis. The history of man began with 
 angels with frovrning faces and flaming swords barring 
 the way to the Tree of Life. It ends here with the guard 
 of Cherubim withdrawn ; or rather, perhaps, sheathing 
 their swords and becoming guides to the no longer for- 
 bidden fruit, instead of being its guards. That is the Bible's 
 grand symbolical way of saying that all between — the sin, 
 the misery, the death, is a parenthesis. God's purpose is 
 not going to be thwarted, and the end of His majestic 
 march through human history is to be men*s access to the 
 Tree of Life from which, for the dreary ages, — that are 
 but as a moment in the great eternities — they were barred 
 out by their sin. 
 
 However, that is not the point that I meant to say a 
 word about. The Tree of Life stands as the symbol here 
 of an external source of life. I take " life " to be used here 
 in what I believe to be its predominant New Testament 
 meaning, not bare continuance in existence, but a full 
 blessed perfection and activity of all the faculties and 
 possibilities of the man, which this very Apostle himself 
 identifies with the knowledge of God and of Jesus 
 Christ. And that life, says John, has an external source 
 in Heaven as on earth. 
 
 There is an old Christian legend, absurd as a legend, 
 beautiful as a parable, that the cross on which Christ was 
 crucified was made out of the wood of the Tree of Life. It is 
 true in idea, for He and His work will be the source of 
 all life, for earth and for Heaven, whether of body, soul, or 
 spirit. They that wash their robes have the right of un- 
 restrained access to Him in Whose presence, in that loftier 
 state, no impurity can live. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the thought that is involved 
 here, of how, whilst on earth and in the beginnings of the 
 Christian career, life is the basis of righteousness ; in that 
 higher world, in a very profound sense, righteousness is 
 the condition of fuller life. 
 
or TEE ASCENDED CHRIST. 51 
 
 The Tree of Life, according to some of the old Rab- 
 biaical legends, lifted its branches, by an indwelling 
 motion, high above impure hands that were stretched 
 to touch them, and until our hands are cleansed through 
 faith in Jesus Christ, its richest fruit hangs unreachable, 
 golden, above our heads. Oh I brother, the fulness of the 
 life of Heaven is only granted to them who, drawing near 
 Jesus Christ by faith on earth, have thereby cleansed 
 themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. 
 
 III. — Finally, those who are cleansed, and they only, 
 have entrance into the society of the city. 
 
 There again we have a whole series of Old and New 
 Testament metaphors gathered together. In the old world 
 the whole power and splendour of great kingdoms was 
 gathered in their capitals, Babylon and Nineveh in the 
 past, Rome in the present. To John the forces of evil 
 were all concentrated in that city on the Seven Hills. To 
 him the antagonistic forces which were the hope of the 
 world, were all concentrated in the real ideal city which 
 he expected to come down from Heaven — the New Jeru- 
 salem. And he and his brother who wrote the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, whoever he w^as — trained substantially in the 
 same school — have taught us the same lesson that our pic- 
 ture of the future is not to be of a solitary or self -regarding 
 Heaven, but of " a city which hath foundations." 
 
 Genesis began with a garden, man's sin sent him out of 
 the garden. God, out of evil, evolves good, and for the 
 lost garden comes the better thing, the found city. " Then 
 comes the statelier Eden back to man. " For surely it is 
 better that men should live in the activities of the city 
 than in the sweetness and indolence of the garden ; and 
 manifold and miserable as are the sins and the sorrows of 
 great cities, the opprobria of our modern so-called civili- 
 sation, yet still the aggregation of great masses of men for 
 worthy objects generates a form of character, and sets 
 
 e2 
 
52 THE LAST BBATITUDB 
 
 loose energies and activities which no other kind ol lift 
 could have produced. 
 
 And so I believe a great step in progress is set forth 
 when we read of the final condition of mankind as being 
 their assembling in the city of God. And surely there, 
 amidst the solemn troops and sweet societies,the long-loved, 
 long-lost, will be found again. I cannot believe that like 
 the Virgin and Joseph, we shall have to go wandering up 
 and down the streets of Jerusalem when we get there, 
 looking for our dear ones. " Wist ye not that I should be 
 in the Father's house ? " We shall know where to find 
 them. 
 
 * We shall olasp them again, 
 And with Ood be the rest." 
 
 The city is the emblem of security and of permanence. 
 No more shall life be as a desert march, with changes 
 which only bring sorrow, and yet a dreary monotony 
 amidst them all. We shall dwell amid abiding realities, 
 ourselves fixed in unchanging, but ever growing complete- 
 ness and peace. The tents shall be done with, we shall 
 inhabit the solid mansions of the city which hath foun- 
 dations, and shall wonderingly exclaim, as our unac- 
 customed eyes gaze on their indestructible strength, 
 " What manner of stones, and what buildings are here ! " 
 — and not one stone of these shall ever be thrown down. 
 
 Dear friends I the sum of all my poor words now is the 
 earnest beseeching of every one of yon to bring all your 
 foulness to Christ, who alone can make you clean. 
 " Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much 
 soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the 
 Lord. " " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all 
 sin. " Submit yourselves, I pray you, to its purifying 
 power, by humble faith. Then you will have the true 
 possession of the true life to-day, and will be citizens of 
 
OF THE ASCENDED CHRISfT. S3 
 
 the city of God, even while in this far-ofp dependency of 
 that great metropolis. And when the moment comes for 
 yon to leave this prison-house, an angel "mighty and 
 beauteous, though his face be hid, " shall come to you, 
 as once of old to the sleeping Apostle. His touch shall 
 wake you, and lead you, scarce knowing where you are or 
 what is happening, from the sleep of life, past the first 
 •ind second ward, and through the iron gate that leadeth 
 unto the city. Smoothly it will turn on its hinges, open- 
 ing to you of its own accord, and then you will come to 
 yourself and know of a surety that the Lord hath sent 
 His angel, and that he has led you into the home of your 
 heart, the city of God, which they enter as its fitting in- 
 habitants who wash their robes in the blood «af the Lamb. 
 
LUTHER— A STONE ON THE CAIRN, 
 
SERMON V 
 
 LUTHER — A STONE ON THB CAIRN. 
 
 " For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell ou 
 •leep, and was laid unto his fathers and saw corruption. But He, Whom God raise*) 
 again, saw no corruption. " (Acts xiii. 36, 37). 
 
 I TAKE these words as a motto rather than as a text. 
 You will have anticipated the use which I purpose to make 
 of them in connection witn the Luther Commemoration. 
 They set before us, in clear sharp contrast, the distinction 
 between the limited transient work of the servants and the 
 unbounded, eternal influence of the Master. The former 
 are servants, and that but for a time ; they do their work, 
 they are laid in the grave, and as their bodies resolve into 
 their elements, so their influence, their teaching, the in- 
 stitutions which they may have founded, disintegrate and 
 decay. He lives. His relation to the world is not as 
 theirs ; He is " not for an age, but for all time." Death is 
 not the end of His work. His Cross is the eternal founda- 
 tion of the world's hope. His life is the ultimate, perfect 
 revelation of the Divine Nature which can never be sur- 
 passed, or fathomed, or antiquated. Therefore, the last 
 thought, in all commemorations of departed teachers and 
 guides, should be of Him Who gave them all the force 
 that they had ; and the final word should be ; " they were 
 not suffered to continue by reason of death, this Man con- 
 tinueth ever." 
 
58 LUTHER— A STONE ON THE CAIRN. 
 
 In the same spirit, then, as the words of my text, and 
 taking them as giving me little more than a starting-point 
 and a framework I draw from them some thoughts appro- 
 priate to the occasion. 
 
 I. — First, we have to think about the limited and 
 transient work of this great servant of God. 
 
 The miner's son, that was born in that little Saxon village, 
 four hundred years ago, presents at first sight a character 
 singularly unlike the traditional type of mediaeval Church 
 fathers and saints. Their ascetic habits, and the repressive 
 system under which they were trained, withdraw them 
 from our sympathy ; but this sturdy peasant, with his 
 full-blooded humanity, unmistakeably a man, and a man 
 all round, is a new type, and looks strangely out of place 
 amongst doctors and mediaeval saints. 
 
 His character, though not complex is many - sided 
 and in some respects contradictory. The face and 
 figure that look out upon us from the best portraits oi 
 Luther, tell us a great deal about the man. Strong, massive, 
 not at all elegant ; he stands there, firm and resolute, on 
 his own legs, grasping a Bihle in a muscular hand. There 
 is plenty of animalism — a source of power as well sp of 
 weakness — in the thick neck ; an iron will in the square 
 chin ; eloquence on the full, loose lips ; a mystic, dreamy 
 tenderness and sadness in the steadfast eyes — altogether a 
 true king and a leader of men ! 
 
LUTHER— A STONB ON THB CAIRN. 59 
 
 He was no mere brave revolutionary, he was a cultured 
 scholar, abreast of all the learning of his age, capable of 
 logic-chopping and scholastic disputation on occasion, and 
 but too often the victim of his own over subtle refine- 
 ments. He was a poet, with a poet's dreaminess and way- 
 wardness, fierce alternations of light and shade, sorrow 
 and joy. All living things whispered and spoke to him, 
 and he walked in communion with them all. Little chil- 
 dren gathered round his feet, and he had a big heart of 
 love for all the weary and the sorrowful. 
 
 Everybody knows how he could write and speak. He 
 made the German language, as we may say, lifting it up 
 from a dialect of boors to become the rich, fiexible, cul- 
 tured speech that it is. And his Bible, his single-handed 
 work, is one of the colossal achievements of man ; like 
 Stonehenge or the Pyramids. "His words were half- 
 battles, " " they were living creatures that had hands and 
 feet"; his speech, direct, strong, homely, ready to borrow 
 words from the kitchen or the gutter, is unmatched for 
 popular eloquence and impression. There was music in 
 the man. His flute solaced his lonely hours in his home 
 at Wittemberg ; and the Marseillaise of the Reformation, 
 as that grand hymn of his has been called, came, words 
 and music, from his heart. There was humour in him, 
 coarse horseplay often ; an honest, hearty, broad laugh 
 frequently, like that of a Norse god I There were coarse 
 tastes in him, tastes of the peasant folk from whom he 
 came, which clung to him through life, and kept him in 
 sympathy with the common people, and intelligible to 
 them. And withal, there was a constitutional melancholy, 
 aggravated by his weary toils, perilous fightings, and 
 fierce throes, which led him down often into the deep 
 mire where there was no standing ; and which sighs 
 through all his life. The penitential psalms and Paul's 
 wail : " I wretched man that I am, " perhaps never woke 
 
60 LUTHER— A STONE ON THE OAIBN. 
 
 more plaintive echo in any human heart than they did in 
 
 Martin Luther's. 
 
 Faults he had, gross and plain as the heroic mould in 
 which he was cast. He was vehement and fierce often ; 
 he was coarse and violent often. He saw what he did see 
 so clearly, that he was slow to believe that there was any- 
 thing that he did not see. He was oblivious of counter- 
 balancing considerations, and given to exaggerated, incau- 
 tious, unguarded statements of precious truths. He too 
 often aspired to be a driver rather than a leader of men : 
 and his strength of will became obstinacy and tyranny. 
 It was too often true that he had dethroned the Pope ol 
 Rome to set up a pope at Wittemberg, And foul person- 
 alities came from his lips, according to the bad controver- 
 sial fashion of his day, which permitted a license to 
 scholars that we now forbid to fishwives. 
 
 All that has to be admitted ; and when it is all admitted, 
 what then ? This is a fastidious generation ; Erasmus is 
 its heroic type a great deal more than Luther — I mean 
 amongst the cultivated classes of our day, — and that very 
 largely because in Erasmus there is no quick sensibility 
 to religious emotion as there is in Luther, and no incon- 
 venient fervour. The faults are there— coarse, plain, 
 palpable— and perhaps more than enough has been made 
 of them. Let us remember — as to violence — ^that he was 
 following the fashion of the day ; that he was fighting 
 for his life ; that when a man is at death grips with a 
 tiger he may be pardoned if he strikes without considering 
 whether he is going to spoil the skin or not ; and that, on 
 the whole you cannot throttle snakes in a graceful attitude. 
 Men fought then with bludgeons ; they fight now with 
 dainty polished daggers, dipped in cold colourless poison 
 of sarcasm. Perhaps there was less malice in the rougher 
 old way than in the new. 
 
 The faults are there, and nobody that was not a fool 
 
LUTHER— A STONB ON THE CAIRN. 61 
 
 would think of painting that homely Saxon peasant-monk's 
 face without the warts and the wrinkles. But it is quite 
 as unhistorical, and a great deal more wicked, to paint 
 nothing but the warts and wrinkles ; to rake all the faults 
 together and make the most of them ; and present them 
 in answer to the question : " What sort of a man was 
 Mai-tin Luther ? " 
 
 As to the work that he did, like the work of all of us, 
 it had its limitations, and it will have its end. The im- 
 pulse that he communicated, like all impulses that are 
 given from men, will wear out its force. New^ questions 
 will arise, of which the dead leaders never dreamed, and 
 in which they can give no counsel. The perspective of 
 theological thought will alter, the centre of interest will 
 change, a new dialect will begin to be spoken. So it 
 comes to pass that all religious teachers and thinkers are 
 left behind, and that their words aie preserved and read 
 rather for their antiquarian and historical interest, than 
 because of any impulse or direction for the present which 
 may linger in them ; and if they founded institutions, 
 these too, in their time, will crumble and disappear. 
 
 But I do not mean to say that the truths which Luther 
 rescued from the dust of centuries, and impressed upon 
 the conscience of Teutonic Europe, are getting antiquated. 
 I only mean that his connection with them and his way 
 of putting them, had its limitations and will have its end ; 
 — " This man, having served his own generation by the 
 wiir of God, was gathered to his fathers, and saw 
 corruption." 
 
 What were the truths, what was his contribution to the 
 illumination of Europe, and to the Church .^ Three great 
 principles, — which perhaps closer analysis might reduce 
 to one ; but which for popular use, on such an occasion as 
 the present, had better be kept apart, — will state his service 
 io the world. 
 
62 LUTHER— A STONB ON THE CAIRN. 
 
 There were three men in the past who, as it seems to 
 me, reach out their hands to one another across the 
 centuries — Panl, St. Augustine, and Martin Luther. Three 
 men very like each other, all three of them joining the 
 same subtle speculative power with the same capacity of 
 religious fervour, and of flaming up at the contemplation 
 of Divine truth. All of them gifted with the same ex- 
 uberant, and to fastidious eyes, incorrect eloquence. All 
 three trained in a school of religious thought of which 
 each respectively was destined to be the antagonist and all 
 but the destroyer. 
 
 The young Pharisee, on the road to Damascus, blinded, 
 bewildered, with all that vision flaming upon him, sees in 
 its light his past, that he thought had been so pure, and 
 holy, and God-serving, and amazedly discovers that it had 
 been all a sin and a crime, and a persecution of the Divine 
 One. Beaten from every refuge, and lying there, he cries : 
 " What wouldst Thou have me to do. Lord ? " 
 
 The young Manichean and profligate in the fourth 
 century, and the young monk in his convent in the 15th, 
 passed through a similiar experience ; — different in form, 
 identical in substance — with that of Paul, the persecutor. 
 And so Paul's gospel, which was the description and ex- 
 planation, the rationale of his own experience, became 
 their gospel ; and when Paul said : — " Not by works of 
 righteousness which our own hands have done, but by His 
 mercy He saved us " (Titus iii. 5), the great voice from 
 the North African shore, in the midst of the agonies of 
 barbarian invasions and a falling Rome, said "Amen." 
 *' Man lives by faith," and the voice from the Wittemberg 
 convent, a thousand years after, amidst the unspeakable 
 corruption of that phosphorescent and decaying renais- 
 sance, answered across the centuries, " It is true I " 
 " Herein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith 
 to faith." Luther's word to the world was Augustine's 
 
liUTHBR— A STONE ON THE CAIRN. 63 
 
 word to the world ; and Lnther and Augustine were the 
 echoes of Saul of Tarsus — and Paul learned his theology 
 on the Damascus road, when the voice bade him go and 
 proclaim " forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them 
 which are sanctified by faith that is in Me." (Acts xxvi. 18.) 
 That is Luther's first claim on our gratitude, that he took 
 this truth from the shelves where it had reposed, dust- 
 covered, through centuries, that he lifted this truth from 
 the bier where it had lain, smothered with sacerdotal gar- 
 lands, and called with a loud voice, "I say unto thee, 
 arise 1 " and that now the commonplace of Christianity is 
 this — All men are sinful men, justice condemns us all. 
 Our only hope is God's infinite mercy. That mercy comes 
 to us all in Jesus Christ that died for us, and he that gets 
 that into his heart by simple faith, he is forgiven, pure, 
 and he is an heir of Heaven. 
 
 There are other aspects of Christian truth which Luther 
 failed to apprehend. The Gospel is, of course, not only a 
 way of reconciliation and forgiveness. He pushed his 
 teaching of the uselessness of good works as a means of 
 salvation too far. He said rash and exaggerated things in 
 his vehement way about the " justifying power " of faith 
 alone. Doubtless his language was often exaggerated, and 
 his thoughts one-sided, in regard to subjects that need very 
 delicate handling and careful definition. But after all that 
 is admitted, it remains true that his strong arm tossed 
 aside the barriers and rubbish that had been piled across 
 the way by which prodigals could go home to their Father, 
 and made plain once more the endless mercy of God, and 
 the power of humble faith. He was right when he de- 
 clared that whatever heights and depths there may be in 
 God's great revelation, and however needful it is for a 
 complete apprehension of the truth as it is in Jesus that 
 these should find their place in the creed of Christendom, 
 Btill the firmness with which that initial truth of man's 
 
64 LUTHER— A STO^E ON THE CAIRJS. 
 
 sini'ulness and his forgiveness and acceptance through 
 simple faith in Christ is held, and the clear earnestness 
 \\ ith which it is proclaimed, are the test of a standing or a 
 falling Church. 
 
 And then, closely connected with this central principle, 
 and yet susceptible of being stated separately, are the 
 other two ; of neither of which do I think it necessary to 
 say more than a word. Side by side with that great dis- 
 covery — for it was a discovery — by the monk in his con- 
 vent, of Justification by faith, there follows the other 
 principle of the entire sweeping away of all priesthood, 
 and the direct access to God of every individual Christian 
 soul. There are no more external rites to be done by a 
 designated and separate class. There is One sacrificing 
 Priest, and one only, and that is Jesus Christ, Who has 
 sacrificed Himself for us all, and there are no other priests, 
 except in the sense in which every Christian man is a 
 priest and minister of the most high God. And no man 
 comes between me and my Father ; and no man has a 
 right to do anything for me which brings me any grace, 
 except in so far as mine own heart opens for the reception, 
 and mine own faith lays hold of the grace given. 
 
 Luther did not carry that principle so far as some of us 
 modern Nonconformists carry it. He left illogical frag- 
 ments of sacrarneiitarian and sacerdotal theories in his 
 creed and in his Church. But, for all that, we owe mainly 
 to him the clear utterance of that thought, the warm 
 breath of which has thawed the ice chains which held 
 Europe in barren bondage. Notwithstanding the present 
 1 ortentous revival of sacerdotalism, and the strange turn- 
 ing again of portions of society to these beggarly elements 
 of the past, I believe that the figments of a sacrificing 
 priesthood and sacramental efficacy will never again per- 
 manently darken the sky in this land, the home of the 
 men who speak the tongue of Milton, and owe much of 
 
LUTHER — A STONE ON THE CAIRN. 65 
 
 their religious and political fieedom to the Reformation of 
 Luther. 
 
 And the third point, which is closely connected with 
 these other two, is this, the declaration that every illumin- 
 ated Christian soul has a right and is bound to study God's 
 Word without the Church at its elbow to teach what to 
 think about it. It was Luther's great achievement that, 
 whatever else he did, he put the Bible into the hands oi 
 the common people. In that department and region, his 
 work, perhaps, bears more distinctly the traces of limita- 
 tion and imperfection than anywhere else, for he knew 
 nothing — how could he ? — of the diliicult questions of this 
 day in regard to the composition and authority of Scripture, 
 nor had he thought out his own system or done full justice 
 to his own principle. 
 
 He could be as inquisitorial and as dogmatic as any 
 Dominican of them all. He believed in force ; he was 
 as ready as all his fellows were to invoke the aid of the 
 temporal power. The idea of the Church, as helped and 
 sustained, which means fettered, and weakened, and para- 
 lysed, by the civic government, bewitched him as it did 
 his fellows. We needed to wait for George Fox, and 
 Roger Williams, and more modern names still before we 
 understood fully what was involved in the rejection of 
 priesthood, and the claim that God's Word should speak 
 directly to each Chiistian soul. But for all that, we 
 largely owe to Luther the creed that looks in simple faith 
 to Chiist : a Chm-ch without a priest, in which every man 
 is a priest of the Most High, the only true democracy that 
 the world will ever see ; and a Church in which the open 
 Bible and the indw elling spirit are the guides of every 
 humble soul within its pale. These are his claims on our 
 gratitude. 
 
 Luther's work had its limitations and its imperfections, 
 as I have been saying to you. It will become less and less 
 
 F 
 
66 LUTHER— A STONE ON THE CAIRN, 
 
 conspicuous as the ages go on. It cannot be otherwise. 
 That is the law of the world. As a whole green forest of 
 the carboniferous era is represented now in the rocks by 
 a thin seam of coal, no thicker than a sheet of paper, so 
 the stormy lives and the large works of the men that have 
 gone before, are compressed into a mere film and line in 
 the great cliff that slowly rises above the sea of time and 
 is called the history of the world. 
 
 II. — Be it so I be it so I Let us turn to the other thought 
 of our text, the perpetual work of the abiding Lord. 
 " He Whom God raised up saw no corruption." It is a fact 
 that there are thousands of men and women in the world 
 to-day that have a feeling about that eighteen-centuries- 
 dead Galilean carpenter's son that they have about nobody 
 else. All the great names of antiquity are but ghosts and 
 shadows, and all the names in the Church and in the 
 world, of men whom we have not seen, are dim and in- 
 effectual to us. They may evoke our admiration, our 
 reverence, and our wonder, but none of them can touch 
 the heart. And here is this unique, anomalous fact that 
 men and women by the thousand love Jesus Christ, the 
 dead One, the unseen One, far away back there in the 
 ages, and feel that there is no mist of oblivion between 
 them and Him. 
 
 This is because He does for you and me what none 
 of these other men can do. Luther talked about a cross, 
 Christ died on it. — " Was Paul crucified for you ? " There 
 is the secret of His undying hold upon the world. The 
 further secret lies in this, that He is not a past force but a 
 present one. He is no exhausted power but a power 
 mighty to day ; working in us, around us, on us, and for 
 us, — a living Christ: "This Man Whom God raised np 
 from the dead saw no corruption." The others move 
 away from us like figures in a fog, dim as they pass into 
 the mists, having a blurred half spectral outline for a 
 moment, and then gone. 
 
LUTHER — ^A BTONB ON THE OAIBN. 67 
 
 That death has a present and a perpetual power. He 
 has offered one sacrifice for sins for ever ; and no time 
 can diminish the efficacy of His cross, nor onr need of it, 
 nor the full tide of blessings which flow from it to the 
 belieying sonl. Therefore do men cling to Him to-day as 
 if it was but yesterday that He had died for them. When 
 all other names carved on the world's records have become 
 unreadable, like forgotten inscriptions on decaying grave- 
 stones, His shall endure for ever, deep graven on fleshly 
 tables of the heart. His Revelation of God is the highest 
 truth. Till the end of time men will turn to His life for 
 their clearest knowledge and happiest certainty of their 
 Father in heaven. There is nothing limited or local in 
 His character or works. In His meek beauty and gentle 
 perfectness, He stands so high above us all that, to-day, 
 the inspiration of His example and the lessons of His 
 conduct touch us as much as if He had lived in this gener- 
 ation, and will always shine before men as their best and 
 most blessed law of conduct. Christ will not be antiqua- 
 ted till He is outgrown, and it will be some time before 
 that happens. 
 
 But Christ's work is not the only abiding influence of 
 His earthly life and death. He is not a past force, but a 
 present one. He is putting forth fresh powers to-day, 
 working in and for and by all who love Him. We believe 
 in a living Christ. 
 
 Therefore the final thought in all onr grateful comme- 
 moration of dead helpers and guides should be, of the 
 undying Lord. He sent whatsoever power was in them. 
 He is with His Church to-day, still giving to men the gifts 
 needful for their times. Aaron may die on Hor, and 
 Moses be laid in his unknown grave on Pisgah, but the 
 Angel of the Covenant, who is the true leader, abides in 
 the pillar of cloud and fire, Israel's guide in the march, 
 and covering shelter in repose. That is our consolation in 
 
 P 2 
 
68 LUTHER — A STONE ON THE GAIRN. 
 
 our personal losses when our dear ones are " not suffered to 
 continue by reason of death." He who gave them all their 
 sweetness is with us still, and has all the sweetness which 
 He lent them for a time. So, if we have Christ with us, 
 we cannot be desolate. 
 
 Looking on all these men, who in their turn have helped 
 forward His cause a little way, we should let their 
 departure teach us His presence, their limitations His all- 
 eufficiency, their death His life. 
 
 Luther was once found, at a moment of peril and fear, 
 when he had need to grasp unseen strength, sitting in an 
 abstracted mood, traceing on the table with his finger the 
 words " Vivit 1 vivit " I — " He lives I He lives I " It is our 
 hope for ourselves, and for His truth, and for mankind. 
 Men come and go ; leaders, teachers, thinkers, speak and 
 work for a season and then fall silent and impotent. He 
 abides. They die, but He lives. They are lights kindled, 
 and therefore sooner or later quenched, but He is the true 
 light from which they draw all their brightness, and He 
 shines for evermore. Other men are left behind and as 
 the world glides forw^ard, are wrapped in ever thickening 
 folds of oblivion, through which they shine feebly for a 
 little w^hile, like lamps in a fog, and then are muffled in 
 invisibility. We honour other names, and the coming 
 generations will forget them, but " His name shall endure 
 for ever. His name shall continue as long as the Sun, and 
 men shall be blessed in Him ; all nations shall call Him 
 blessed." 
 
^\'1IA r THE VvOELD CALLED THE CHUKCH, AND 
 WHAT THE CHUKCH CALLS ITSELF. 
 
SERMON VL 
 
 WHAT THE WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH, AND 
 WHAT THE CHURCH CALLS ITSELF. 
 
 **The disdples were called Chrutiaus first in Antiooh. " (Acts zi. te.) 
 
 Nations and parties, both political and religious, very 
 often call themselves by one name, and are known to the 
 outside world by another. These outside names are gener- 
 ally given in contempt ; and yet they sometimes manage 
 to hit the very centre of the characteristics of the people 
 on whom they are bestowed ; and so by degrees get to be 
 adopted by them, and worn as an honour. 
 
 So it has been with the name " Christian." It was given 
 at the first, by the inhabitants of the Syrian city of 
 Antioch, to a new sort of people that had sprung up 
 amongst them, and whom they could not quite make out. 
 They would not fit into any of their categories, and so 
 they had to invent a new name for them. It is never used 
 in the New Testament by Christians about themselves. 
 It occurs here in this text ; it occurs in Agrippa*s half- 
 contemptuous exclamation : " You seem to think it is a 
 very small matter to make me — me, a king ! — a Christian ; 
 one of those despised people I " And it occurs once more, 
 where the Apostle Peter is specifying the charges brought 
 against them. " If any man suffer as a Christian, let him 
 
72 WHAT THE WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH, 
 
 not be ashamed ; but let him glorify God on this behalf.' 
 (1 Peter iv. 16.) That sounds like the beginning of the 
 process which has gone on ever since, by which the nick- 
 name, flung by the sarcastic men of Antioch, has been 
 turned into the designation by which, all over the world, 
 the followers of Jesus Christ have been proud to call 
 themselves. 
 
 Now in this verse there are the outside name by which 
 the world calls the followers of Jesus Christ, and one of 
 the many interior names by which the Church called itself. 
 I have thought it might be profitable this morning for us 
 to put all the New Testament names for Christ's followers 
 together, and think about them. 
 
 I. — So, to begin with, we deal with this name given by 
 the world to the Church, which the Church has adopted. 
 Observe the circumstances under which it was given. A 
 handful of large-hearted, brave men, anonymous fugitives 
 belonging to the little Church in Jerusalem, had come 
 down to Antioch ; and there, without premeditation, with- 
 out authority, almost without consciousness — certainly 
 without knowing what a big thing they w^ere doing — they 
 took, all at once, as if it were the most natural thing in the 
 world, a great step by preaching the Gospel to pure heathen 
 Greeks. And so began the process by which a small 
 Jewish sect was transformed into a world-wide church. 
 The success of their work in Antioch, amongst the pure 
 heathen population, has for its crowning attestation this, 
 that it compelled the curiosity-hunting, pleasure-loving, 
 sarcastic Antiocheans to find out a new name for this new 
 thing ; to write out a new label for the new bottles into 
 which the new wine was being put. Clearly the name 
 shews that the Church was beginning to attract the atten- 
 tion of outsiders. 
 
 Clearly it shews, too, that there was a novel element in 
 the Church. The earlier disciples had been all Jews, and 
 
AND WHAT THE CHURCH CALLS ITSBLP. 73 
 
 could be lumped together along with their countrymen, and 
 come under the same category. But here is something that 
 could not be called either Jew or Greek, because it em- 
 braces both. The new name is the first witness to the 
 cosmopolitan character of the primitive Church. Then 
 clearly, too, the name indicates that in a certain dim, con- 
 fused way, even these superficial observers had got hold 
 of the right notion of what it was that did bind these peo- 
 ple together. They called them " Christians " — Christ's 
 men, Christ's followers. But it was only a very dim refrac- 
 tion of the truth that had got to them ; they had no notion 
 that " Christ " was not a proper name, but the designation of 
 an office ; and they had no notion that there was anything 
 peculiar or strange in the bond which united its adherents 
 to Christ. Hence they called His followers " Christians " 
 just as they would have called Herod's followers " Hero- 
 dians," in the political world, or Aristotle's followers 
 " Aristotelians " in the philosophical world. Still, in their 
 groping way, they had put their finger on the fact that the 
 one thing that held this heterogeneous mass together, the 
 one bond that bound up Jew and Gentile, barbarian, 
 Scythian, bond and free into one vital unity, was a 
 personal relation to a living person. And so they said — 
 not understanding the whole significance of it, but having 
 got hold of the right end of the clue — they said, " They 
 are Christians I " " Christ's people," " the followers of this 
 Christ." 
 
 And their very blunder was a felicity. If they had 
 called them "Jesuits" that would have meant the fol- 
 lowers of the mere man. They did not know how much 
 deeper they had gone when they said, not followers of 
 Jesufl, but " followers of Christ ; " for it is not Jesus the 
 Man, bmt Jesus Christ, the Man with His office, that 
 makes the centre and the bond of the Christian Church. 
 
 These, then, are the facts, and the fair inferences from 
 
74 WHAT THE WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH, 
 
 them. A plain lesson here lies on the surface. The 
 Church — ^that is to say, the men and women that make 
 its members — should draw to itself the notice of the out- 
 side world. I do not mean by advertising, and ostenta- 
 tion, and sounding trumpets, and singularities, and affec- 
 tations. None of all these are needed. If you are live 
 Christians it will be plain enough to outsiders. It is a 
 poor comment on your consistency, if, being Christ's fol- 
 lowers, you can go through life unrecognised even by 
 " them that are without. " What shall we say of leaven 
 which does not leaven, or of light which does not shine, 
 or of salt which does not repel corruption ? It is a poor 
 affair if, being professed followers of Jesus Christ, you 
 do not impress the world with the thought that " here is a 
 man who does not come under any of our categories, and 
 who needs a new entry to describe Mm. " The world 
 ought to have the same impression about you which 
 Haman had about the Jews — " Their laws are diverse 
 from all people." 
 
 Christian professors ! Are the world's names for them- 
 selves enough to describe you by, or do you need another 
 name to be coined for you in order to express the mani- 
 fest characteristics that you display ? The Church that 
 does not provoke the attention — I use the word in its ety- 
 mological, not its offensive sense — ^the Church that does 
 not call upon itself the attention and interest of outsiders 
 is not the Church as Jesus Christ meant it to be, and it is 
 not a Church that is worth keeping alive ; and the sooner 
 it has decent burial the better for itself and the world too I 
 
 There is another thing here, viz : — This name suggests 
 that the clear impression made by our conduct and charac- 
 ter, as well as by our words, should be that we belong to 
 Jesus Christ. The eye of an outside observer may be un- 
 able to penetrate the secret of the deep sweet tie uniting 
 QB to Jesus, but there should be no possibility of the most 
 
AND WHAT THE CHURCH CALLS ITSELF. 75 
 
 snperficial and hasty glance overlooking the fact that we 
 are His. He should manifestly be the centre and the 
 guide, the impulse and the pattern, the strength and the 
 reward of our whole lives. We are Christians. That 
 should be plain for all folks to see, whether we speak or 
 be silent. Brethren, is it so with you ? Does your life 
 need no commentary of your words in order that men 
 should know what is the hidden spring that moves all its 
 wheels ; what is the inward spirit that co-ordinates all its 
 motions into harmony and beauty ? Is it true that like 
 " the ointment of the right hand which bewray eth itself, " 
 your allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the overmastering 
 and supreme authority which He exercises upon you, and 
 upon your life, " cannot be hid " ? Do you think that, 
 without your words, if you, living the way you do, were 
 put down into the middle of Pekin, as these handful of 
 people were put down into the middle of the heathen city 
 of Antioch, the wits of the Chinese metropolis would have 
 to invent a name for you, as the clever men of Antioch did 
 for these people ; and do you think that if they had to in- 
 vent a name, the name that would naturally come to their 
 lips, looking at you, would be " Christians " ? " Christ's 
 men. " If you do not, there is something wrong. 
 
 The last thing that I say about this first part of my text 
 is this. It is a very sad thing, but it is a thing that is 
 alwayi occurring, that the world's inadequate notions of 
 what makes a follower of Jesus Christ, get accepted by 
 the Church. Why was it that the name " Christian " ran 
 all over Christendom in the course of a century and a 
 half ? I believe very largely because it was a conveniently 
 vague name ; because it did not describe the deepest 
 and sacredest of the bonds that unite us to Jesus Christ. 
 Many a man is quite willing to say, "I am a Christian, " 
 that would hesitate a long time before he said, "I am a 
 believer *' ; " I am a disciple. " The vagueness of the 
 
76 WHAT THE WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH, 
 
 name, the fact that it erred by defect in not touching the 
 central, deepest relation between man and Jesus Christ, 
 made it very appropriate to the declining spirituality and 
 increasing formalism of the Christian Church in the post- 
 Apostolic age. It is a sad thing when the Church drops 
 i ts standard down to the world's standard of what it ought 
 to be, and swallows the world's name for itself, and its 
 converts. 
 
 II. — I turn now to set side by side with this vague, 
 general, outside name the more specific and interior 
 names — if I may so call them — by w^hich Christ's follow- 
 ers at first knew themselves. The world said, " You are 
 Christ's men ; " and the names that I am going to gather 
 for you, and say a word about now, might be taken as 
 being the Church's explanation of what the world was 
 fumbling at when it so called them. There are four of 
 them ; of course, I can only just touch on them. 
 
 The first is in this verse — " disciples.''^ The others are 
 believers, saints, hrethren. These four are the Church's 
 own christening of itself ; its explanation and expansion, 
 its deepening and heightening of the vague name given 
 by the world. 
 
 As to the first, disciples, any concordance will shew that 
 the name was employed almost exclusively during the 
 time of Christ's life upon earth. It is the only name for 
 Christ's followers in the Gospels ; it occurs also, mingled 
 with others, in the Acts of the Apostles ; and it never 
 occurs any more. 
 
 The name " disciple, " then, carries us back to the his- 
 torical beginning of the whole matter, when Jesus was 
 looked upon as a Rabbi having followers called disciples ; 
 just as were John the Baptist and his followers, Gamaliel 
 and his school, and many a one besides. It sets forth 
 Christ as being the Teacher, and His followers as being 
 His adherents, His scholars, who learned at His feet. 
 
AND WHAT THE CHURCH CALLS ITSELF. 77 
 
 Now that is always trne. We are Christ's scholars 
 qnite as much as the men who heard and saw with their 
 eyes and handled with their hands of the Word of Life. 
 Not by words only, but by gracious deeds and fair spot- 
 less life, He taught them and us and all men to the end of 
 time, our highest knowledge of God of Whom He is the 
 final revelation, our best knowledge of what men should 
 and shall be by His perfect life in which is contained all 
 morality, our only knowledge of that future in that He 
 has died, and is risen and lives to help and still to teach. 
 He teaches us still by the record of His life, and by the 
 living influence of that Spirit whom He sends forth to 
 guide us into all truth. He is the Teacher, the only 
 Teacher, the Teacher for all men, the Teacher of all truth, 
 the Teacher for evermore. He speaks from Heaven. Let 
 us give heed to His voice. But that Name is not enough 
 to tell all which He is to us, or we to Him, and so after 
 He had passed from earth, it unconsciously and gradually 
 dropped out of the lips of the disciples, as they felt a 
 deepened bond uniting them to Him who was not only 
 the Teacher of the Truth, which was Himself, but was 
 their sacrifice and Advocate with the Father. And for all 
 who hold the, as I believe, essentially imperfect concep- 
 tion of Jesus Christ as being mainly a Teacher, either by 
 word or by pattern ; whether it be put into the old form 
 or into the modern form of regarding Him as the Ideal 
 and Perfect Man, it seems to me a fact well worthy of 
 consideration that the name of Disciple and the thing ex- 
 pressed by it, were speedily felt by the Christian Church 
 to be inadequate as a representation of the bond that knit 
 them to Him. He is our Teacher, we His scholars. He 
 is more than that, and a more sacred bond unites us to 
 Him. As our Master we owe Him absolute submission. 
 When He speaks, we have to accept His dictum. What 
 He says is truth, pure and entire. His utterance is the 
 
78 WHAT THE WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH, 
 
 last word upon any subject that He touches, it is the 
 ultimate appeal, and the Judge that ends the strife. We 
 owe Him submission, an open eye for all new truth, con- 
 stant docility, as conscious of our own imperfections, and 
 a confident expectation that He will bless us continuously 
 with high and as yet unknown truths that come from His 
 inexhaustible stores of wisdom and knowledge. 
 
 2. Teacher and scholars move in a region which, though 
 it be important, is not the central one. And the word 
 that was needed next to express what the early Church felt 
 Christ was to them, and they to Him, lifts us into a higher 
 atmosphere altogether, — Believers, they who are exercis- 
 ing not merely intellectual submission to the dicta of 
 the Teacher, but who are exercising living trust in the 
 person of the Redeemer. The belief which is faith is 
 altogether a higher thing than its first stage, which is the 
 belief of the understanding. There is in it the moral 
 element of trust. We believe a truth, we trust a Person ; 
 and the trust which we are to exercise in Jesus Christ, 
 and which knits us to Him, is the trust in Him, not in 
 any character that we may choose to ascribe to Him, but 
 in the character in which He is revealed in the New 
 Testament — Redeemer, Saviour, Manifest God ; and there- 
 fore, the Infinite Friend and Helper of our souls. 
 
 That trust, my brethren, is the one thing that binds 
 men to God, and the one thing that makes us Christ's 
 men. Apart from it, we may be very near Him, but we 
 are not joined to Him. By it, and by it alone, the union 
 is completed, and His power and His grace flow into our 
 spirits. Are you, not merely a " Christian, " in the world's 
 notion, being bound in some vague way to Jesus Christ, 
 but are you a Christian in the sense of trusting your soul's 
 salvation to Him ? 
 
 3. Then, still further, there is another name — saints. It 
 has suffered perhaps more at the hands both of the world 
 
AND WHAT THE CHURCH CALLS ITSELF. 79 
 
 and of the Church than any other. It has been taken by 
 the latter and restricted to the dead, and further restricted 
 to those who excel, according to the fantastic, ascetic stan- 
 dard of mediaeval Christianity. It has suffered from the 
 world in that it has been used with a certain bitter empha- 
 sis of resentment at the claim of superior purity supposed 
 to be implied in it, and so has come to mean on the 
 world's lips a pretender to be better than other people, 
 whose actions contradict his claim. But the name belongs 
 to all Christ's followers. It makes no claim to special 
 purity, for the central idea of the word "saint" is not 
 purity. Holiness, which is the English for the Latinised 
 " sanctity, " holiness which is attributed in the Old Testa- 
 ment to God first, to men only secondarily, does not pri- 
 marily mean purity ^ but separation, God is holy, inas- 
 much as by that whole majestic character of His, He is 
 lifted above all bounds of creatural limitations, as well as 
 above man's sin. A sacrifice, the Sabbath, a city, a priest's 
 garment, a mitre — all these things are " holy, " not when 
 they are pure^ but when they are devoted to Him. And 
 men are holy, not because they are clean, but because by 
 free self -surrender they have consecrated themselves to 
 Him. 
 
 Holiness is consecration, that is to say, holiness is giving 
 myself up to Him to do what He will with. " I am holy " 
 is not the declaration of the fact " I am pure," but the 
 declaration of the fact " I am thine, Lord. " So the 
 New Testament idea of saint has in it these elements — 
 consecration, consecration resting on faith in Christ, and 
 consecration leading to separation from the world and its 
 Bin. And that glad yielding of oneself to God, as wooed 
 by His mercies, and thereby di'awn away from commun- 
 ion with our evil surroundings and from submission to 
 our evil selves, must be a part of the experience of every 
 true Christian. All His people are saints, not as being 
 
80 WHAT THE WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH, 
 
 pure, but as being given up to Him, in union with Whom 
 alone will the cleansing powers flow into their lives and 
 clothe them with " the righteousness of saints. " Have 
 you thus consecrated yourself to God ? 
 
 4. The last name is brethren — a name which has been 
 much maltreated both by the insincerity of the Church, 
 and by the sarcasm of the world. *' Brethren I " an unreal 
 appellation which has meant nothing and been meant 
 to mean nothing, so that the world has said that our 
 " brethren " signified a good deal less than their " brothers." 
 " 'Tis trile, 'tis pity, ; pity 'tis, 'tis true." 
 
 But what I want you to notice is that the main thing 
 about that name "brethren" is not the relation of the 
 brethren to one another, but their common relation to 
 their Father. 
 
 When we call om-selves as Christian people, " brethren," 
 we mean first, this : that we are the possessors of a super- 
 natural life, which has come from one Father, and which 
 has set us in altogether new relations to one another, and 
 to the world round about us. Do you believe that ? If 
 you have got any of that new life which comes through 
 faith in Jesus Christ, then you are the brethren of all those 
 that possess the same. 
 
 As society gets more complicated, as Christian people 
 get unlike each other in education, in social position, in 
 occupation, in their general outlook into the world, it gets 
 more and more difficult to feel what is nevertheless true : 
 that any two Christian people, however unlike each other, 
 are nearer each other in the very roots of their nature, 
 than a Christian and a non-Christian, however like each 
 other. It is difficult to feel that, and it is getting more 
 and more difficult, but for all that it is a fact. 
 
 And now I wish to ask you, Christian men and women 
 that are listening to me now, whether you feel more at 
 home with people who love Jesus Christ — as you say you 
 
AND WHAT THE CHURCH CALLS ITSELF. 81 
 
 do— or whether yon like better to be with people who do 
 not. 
 
 There are some of yon that choose your intimate associ- 
 ates, whom yon ask to your homes and introduce to your 
 children as desirable companions, with no reference at all to 
 their religious chsiracter. The duties of your position, of 
 course, oblige each of you to be much among people who 
 do not share your faith, and it is cowardly and wrong to 
 shrink from the necessity. But for Christian people to 
 make choice of heart friends, or close intimates among 
 those who have no sympathy with their professed belief 
 about, and love to Jesus Christ, does not say much for the 
 depth and reality of their religion. A man is known by 
 the company he keeps, and if your friends are picked out 
 for other reasons, and their religion is no jjart of their at- 
 traction, it is not an unfair conclusion that there are other 
 things for which you care more than you do for faith in 
 Jesus Christ and love to Him. If you deeply feel the bond 
 that knits you to Christ, and really live near to Him, you 
 will be near your brethren. You will feel that " blood is 
 thicker than water," and however like you may be to irre- 
 ligious people in many things, you will feel that the deepest 
 bond of all knits you to the poorest, the most ignorant, the 
 most unlike you in social position ; — ay ! and the most 
 unlike you in theological opinion, that love the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in sincerity. 
 
 Now that is the sum of the whole matter. And my last 
 word to you is this : Do not you be contented with the 
 world's vague notions of what makes Christ's man. I do 
 not ask you if you are Christians ; plenty of you would 
 say : " Oh, yes ! of course ! Is not this a Christian country ? 
 Was not I christened when I was a child ? Are we not all 
 members of the Church of England by virtue of our 
 birth ? Yes I of course I am ! " 
 
 I do not ask yon that ; / do not ask yon anjrthing ; bnt 
 
82 WHAT THB WORLD CALLED THE CHURCH. 
 
 I pray you to ask yourselves these four questions — " Am 1 
 Christ's scholar ? " " Am I believing on Him ? " " Am I 
 consecrated to Him ? " Am I the possessor of a new life ? " 
 And never give yourselves rest until you can say, humbly 
 and yet confidently, " Yes I Thank God, I am I •• 
 
FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 
 "Tkii Is the victory that oreroometh the world, eren our faith. * 1 John t. C 
 
 No New Testament writer makes such frequent use of 
 the metaphors of combat and victory as this gentle Apostle 
 John. None of them seem to have conceived so habitually 
 of the Christian life as being a conflict, and in none of 
 their writings does the clear note of victory in the use of 
 that word " overcometh " ring out so constantly as it does in 
 those of the very Apostle of Love. Equally characteristic of 
 John's writings is the prominence which he gives to the 
 still contemplation of, and abiding in, Christ. These two 
 conceptions of the Christian life appear to be discordant, 
 but are really harmonious. 
 
 There is no doubt where John learned the phrase. Once 
 he had heard it at a time and in a place which stamped it 
 on his memory for ever. " Be of good cheer, I have over- 
 come the world, " said Christ, an hour before Gethsemane. 
 Long years since then had taught John something of its 
 meaning, and had made him to understand how the 
 Master's victory might belong to the servants. Hence in 
 
86 FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 
 
 this letter he has much to say about "overcoming the 
 wicked one, " and the like ; and in the Apocalypse we 
 never get far away from hearing the shout of victory, 
 whether we consider the sevenfold promises of the letters 
 that stand at the beginning of the visions, or whether we 
 listen to such sayings as this : — " They overcame by the 
 blood of the Lamb, " or the last promise of all : — " He that 
 overcometh shall inherit all things. " 
 
 Thus bound together by that link, as well as by a great 
 many more, are all the writings which the tradition of the 
 Church has attributed to this great Apostle. 
 
 But to come to the words of my text. They appear in 
 a very remarkable context here. If you read a verse or 
 two before, you will get the full singularity of their in- 
 troduction. " This is the love of God, " says he, " that we 
 keep His commandments : and His commandments are 
 not grievous. " They are very heavy and hard in them- 
 selves ; it is very difficult to do right, and to walk in the 
 ways of God, and to please Him. His commandments are 
 grievous, per se ; a heavy burden, a difficult thing to do — 
 but let us read on : — " They are not grievous, for whatso- 
 ever is born of God " — keepeth the commandments ? No 1 
 "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. ''^ 
 That, thinks John, is the same thing as keeping God's 
 commandments. " This is the victory that overcometh the 
 world, even our faith. " Notice, then, first, What is the 
 true notion of conquering the world ? secondly, How that 
 victory may be ours ? 
 
 I. — What is the true notion of conquering the world ? 
 Let us go back to what I have already said. Where did 
 John learn the expression ? Who was it that first used it ? 
 It comes from that never-to-be-forgotten night in that 
 upper room ; where, with His life's purpose apparently 
 crushed into nothing, and the world just ready to exercise 
 its last newer over Him by killing Him, Jesus Christ 
 
PAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 87 
 
 breaks out into such a strange strain of triumph, and in 
 the midst of apparent defeat lifts up that clarion note of 
 victory : — " I have overcome the world I " 
 
 He had not made much of it, according to usual stan- 
 dards, had He ? His life had been the life of a poor man. 
 Neither fame nor influence, nor what people call success, 
 had He won, judged from the ordinary points of view, 
 and at three-and-thirty is about to be murdered ; and yet 
 He says, " I have beaten it all, and here I stand a con- 
 queror I " That threw a flood of light for John, and for all 
 that had listened to Christ, on the whole conditions of 
 human life, and on what victory and defeat, success and 
 failure in this world mean. Not so do men usually esti- 
 mate what conquering the world is. Not so do you and I 
 estimate it when we are left to our own folly and our own 
 weakness. Our notion of being victorious in life is when 
 each man, according to his own ideal of what is best, 
 manages to wring that ideal out of a reluctant world. Or, 
 to put it into plainer words, a man desires, say, conspicu- 
 ous notoriety and fame. He accounts that he has con- 
 quered when he scrambles over all his fellows, and writes 
 his name, as boys do, upon a wall, higher than anybody 
 else's name, with a bit of chalk, in writing that the next 
 winter's sto i will obliterate ! That is victory I The 
 Manchester ideal says, " Found a big business and make 
 it pay. " That is to conquer I Other notions, higher and 
 nobler than that, all partake of the same fallacy that if a 
 man can get the w^orld, the sum of external things, into 
 his grip, and squeeze it as one does a grape, and get the 
 last drop of sweetness out of it into his thirsty lips, he is 
 a conqueror. 
 
 Well I and you may get all that, whatever it is, that 
 seems to you best, sweetest, most needful, most toothsome 
 and delightsome — you may get it all ; and in a sense yon 
 may have conquered the world, and yet you may be utterly 
 
88 PAITH CONQUERING THB WORLD. 
 
 beaten and enslaved by it. Do you remember the old 
 story — I make no apology for the plainness of it — of the 
 man that said to his commanding officer, " I have taken a 
 prisoner/' " Bring him along with you." " He won't let 
 me." " Come yourself, then." " I can't." So you think 
 you have conquered the world when it yields you the 
 things you want, and all the while it has conquered and 
 captivated you. 
 
 You say " Mine 1 " It would be a great deal nearer the 
 truth if the possessions, or the love, or the wealth, or the 
 culture, or whatever else it may be, that you have set your 
 desire upon, were to rise up and say you are theirs ! 
 Utterly beaten and enslaved many a man is by the things 
 that he vainly fancies he has mastered and conquered. If 
 you think of how in the process of getting, you narrow 
 yourselves ; of how much you throw away ; of how eyes 
 become blind to beauty or goodness or graciousness ; of 
 how you become the slaves of the thing that you have 
 won ; of how the gold gets into a man's blood and makes 
 his complexion as yellow as jaundice, — if you thii'k of all 
 that, and how desperate and wretched you would be if in 
 a minute it was all swept away, and how it absorbs your 
 thoughts in keeping it and looking after it, say, is it you 
 that are its master, or it that is yours ? 
 
 Now let us turn for a moment to the teaching of this 
 Epistle. Following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ Him- 
 self, the poor man, the beaten man, the unsuccessful man, 
 may yet say, " I have overcome the world. " What does 
 that mean ? Well, it is built upon this, — the world, 
 meaning thereby the sum total of outward things, con- 
 sidered as apart fi-om God — the world and God we make 
 to be antagonists to one another. And the world woos me 
 to trust to it, to love it ; crowds in upon my eye and shuts 
 out the greater things beyond ; absorbs my attention, so 
 that if I let it have its own way I have no leisure to think 
 
FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 89 
 
 about <inything bnt itself. And the world conquers me 
 when It succeeds in hindering me from seeing, loving, 
 holding communion with and serving my Father, God. 
 
 On the other hand, I conquer it when I lay my hand 
 upon it and force it to help me to get nearer Him, to get 
 liker Him, to think more often of Him, to do His will 
 more gladly and more constantly. The one victory over 
 the world is to bend it to serve me in the highest things — 
 the attainment of a clearer vision of the Divine nature, the 
 attainment of a deeper love to God Himself, and of a more 
 glad consecration and service to Him. That is the victory, 
 — when you can make the world a ladder to lift you to 
 God. That is its right use, that is victory, when all its 
 tempting voices do not draw you away from listening to 
 the Supreme Voice that bids you keep His commandments. 
 When the world comes between you and God as an obscur- 
 ing screen, it has conquered you. When the world comes 
 between you and God as a transparent medium, you have 
 conquered it. To win victory is to get it beneath your 
 feet and stand upon it, and reach up thereby to God. 
 
 Now, dear brethren, that is the plain teaching of all this 
 context, and I would lay it upon your hearts and upon my 
 own. Do not let us be deceived by the false estimates of 
 the men around us. Do not let us forget that the one 
 thing we have to live for is to know God, and to love and 
 to please Him, and that every life is a disastrous failure, 
 whatsoever outward artificial apparent success it may be 
 enriched and beautified with, that has not accomplished 
 that. 
 
 You rule Nature, you coerce winds and lightnings and 
 flames to your purposes. Rule the world ! Rule the 
 world by making it help you to be wiser, gentler, nobler, 
 more gracious, more Christ-like, more Christ-conscious, 
 more full of God, and more like to Him, and then you 
 will get the deepest delight out of it. If a man wanted to 
 
90 FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 
 
 find a wine-press that should squeeze out of the vintage 
 of this world its last di'op of sweetest sweetness, he would 
 find it in constant recognition of the love of God, and in 
 the coercing of all the outward and the visible to be his 
 help thereto. 
 
 There are the two theories ; the one that we are all apt 
 to fall into, of what success and victory is ; the other the 
 Christian theory. Ah I many a poor, battered Lazarus, 
 full of sores, a pauper and a mendicant at Dives' gate ; 
 many a poor old cottager ; many a lonely woman in her 
 garret ; many a man that has gone away from Manchester, 
 for instance, unable to get on in business, and obliged to 
 creep into some corner and hide himself, not having suc- 
 ceeded in making a fortune, is the victor ! And many a 
 Dives, fettered by his own possessions, and the bond-slave 
 of his own successes, is beaten by the world shamefully 
 and disastrously 1 Pray and strive for the purged eyesight 
 which shall teach you what it is to conquer the world, 
 and what it is to be conquered by it. 
 
 II. — ^And now let me turn for a moment to the second 
 of the points that I have desired to put before you, viz., 
 the method by which this victory over the world, of 
 making it help us to keep the commandments of God, is 
 to be accomplished. We find, according to John's fashion, 
 a three-fold statement in this context upon this matter, 
 each member of which con*esponds to and heightens the 
 preceding. We read thus : — " Whatsoever is born of God 
 overcometh the world. " " This is the victory that over- 
 cometh the world," or more accurately, ''''hath overcome 
 the world, even our faith." Who is He that overcometh 
 the world ? He that believeth that Jesus Christ is " the 
 Son of God." Wherein there are, speaking roughly, these 
 three statements, that the true victory over the world is 
 won by a new life, born of and kindred with God ; that 
 that life is kindled in men's souls through their faith ; 
 
FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 91 
 
 that the faith which kindles that supernatural life, the 
 victorious antagonist of the world, is the definite, specific 
 faith in Jesus as the Son of God. These are the three 
 points which the Apostle puts as the means of conquest 
 of the world. 
 
 The first consideration, then, suggested by these state- 
 ments is that the one victorious antagonist of all the 
 powers of the world which seek to draw us away from 
 God, is a life in our hearts kindred with God, and derived 
 from God. 
 
 Now I know that a great many people turn away from 
 this central representation of Christianity as if it were 
 mystical and intangible. I desire to lay it upon your 
 hearts, dear brethren, that every Christian man has re- 
 ceived and possesses through the open door of his faith, a 
 life supernatural, born of God, kindred with God, there- 
 fore having nothing kindred with evil, and therefore 
 capable of meeting and mastering all the temptations of 
 the world. 
 
 It is a plain piece of common-sense, that God is stronger 
 than this material universe, and that what is born of God 
 partakes of the Divine strength. But there would be no 
 comfort in that, nor would it be anything germane and 
 relevant to the Apostle's purpose, unless there was implied 
 in the statement what in fact is distinctly asserted more 
 than once in this Epistle, that every Christian man and 
 woman may claim to be thus born of God. Hearken to 
 the words that almost immediately precede our text, 
 *' Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of 
 God." Hearken to other words which proclaim the same 
 truth. " To as many as received Him, to them gave He 
 power to become the sons of God, which were born, not 
 of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
 God. " He does come with all the might of His regener- 
 ating power into our poor natures, if and when we turn 
 
92 FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 
 
 ourselves with humble faith to that dear Lord ; and 
 breathes into our deadness a new life, with new tastes, 
 new desires, new motives, new powers, making us able to 
 wrestle with and to overcome the temptations that were 
 too strong for us. 
 
 Mystical and deep as this thought may be, God's nature 
 is breathed into the spirits of men that will trust Him ! 
 and if you will put your confidence in that dear Lord, 
 and live near Him, into your weakness will come an 
 energy born of the Divine, and you will be able to do all 
 things in the might of the Christ that strengthens you 
 from within, and is the life of your life, and the soul of 
 your soul. To the little beleaguered garrison surrounded 
 by strong enemies through whom they cannot cut their 
 way, the king sends reliefs who force their passage into 
 the fortress, and hold it against all the power of the foe. You 
 are not left to fight by yourselves, you can conquer the 
 world if you will trust to that Christ, trusting in Whom 
 God's own power will come to your aid, and God's own 
 Spirit will be the strength of your spirit. 
 
 And then there is the other way of looking at this same 
 thing, viz., you can conquer the world if you will trust in 
 Jesus Christ, because such trust will bring you into con- 
 stant, living, loving contact with the Great Conqueror. 
 There is a beautiful accuracy and refinement in the lan- 
 guage of these three clauses which is not represented in 
 our Authorised Version. The central one which I have 
 read as my text this morning might be translated as it is 
 translated in the Revised Version — " This is the victory that 
 hath overcome the world, even our faith. " By which I 
 suppose the Apostle means very much what I am saying 
 now, viz., that my faith brings me into contact with that 
 one great victory over the world which for all time was 
 won by Jesus Christ. I can appropriate Christ's conquest 
 to myself if I trust Him. The might of it and some portion 
 
FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 93 
 
 of the reality of it passes into my nature in the measure 
 in which I rely upon Him. He conquered once for all, 
 and the very remembrance of His conquest, by faith will 
 make me strong — will " teach my hands to war and my 
 fingers to fight. " He conquered once for all, and His 
 victory will pass, with electric power, into my life if I 
 trust Him. I am brought into living fellowship with 
 Him. All the stimulation of example, and all that 
 lives lofty and pure can do for us, is done for us in trans- 
 cendant fashion by the life of Jesus Christ. And all that 
 lives lofty and pure can never do for us is done in unique 
 fashion by the life and death of Him Whose life and 
 death are alike the victory over the world and the pattern 
 for us. 
 
 So if we join ourselves to Him by faith, and bring into 
 our daily life, in all its ignoble effort, in all its little 
 duties, in all its wearisome monotonies, in all its triviality, 
 the thought, the illuminating thought, the ennobling 
 thought, of the victorious Christ our companion and our 
 Friend — in hoc signo vinces — in this sign thou shalt con- 
 quer I They that keep hold of His hand see over the 
 world and all its falsenesses and fleetingnesses. They 
 that trust in Jesus are more than conquerors by the might 
 of His victory. 
 
 And then there is the last thought, which, though it be 
 not directly expressed in the words before us, is yet closely 
 connected with them. You can conquer the world if you 
 will trust Jesus Christ, because your faith will bring into 
 the midst of your lives the grandest and most solemn and 
 blessed realities. Faith is the true anasthesia of the soul ; 
 — the thing that deadens it to the pains and the pleasures 
 that come from this fleeting life. As for the pleasures, 1 
 remember reading lately of some thinker of our own land 
 who was gazing through a telescope at the stars, and 
 turned away from the solemn vision with one remark,- -** I 
 
94 FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 
 
 don't think much of our county families I " And if you 
 will look up at Christ through the telescope of your faith, 
 it is wonderful what Lilliputians the Brobdignagians 
 round about you will dwindle into, and how small the 
 world will look, and how coarse the pleasures. 
 
 If a man goes to Italy, and lives in the presence of the 
 pictures there, it is marvellous what daubs the works of 
 art, that he used to admire, look when he comes back to 
 England again. And if he has been in communion with 
 Jesus Christ, and has found out what real sweetness is, he 
 will not be over-tempted by the coarse dainties that people 
 eat here. Children spoil their appetites for wholesome 
 food by sweetmeats ; we very often do the same in regard 
 to the bread of God, but if we have once really tasted it, 
 we shall not care very much for the vulgar dainties on 
 the world's stall. 
 
 Dear brethren, set your faith upon that great Lord, and 
 the world's pleasures will have less power over you, and as 
 for its pains — 
 
 "There's nothing either good or bad. 
 But thinking makes it so." 
 
 If a man does not think that the world's pains are of 
 much account, they are not of much account. He who 
 sees athwart the smoke of the fire of Smithfield, the face 
 of the Captain of his warfare. Who has conquered, will 
 dare to burn and will not dare to deny his Master or his 
 Master's truth. The world may threaten in hope of win- 
 ning you to its service, but if its threats, turned into 
 realities, fail to move you, it is the world which inflicts, 
 and not you who suffer, that is beaten. In the extremest 
 case they " kill the body and after that have no more that 
 they can do," and if they have done all they can, and 
 have not succeeded in wringing the recantation from the 
 locked lips, they are beaten, and the poor dead martyr 
 
FAITH CONQUERING THE WORLD. 95 
 
 that they could only kill has conquered them and their 
 torments. So fear not all that the world can do against 
 you. If you have got a little spark of the light of Christ*8 
 presence in your heart, the darkness will not be very ter- 
 rible, and you will not be alone. 
 
 So, brethren, two questions : — Does your faith do any- 
 thing like that for you ? If it does not, what do you think 
 is the worth of it ? Does it deaden the world's delights ? 
 Does it lift you above them ? Does it make you conqueror ? 
 If it does not, do you think it is worth calling faith ? 
 
 And the other question is : Do you want to beat, or to 
 be beaten ? When you consult your true self, does your 
 conscience not tell you that it were better for you to keep 
 God's commandments than to obey the world ? Surely 
 there are many young men and women in this place to 
 day who have some desires high, and true, and pure, 
 though often KTined, and overcome, and crushed down ; 
 and many older folk who have glimpses, in the midst of 
 predominant regard for the things that are seen and tem- 
 poral, of a great calm, pure region away up there that 
 they know very little about. 
 
 Dear friends, my one word to you all is : Get near Jesus 
 Christ by thought, and love, and trust. Trust to Him and 
 to the great love that gave itself for you. And then bring 
 Him into your life, by daily reference to Him of it all : 
 and by cultivating the habit of thinking about Him as 
 being present with you in the midst of it all, and so hold- 
 ing His hand, you will share in His victory ; and at the 
 last, according to the climax of His sevenfold promises, 
 *' To Him that overcometh will I give to sit down with 
 Me on My throne, even as I also overcame, and am sat 
 down with My Father on His Throne. " 
 
m REMEMBRANCE OF ME." 
 
SERMON YIIl, 
 
 "IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME." 
 "This do in remembrance of He.** lGorzi24. 
 
 This Epistle to the Corinthians is prior in date to any 
 of the Gospels, consequently we have, in the section from 
 which my text is taken, the earliest account of the insti- 
 tution of the Lord's Supper. More than that, the account 
 is entirely independent of the oral tradition which may 
 be supposed to have preceded the written Gospels amongst 
 the Christian communities. For the Apostle distinctly 
 affirms, in the immediate context, that he received this 
 narrative of the institution of the Lord's Supper from 
 none of the guests in that upper chamber, but from the 
 host Himself. 
 
 By what means the communication was made it boots 
 not to inquire ; vision, or ecstacy, or special revelation, 
 we know not how. But if language have any meaning, 
 we have here an account which the repeater of it to the 
 Corinthian Church declares he got straight from the lips 
 of the risen Lord Himself. 
 
 Consequently the words before us, and the whole 
 section, of which they are a part, afford us a means of 
 
 b2 
 
100 "IN REMEMBRANCE OF MB/' 
 
 tracing up the celebration of the Lord's Supper to a 
 period very near in time to the death of Christ, and thus 
 yield to us a very strong presumption, in addition to that 
 of the Gospel narrative, of the historical accuracy of the 
 story, and a valuable indication of the aspect in which it 
 was regarded by the primitive belief of Christendom. 
 
 The occasion for the utterance of the words of my text 
 is also very characteristic of the Apostle Paul, and instruc- 
 tive to us : If it had not been for some abuses in the 
 Corinthian Church, we should never have had here from 
 his lips one word about this ordinance ; and in that event 
 there would have been scarcely any reference in the 
 whole New Testament, to the Lord's supper beyond the 
 short narratives in three out of the four Gospels. 
 
 These entirely incidental, fragmentary, sparse references 
 in the New Testament to all matters of Church organisa- 
 tion, polity, and ritual, ought to be very instructive to us 
 as to where the true centre of gravity lies, and ought to 
 rebuke the attempts that are made to lift any of these out- 
 ward things, the form of the sheepfold or any of the 
 modes of worship, into a position of more than secondary 
 importance. I heard someone say, a day or two ago, that 
 the Emperor of Russia, with Nihilists round about him 
 ready to blow him up, spends most of his time in design- 
 ing buttons for the uniforms of his soldiers ; and I think 
 Christian men who waste time and strength over such 
 questions at this day are not much wiser than that. How- 
 ever, that is not what I wanted to talk about this morning. 
 I desire to take these words as the foundation of a few 
 remarks in reference to the purpose and meaning of the 
 great rite of Christendom — the Lord's Supper. 
 
 I. — And first, let us regard it as a memorial. 
 
 Now, observe that the words which I have read are 
 even stronger in the original than they are in our trans- 
 ition. "This do in remembrance of Me" might mean 
 
101 
 
 '* This do because you remember. " But the real render- 
 ing is : — " This do for a remembrance of Me " ; " in order 
 that you may remember, " or " lest you forget. " And 
 the words are all but a verbatim quotation of those used 
 in the institution of that Passover which our Lord, with 
 sovereign authority, brushed aside in order to make room 
 for His own memorial rite. " This day shall be unto you 
 for a memorial, " says the law of the Passover. The 
 Lord's Supper was grafted upon and meant to supersede 
 the older feast. And the words forming our text must 
 obviously be supposed to have distinct reference to those 
 of Exodus, and to be meant to substitute for the memories 
 so stirring to Jewish national pride and devout feeling, 
 the remembrance of Him as the one thing needful. 
 
 Notice also that this is Christ's own distinct statement 
 of the purpose of the Lord's Supper, " for a * remembrance,' 
 in order to bring Me again to your recollection." I suppose 
 He is likely to have put foremost the main purpose of the 
 ceremonial, and I suppose that if there be any alleged 
 purposes of it, of which there is no hint to be gathered 
 from His own distinct statement of what the meaning of 
 the rite is, that is a strong argument against these. So I 
 want you to mark that Christ Himself has told us that this 
 rite is meant to bring Him to our remembrance, and that 
 He has given us no other statement of its purpose but that. 
 Nor will you find anywhere in the New Testament any 
 statement of the purpose of the Lord's Supper additional 
 to this. And so I say that all our theories about the 
 meaning and value and virtue of this Communion Service 
 must be found within the four corners of that word : — 
 " This do for a remembrance of Me 1 " — a memorial rite, 
 and as far as I know, nothing more whatsoever. Nothing 
 more, certainly, in so far as Christ's own solemn declara- 
 tion of its purpose, and of His intention in establishing it, 
 can be supposed to a:o. 
 
102 "IN REMEMBRANCE OP MB." 
 
 Notice further about this first part of my subject : — of 
 what the Lord's Supper is a memorial, viz., " A memorial 
 of Me. " Of Me ! I do not need to dwell upon what I 
 have hinted already — the remarkable way in which Christ 
 deals, as One that has authority, with the sacredest rite of 
 the nation to which He and His Apostles belonged ; 
 brushing aside the thing that for centuries had been the 
 very Palladium of their national life, and the vital centre 
 of their national worship ; and saying in effect : — " Moses 
 and that old redemption that you have heard about all 
 these centuries, are antiquated ; and a mere flickering 
 taper light as compared with the redemption that I bring. 
 You have remembered him and his deliverance ; forget 
 him 1 Lo, the shadow passes, and here I stand, the sub- 
 stance 1 Do this ; never mind about your old Passover ; 
 —that is done with, wheeled away into a corner and for- 
 gotten. Do this in remembrance — no longer of dead 
 Pharaohs and exhausted deliverances, but do this in 
 remembrance of an everloving friend and helper ; and of 
 a redemption that shall never pass away. *In remem- 
 brance of Me I' " 
 
 What a marvellous, unique, majestic prevision that was, 
 that from that little room, in some upper chamber in that 
 obscure corner of the world, looked all down the ages and 
 expected that to the end of time men would turn to Him 
 with passionate thankfulness, and with a flame of love 
 ever leaping in their hearts 1 And more wonderful still, 
 the forecast has been true, and the memory of millions 
 turns to one thing in the past as the centre of life, the 
 Cross of Christ, and to one thing in the future as the 
 fountain of Hope — the Throne of the crucified Christ. 
 " Do this in remembrance of Me." 
 
 And as majestic as is the authority so tender and gracious 
 is the condescension : — "Do tJiis for a remembrance." He 
 does not rely upon His mighty love and sacrifice for the 
 
"IN RBMBMBRANCB OP MB." 103 
 
 remembrance, the grateful remembrance of the world, but 
 He consents and condescends to trust some portion of our 
 remembrance of Him to mere outward things. The world, 
 time, sense, the material and the visible come rushing in 
 npon us and make us forget. Like a snowstorm in an 
 American winter, our atmosphere is all filled with the 
 flying motes, almost impalpable, of the thick driving 
 trifles that hide the sky from us. The fluttering flakes of 
 ever-recurring cares and duties, joys and sorrows, obscure 
 the blue and the Christ that is there. 
 
 And so He takes and uses for once the things of time 
 and sense to fight the things of time and sense with, and 
 says : — " The visible shall serve Me in this one instance ; 
 and the material elements shall conspire to help you to 
 remember My great love." 
 
 Surely we need all the help we can get to keep His 
 memory vivid and fresh in spite of the pressure of the 
 visible and temporal. If it be possible to bring Him and 
 His great world of love before our minds through the help 
 of sight as well as by the hearing of the ear, we shall be 
 armed with double armour. 
 
 The purpose of Christ in instituting this rite is simply 
 ^that men should have presented to them in visible form, 
 as well as in audible form by the spoken voice, the facts 
 on which their salvation depends. Although the differ- 
 ences are infinite in regard of the sacredness of the person 
 and the thing to be remembered, shall I shock any of you 
 if I say that I know no difference in kind between the 
 bread and the wine that is for a memorial of Christ's dying 
 love, and the handkerchief dipped in blood, sent from the 
 scaffold by a dying King with the one message : — " Re- 
 member 1 " " Do this for a memorial of me 1 " 
 
 II. — I come to the next point that I wish to touch on, 
 viz. the Lord's Supper as being what is called a means of 
 grace ; or, less technically, a source of religious profit and 
 
104 ••IN REMEMBRANCE OP MB.** 
 
 growth. Now, if what I have been saying about the one 
 purpose of this Communion rite be true, there follows 
 from it, as a matter of course, this — ^that the only way by 
 which this or any other outward ceremony can do a man 
 any good is by its fulfilling the purpose for which it was 
 appointed, and setting him to think of and feel the truth 
 that is in Jesus Christ. I know only one way by which 
 what theologians call grace can get into men's souls, and 
 that is through the occupation of a man's understanding, 
 heart, and will, with Jesus Christ and the Gospel that tells 
 of Him. To think of Him, to contemplate Him, to love 
 Him, and to yield the submission of the will and the life 
 to Him : — ^that is, at bottom, the one channel through 
 which all God's grace comes to a man's heart ; and the 
 good that any outward thing does us, the good that any 
 act of worship does us, that any rite or ceremony whatso- 
 ever does us, is only this : that it brings before us the 
 truth on which our hopes depend, and knits to our con- 
 templation and our heart the Christ and His love ; and the 
 measure in which it does that is the exact measure of the 
 blessing that it works upon us. 
 
 I can find nothing more than this in this Communion, 
 except only that it is obedience to a definite command of 
 Jesus Christ, and so has the blessing which always follows 
 upon obedience to Him. These two, the blessing that 
 comes from obedience to His commandment and the 
 blessing that comes from having our thoughts turned to 
 Him, and faith and hope excited and kindled towards 
 Him — these exhaust, as far as I know, the whole of the 
 good that that Communion Service does to any man. 
 
 And I think all that is confirmed very strongly by the 
 remarks in the context about the mischief that it some- 
 times does to people. We read there words which super- 
 stition has laid hold of in order to darken the whole 
 horizon, and turn the whole purpose of the Lord's Supper 
 
"IN REMEMBRANCE OF MB." 105 
 
 to another thing altogether from what it was in its 
 original institution. We read in the context about an un- 
 worthy partaking, and that unworthy partaking is defined. 
 — Whoso eateth and drinketh " (not " unworthily," for 
 that word in that verse is an unauthorised supplement), 
 " eateth and drinketh judgment to Himself , not discerning 
 the Lord's Body." 
 
 That is to say, unworthy participation is a participation 
 which does not use the external symbols as a means of 
 turning thought and feeling to Christ and His death ; and 
 unworthy participation does a man harm, as unworthy 
 handling of any outward rite does. 
 
 I preach a sermon. I try with words here to lead men 
 to look to Jesus Christ. If my poor attempt fail and my 
 words come between you and Him rather as an obscuring 
 medium than as a transparent medium, then my sermon 
 does you harm. You read a hymn. The hymn is meant 
 to lead you up to Christ your Saviour in aspiration and 
 devotion. If it does not do that, then it does you harm. 
 
 If through the outward ritual we see Christ, we get all 
 the good that the outward ritual can do us. If through 
 the outward rite we do not see Him, if the coloured glass 
 stay the eye instead of leading it on, then the rite does us 
 harm. To my judgment the difference between the 
 Lord's Supper, and its operation upon the Christian life, 
 and a sermon or a prayer or the reading of a chapter 
 or any other piece of Christian worship and service and 
 their operation lie here ; that, first, one is more defin- 
 itely a commandment than the other ; second, that 
 the one presents the truth more directly to the under- 
 standing through the ear, and that the other presents it in 
 symbolical and pictorial form through the eye, and 
 third, that in the participation of the Lord's Supper 
 there is an increased sacredness by reason of the sacred- 
 ness of the thing of which it is a memorial, and by reason 
 
106 "IN REMEMBRANCE OP MB." 
 
 that it is a more personal profession of faith therein. 
 These points, I think, exhaust all that the New Testament 
 tells in reference to its sanctity. 
 
 And sure I am that neither it nor anything else can do 
 a man spiritual good, except by one way, and on one con- 
 dition. All outward rites and forms are " schoolmasters 
 to bring us to Christ. " If they do that they help us, if 
 they do not, they hurt us. The one condition of spiritual 
 blessing is union with Him, the one means of union with 
 Him is the exercise of faith and love towards Him. If 
 the rite strengthen this, it has blessed you ; if it does 
 not, it is a curse to you. 
 
 How the whole fabric of superstitious sacerdotalism 
 and externalism that has cursed God's Church for cen- 
 turies disappears when once men find out that there is 
 nothing to help them but only their grasp of Jesus Christ, 
 and that the only way of grasping Him is by faith and 
 love, and that the only good of anything ritual is as sub- 
 serving that, and perchance stimulating and increasing 
 these I 
 
 III. — And so, lastly, and briefly, there is another aspect 
 of this rite, which is set forth in these words, namely, 
 the Lord's Supper as a witness for Christian truth. 
 
 " This do for a remembrance of Me ! " I do not dwell 
 further upon what I have already said about the signifi- 
 cance of that extraordinary self -consciousness which here 
 claims to the end of time the reverence, the regard, the 
 remembrance of humanity. Nor do I merely mean that 
 the Lord's Supper, by reason of its very early origin and 
 the history of Christianity, is a witness as to the belief 
 predominant at the point of origin. But what I mean is 
 this : — Christ Himself, if we accept the story of the 
 Gospels and of this chapter, has appointed this institution 
 and selected for us, by the pointing of His finger, the 
 part of His mission which He considers the vital and all- 
 
"IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.** 107 
 
 important centre : — " Do this in remembrance of Me I *' 
 " This is My body, broken for you. This is the new 
 covenant in My blood, shed for many, " according to the 
 other version in one of the Gospels, " for the remission 
 of sins. *' 
 
 There is the heart of Christ's work, my brother. Tliat 
 death is the kernel of objective Christianity. Not His 
 words, not His loving deeds of mercy, not His tenderness, 
 to nothing of all these does He point us. They are all 
 included and subordinated, but He points us to His 
 violent death ; for from the fact that " body " and " blood " 
 are contemplated apart, it is clear that not merely death, 
 but a violent death was in His mind. He points us to 
 His violent death, as if He said, " There is the thing that 
 is to touch hearts and change lives, and bind men to Me 
 with endless bonds of deep and life-transforming grati- 
 tude.** 
 
 Christ Himself has taught us that what He will have 
 to be remembered through all generations is the fact that 
 He died, the fact that He died for us, the fact that in His 
 blood is the covenant of our pardon, and of our peace 
 with God. Forms of Christianity which have let go the 
 Incarnation and the Atonement do not know what to 
 make of the Lord's Supper. There is no room for it 
 amongst them, and practically you will find that such 
 forms of Christianity have relegated it to a corner, and 
 have almost disused it. They who do not feel that 
 Christ's death is their peace, do not feel that the rite that 
 commemorates the broken Body and the shed Blood is 
 the centre of Christian worship. 
 
 I dare say I am speaking to people this morning who 
 regard it as a very unnecessary part of Christian service. 
 My brother, Jesus Christ knew what He meant by His 
 work quite as well as you do, and he thought that the 
 part of it which most concerns us to remember wai 
 
108 •*!» REMEMBRANCE OF MB." 
 
 this : " that He died for our sins, according to the Scrip- 
 tures." I commend that thought to you, and point to that 
 table as a witness to every man and woman who believes 
 that this Communion was established by Jesus Christ 
 Himself, that the centre of Christian truth and of the 
 Gospel of Christ is the good news of His death on the 
 Cross for the sins of the whole world. 
 
 And now I ask you, dear brethren, to remember this, 
 that as plain and distinct as the teaching is of this 
 ordinance in reference to what is the living heart of 
 Christ's work for us, so plain and distinct is its teaching 
 in reference to what is our way of making that work ours. 
 
 We eat that we may live, we take the bread that perish- 
 eth into our lips, masticate and swallow and the food is 
 assimilated to our body, and so we are nourished. 
 
 We take Christ. " Believe and thou hast eaten," says 
 Augustine. We take Christ, the fact of His death, of His 
 love, of His personal life for us to-day, and by faith we 
 partake of Him, and the body is assimilated to the food, 
 and so in that higher region we live. If we are to have 
 life in us, it must be by no outward connection through 
 ritual and ceremony, but by an inward possession ol that 
 which ritual and ceremony proclaim, namely, the life of 
 Him that lived that we may be partakers of His Resurrec- 
 tion, the death of Him that died that in Him we toG Yi^ight 
 die to self and sin. 
 
 This table preaches to us all, " My flesh is meat int.eed, 
 and My blood is drink indeed." And it preacher n( less 
 emphatically the other great word, "Whoso ea^ith My 
 flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life ; a* . ' //ill 
 raise him up at the last day." 
 
30W TO SWEETEN THE LIFE OF GREAT 
 CITIES. 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 HOW TO SWEETEN THE LIFE OP GREAT CITIES. 
 
 ** me priests repaired every one over against his house. " Nehemlah ilL S8. 
 
 The condition of our great cities has lately been forcec? 
 upon public attention, and all kinds of men have been 
 offering their panaceas. I am not about to enter upon 
 that discussion, but as we are making a collection this 
 morning for our Manchester City Mission I am glad to 
 seize the opportunity of saying one or two things which 
 I think very much need to be said to individual Christian 
 people about their duty in the matter. " Every man over 
 against his house, " is the principle I want to commend 
 to you this morning as going a long way to solve the 
 problem of how to sweeten the foul life of our modern 
 cities. 
 
 The story from which my text is taken does not need 
 to detain us long. Nehemiah and his little band of exiles 
 have come back to a ruined Jerusalem. Their first care 
 is to provide for their safety, and the first step is to know 
 the exact extent of their defencelessness. So we hav© 
 
112 HOW TO SWEETEN THE LIPB 
 
 the account of Nehemiah's midnight ride amongst the 
 ruins of the broken walls. And then we read of the co- 
 operation of all classes in the work of reconstruction. 
 ** Many hands made light work. " Men and women, 
 priests and nobles, goldsmiths, apothecaries, merchants, 
 all seized trowel or spade, and wheeled and piled. One 
 man puts up a long length of wall, another can only ven- 
 ture a little bit ; another undertakes the locks, bolts, and 
 bars for the gates. Roughly and hastily the work is done. 
 The result, of course, is very unlike the stately structures 
 of Solomon's or of Herod's time, but it is enough for 
 shelter. We can imagine the sigh of relief with which 
 they looked upon the completed circle of their rude forti- 
 fications. 
 
 The principle of division of labour in our text is re- 
 peated several times in this list of the builders. It was a 
 natural one ; a man would work all the better when he 
 saw his own roof mutely appealing to be defended, and 
 thought of the dear ones that were there. But I take 
 these words mainly as suggesting some thoughts applica- 
 ble to the duties of Christian people in view of the 
 spiritual wants of our great cities. 
 
 I, — I need not do more than say a word or two about 
 the ruins which need repair. If I dwell rather upon the 
 dark side than on the bright side of city life I shall not 
 be understood as forgetting that the very causes which 
 intensify the evil of a great city quicken the good — the 
 friction of multitudes and the impetus thereby given to 
 all kinds of mental activity. Here amongst us there is 
 much that is admirable and noble — much public spirit, 
 much wise and benevolent expenditure of thought and 
 toil for the general good, much conjoint action by men 
 of different parties, earnest antagonism and earnest co- 
 operation, and a free, bracing intellectual atmosphere, 
 which stimulates activity. All that is true, though, on 
 
OF GREAT CITIES. lib 
 
 the other hand, it is not good to live always within 
 hearing of the clatter of machinery and the strife ol 
 tongues ; and the wisdom that is born of solitary medita- 
 tion and quiet thought is less frequently met with in 
 cities than the cleverness that is bom of intercourse with 
 men, and newspaper reading. 
 
 But there is a tragic other side to all that, which mostly 
 we make up our minds to say little about and to forget. 
 I confess that I have been rather surprised that the 
 " Bitter Cry of Outcast London, " and of " Squalid Liver- 
 pool " should have been so much of a discovery. The 
 indifference which has made that ignorance possible, and 
 has in its turn been fed by the ignorance, is in some 
 respects a more shocking phenomenon than the vicious 
 life which it has allowed to rot and to reek unheeded. 
 
 Most of us have got so familiarised with the evils that 
 stare us in the face every time we go out upon the pave- 
 ments, that we have come to think of them as being 
 inseparable from our modern life, like the noise of a 
 carriage wheel from its rotation. And is it so then ? Is 
 it indeed inevitable that within a stone's throw of our 
 churches and chapels there should be thousands of men 
 and women that have never been inside a place of worship 
 since they were christened ; and have no more religion 
 than a horse ? Must it be that the shining structure of 
 our modern society, like an old Mexican temple, must be 
 built upon a layer of living men, flung in for a foundation ! 
 Can it not be helped that there should be streets in 
 Manchester into which it is unfit for a decent woman to go 
 by day alone, and unsafe for a brave man to venture after 
 nightfall? Must men and women huddle together in dens 
 where decency is as impossible as it is for swine in a stye ? 
 Is it an indispensable part of our material progress and 
 wonderful civilisation that vice and crime and utter irre- 
 ligion and hopeless squalor should go with it ? Can all 
 
 I 
 
114 HOW TO SWEETEN THE LIFE 
 
 that bilge water really not be pumped out of the ship ? If 
 it be so, then I venture to say that, to a very large extent, 
 progress is a delusion, and that the simple life of agricul- 
 tural communities is better than this unwholesome 
 aggregation of men. 
 
 The beginning of Nehemiah's work of repair was that 
 sad midnight ride round the ruined walls. So there is a 
 solemn obligation laid on Christian people to acquaint 
 themselves with the awful facts, and then to meditate on 
 them, till sacred, Christ-like compassion, pressing against 
 the flood-gates of the heart, flings them open, and lets out 
 a stream of helpful pity and saving deeds. 
 
 " If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto 
 death, those that ready to be slain ; if thou sayest : Behold 1 
 we knew it not 1 doth not He that pondereth the heart 
 consider it ; and shall He not render to every man accord- 
 ing to his works ?" 
 
 II. — So much for my first point. My second is — ^the 
 ruin is to be repaired mainly by the old Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. Far be it from me to pit remedies against each 
 other. The causes are complicated, and the cure must be 
 as manifold as the causes. For my own part I believe 
 that, in regard of the condition of the lowest of our out- 
 cast population, drink and lust have done it almost all, 
 and that for all but an infinitesimal portion of it, intem- 
 perance is directly or indirectly the cause. That has to 
 be fought by the distinct preaching of abstinence, and by 
 the invoking of legislative restriction? upon the trafiB.c. 
 Wretched homes have to be dealt with by sanitary reform, 
 which may require municipal and parliamentary action. 
 Domestic discomfort has to be dealt with by teaching 
 wives the principles of domestic economy. The gracious 
 influence of art and music, pictures and window garden- 
 ing, and the like, will lend their aid to soften and refine. 
 Coffee taverns, baths and wash-houses, workmen's clubs, 
 
OP GREAT CITIES. 115 
 
 and many other agencies are doing real and good work. I, 
 for one, say, God speed to them all, and willingly help them 
 80 far as I can. 
 
 But, as a Christian man, I believe that I know a thing that 
 if lodged in a man's heart, will do pretty nearly all which 
 they aspire to do ; and whilst I rejoice in the multiplied 
 agencies for social elevation, I believe that I shall best 
 serve my generation, and I believe that ninety-nine out of a 
 hundred of you will do so too by trying to get men to 
 love and fear Jesus Christ the Saviour. If you can get 
 His love into a man's heart, that will produce new tastes 
 and new inclinations, which will reform, and sweeten, 
 and purify faster than anything else does. 
 
 They tell us that Nonconformist ministers are never 
 seen in the slums ; well, that is a libel 1 But I should like 
 to ask why it is the Roman Catholic priest is seen there 
 more than the Nonconformist minister. Because the one 
 man's congregation is there, and the other man's is not — 
 which being translated into other words is this : the re- 
 ligion of Jesus Christ mostly keeps people out of the slums, 
 and certainly it will take a man out of them if once it 
 gets into his heart, more certainly and quickly than any- 
 thing else will. 
 
 So, dear friends, if we have in our hearts and in our 
 hands this great message of God's love, we have in our 
 possession the germ out of which all things that are lovely 
 and of good report will grow. It will purify, elevate, and 
 sweeten society, because it will make individuals pure 
 and strong, and homes holy and happy. We do not need 
 to draw comparisons between this and other means of 
 reparation, and still less to feel any antagonism to them 
 or the benevolent men who work them ; but we should fix 
 it in our minds that the principles of Christ's Gospel ad- 
 hered to by individuals and therefore by communities, 
 would have rendered such a condition of things impossi- 
 
 i2 
 
116 HOW TO SWEETEN THE LIFE 
 
 ble, and that the true repair of the ruin wrought by e\i\ 
 and ignorance, in the single soul, in the family, the city, 
 the nation, the world, is to be found in building anew on 
 the One Foundation which God has laid, even Jesus 
 Christ, the Living Stone, Whose pure life passes into all 
 that are grounded and founded on Him. 
 
 III. — Lastly, this remedy is to be applied by the in- 
 dividual action of Christian men and women on the people 
 nearest them. 
 
 " The priests repaired every one over against his own 
 house." We are always tempted in the face of large 
 disasters, to look for heroic and large remedies, and to 
 invoke corporate action of some sort, which is a great deal 
 easier for most of us than the personal effort that is re- 
 quired. When a great scandal and danger like this of the 
 condition of the lower layers of our civic population is 
 presented before men, for one man that says " What can 
 / do ? " there are twenty who say, " Somebody should do 
 something. Goverment should do something. The Cor- 
 poration should do something. This, thctt, or the other 
 aggregate of men should do something." And the in- 
 dividual calmly and comfortably slips his neck out of the 
 collar and leaves it on the shoulders of these abstractions. 
 
 As I have said, there are plenty of things that need to 
 be done by these somebodies. But what they do (they 
 will be a long time in doing it) when they do get to work 
 will only touch the fringe of the question, and the sub- 
 stance and the centre of it you can set to work upon this 
 afternoon if you like, and not wait for anybody either to 
 set you the example or to shew you the way. 
 
 If you want to do people good you can ; but you have 
 got to pay the price for it. That price is personal sacrifice 
 and eflEort. The example of Jesus Christ is the all-instruc- 
 tive one in the case. People talk about Him being their 
 pattern, but they often forget that whatever more there 
 
OP GREAT CITIES. 117 
 
 was in Christ's Cross and Passion there was this in It : — 
 the exemplification for all time of the one law by which 
 any reformation can be wrought on men — that a sympa- 
 thising man shall give himself to do it, and that by 
 personal influence alone men shall be drawn and won 
 from out of the darkness and filth. A loving heart and a 
 sympathetic word, the exhibition of a Christian life and 
 conduct, the fact of going down into the midst of evil 
 and trying to lift men out of it, are the old-fashioned and 
 only magnets by which men are drawn to purer and 
 higher life. That is God's way of saving the world— 
 by the action of single souls on single souls. Masses of 
 men can neither save nor be saved. Not in groups, but 
 one by one, particle by particle, soul by soul, Christ draws 
 men to Himself, and He does His work in the world 
 through single souls on fire with His love, and tender 
 with pity learned of Him. 
 
 So, dear friends, do not think that any organisation, 
 any corporate activity, any substitution of vicarious 
 service, will solve the problem. It will not. There is 
 only one way of doing it, the old way that we must tread 
 if we are going to do anything for God and our fellows : 
 "The priests repaired everyone over against his own 
 house. " 
 
 Let me briefly point out some very plain and obvious 
 things which bear upon this matter of individual action. 
 Let me remind you that if j^ii are a Christian man yon 
 have in your possession the thing which will cure the 
 world's woe, and possession involves responsibility. 
 What w^ould you think of a man that harl a specific for 
 some pestilence that was raging in a city, and was con- 
 tented to keep it for his own use, or at most for his 
 family's use, when his brethren were dying by the 
 thousand, and their corpses polluting the air ? And what 
 shall we say of men and women who call themselves 
 
118 HOW TO SWEETEN THE LIPH 
 
 Christians, who have some faith in that great Lord and 
 His mighty sacrifice ; who know that the men they meet 
 with every day of their lives are dying for want of it, and 
 who yet themselves do absolutely nothing to spread His 
 name, and to heal men's hurts ? What shall we say ? God 
 forbid that we should say they are not Christians ; but 
 God forbid that anybody should flatter them with the 
 notion that they are anything but most inconsistent 
 Christians. 
 
 Still further, need I remind you that if we have found 
 anything in Jesus Christ which has been peace and rest 
 for ourselves, Christ has thereby called us to this work ? 
 He has found and saved us, not only for our own personal 
 good. That, of course, is the prime purpose of our salva- 
 tion, but not its exclusive purpose. He has saved us too, 
 in order that the Word may be spread through us to those 
 beyond. *' The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which 
 a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until 
 the whole was leavened," and every little bit of the 
 dough, as it received into itself the leaven, and was 
 transformed, became a medium for transmitting the 
 transformation to the next particle beyond it and so the 
 whole was at last permeated by the power. We get the 
 grace for ourselves that we may pass it on ; and as the 
 Apostle says : " God hath shined into our hearts that we 
 might give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
 in the face of Jesus Christ. " 
 
 And you can do it, you Christian men and women, 
 every one of you, and preach Him to some body. The 
 possession of His love gives the commission ; ay I and it 
 gives the power. There is nothing so mighty as the 
 confession of personal experience. Do not you think that 
 when that first of Christian converts, and first of Christian 
 preachers went to his brother, all full of what he had 
 discovered, his simple saying, " We have found the 
 
OF GREAT CITIES. 119 
 
 Messias, " was a better sermon than a far more elaborate 
 proclamation would have been ? My brother 1 If you 
 have found Him, you can say so ; and if you can say so, 
 and your character and your life confirm the words of 
 your lips, you will have done more to spread His name 
 than much eloquence and many an orator. All can 
 preach, who can say, " We have found the Christ. " 
 
 The last word I have to say is this : there is no other 
 body that can do it but you. They say : — " What an 
 awful thing it is that there are no churches or chapels in 
 these outcast districts I " If there were they would be 
 what the churches and chapels are now — half empty. 
 Bricks and mortar built up into ecclesiastical forms are 
 not the way to evangelise this or any other country. It 
 is a very easy thing to build churches and chapels. It is 
 not such an easy thing — I believe it is an impossible thing 
 (and that the sooner the Christian Church gives up the 
 attempt the better) — to get the Godless classes into any 
 church or chapel. Conducted on the principles upon 
 which churches and chapels must needs at present be con- 
 ducted, they are for another class altogether ; and we had 
 better recognise it, because then we shall feel that no 
 multiplication of buildings like this in which we now are, 
 for instance, is any direct contribution to the evangelisa- 
 tion of the waste spots of the country, except in so far as 
 from a centre like this there ought to go out much 
 influence which will originate direct missionary action in 
 places and fashions adapted to the outlying community. 
 
 Professional work is not what we want. Any man, be 
 he minister, clergyman, Bible-reader, city missionary, 
 who goes among our godless population with the sus- 
 picion of pay about him is the weaker for that. What is 
 needed besides is that ladies and gentlemen that are a bit 
 higher up in the social scale than these poor creatures, 
 should go to them themselves ; and excavate and work. 
 
120 HOW TO SWEETEN THE LIFE 
 
 Preach, if yon like, in the technical sense ; have meetings, 
 [ suppose, necessarily ; but the personal contact is the 
 thing, the familiar talk, the simple exhibition of a loving 
 Christian heart., and the unconventional proclamation in 
 free conversation of the broad message of the love of God 
 in Jesus Christ. Why, if all the people in this chapel 
 who can do that would do it, and keep on doing it, who 
 ^-an tell what an influence would come from some hun- 
 dreds of new workers for Christ ? And why should the 
 existence of a church in which the workers are as 
 numerous as the Christians be an Utopian dream ? It is 
 simply the dream that perhaps a church might be con- 
 ceived to exist, all the members of which had found out 
 their plainest, most imperative duty, and were really try- 
 ing to do it. 
 
 No carelessness, no indolence, no plea of timidity or 
 business shift the obligation from your shoulders if yon 
 are a Christian. It is your business, and no paid agents 
 "can represent you. You cannot buy yourselves substitutes 
 in Christ's army as they used to do in the mititia by a 
 guinea subscription. We are thankful for the money, 
 because there are kinds of work to be done that unpaid 
 effort will not do. But they ask for your money ; Jesus 
 Christ asks for yourself, for your work and will not let 
 you off as having done your duty because you have paid 
 your subscription. No doubt there are some of you who, 
 from various circumstances, cannot yourselves do work 
 amongst the masses of the outcast population. Well, but 
 you have got people by your side whom you can help. 
 The question which I wish to ask of my Christian 
 brethren and sisters this morning is this : Is there a man, 
 woman, or child living to whom you ever spoke a word 
 about Jesus Christ ? Is there ? If not, do not you think 
 it is time that you began ? 
 
 There are people in your houses, people that sit by yon 
 
OP GIIEAT CITIES. 121 
 
 in yonr connting-housc. en youi' college benches, who 
 work by your side in mill or factory or warehouse, who 
 cross your path in a hundred ways, and God has given 
 them to you that you may bring them to Him. Do you 
 set yourself, dear brother, to work and try to bring them. 
 Oh ! if you lived nearer Jesus Christ you would catch the 
 sacred fire from Him ; and like a bit of cold iron lying 
 beside a magnet, touching Him, you would yourselves 
 become magnetic and draw men out of their evil and up 
 to God. 
 
 Let me commend to you the old pattern : " The priests 
 repaired every one over against his house ; " and beseech 
 yon to take the trowel and spade, or anything that comes 
 handiest, and build in the bit nearest yon some living 
 stones on the true Foundation. 
 
THE TRIFLE RAYS WHICH MAKE THE 
 WHITE LIGHT OF HEAVEiN. 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 THE TRIPLE RAYS WHICH MAKE THE WHITE 
 
 LIGHT OP HEAVEN. 
 
 'HlB Berrantfl shvJl serre Him ; and they shall see His teoe ; and HIb name shall be 
 In their foreheads.* Ear. xzii. 3, 4. 
 
 One may well shrink from taking words like these for a 
 text. Their lofty music will necessarily make all words 
 of ours seem thin and poor. The great things about 
 which they are concerned are so high above us, and 
 known to us by so few channels that usually he who says 
 least speaks most wisely about them. And yet it cannot 
 be but wholesome if in a reverent spirit of no vain curi- 
 osity, we do try to lay upon our hearts the impressions of 
 the great, though they be dim, truths which gleam from 
 these words. I know that to talk about a future life is 
 often a most sentimental, vague, unpractical form of 
 religious contemplation, but there is no reason at all why 
 it should be so. I wish to try now very simply to bring 
 out the large force and wonderful meaning of the words 
 which I have ventured to read. They give us three 
 elements of the perfect state of man — Service, Contempla- 
 tion, Likeness. These three are perfect and unbroken. 
 
126 THB TRIPLE RAYS WHICH MAKE 
 
 I. — The first element, then, in the perfect state of man 
 is perfect activity in the service of God. Now the 
 words of our text are remarkable in that the two expres- 
 sions for " servant " and " serve " are not related to one 
 another in the Greek, as they are in the English, but are 
 two quite independent words ; the former meaning liter- 
 ally " a slave,*' and the latter being exclusively confined 
 in Scripture to one kind of service. It would never be 
 employed for any service that a man did for a man ; it is 
 exclusively a religious word, and means only the service 
 that men do for God, whether in specific acts of so-called 
 worship or in the wider worship of daily life. So that if 
 we have not here the notion of priesthood, we have one 
 very closely approximating towards it ; and the represen- 
 tation is that the activity of the redeemed and perfected 
 man, in the highest ideal condition of humanity, is an 
 activity which is all worship, and is directed to the 
 revealed God in Christ. 
 
 That, then, is the first thought that we have to look at. 
 Now, it seems to me to be a very touching confession of 
 the weariness and unsatisfactoriness of life in general 
 that the dream of the future which has unquestionably the 
 most fascination for most men, is that which speaks of it as 
 Rest. The religion which has the largest number of ad- 
 herents in the world — the religion of the Buddhists — 
 formally declares existence to be evil, and preaches as the 
 highest attainable good, something which is scarcely distin- 
 guishable from annihilation. And, even though we do 
 not go so far as that, what a testimony it is of burdened 
 hearts and mournful lives, and work too great for the 
 feeble limits of our powers, that the most natural thought 
 of a blessed future is as rest ! It is easy to laugh at people 
 for singing hymns about sitting upon green and fiowery 
 mounts, and counting up the labours of their feet : but 
 
THE WHITE LIGHT OF HEAVEN. 127 
 
 oh I it is a tragical thought that whatsoever shape a life has 
 taken, howsoever full of joy and sunshine and brightness 
 it may be, deep down in the man there is such an expe- 
 rience as that the one thing he wants is repose and to get 
 rid of all the trouble and toil. 
 
 Now, this representation of my text is by no means con- 
 tradictory, but it is complementary, of that other one. 
 The deepest rest and the highest activity coincide. They 
 do so in God Who " worketh hitherto " in undisturbed 
 tranquility ; they may do so in ns. The wheel that goes 
 round in swiftest rotation seems to be standing still. 
 Work at its intensest, which is pleasurable work, and 
 level to the capacity of the doer, is the truest form of rest. 
 In vacuity there are stings and torment ; it is only in 
 joyous activity which is not pushed to the extent of 
 strain and unwelcome effort that the true rest of man is to 
 be found. And the two verses in this Book of Revelation 
 about this matter, which look at first sight to be opposed 
 to each other, are like the two sides of a sphere, which unite 
 and make the perfect whole. "They rest from their 
 labours." " They rest not, day nor night." 
 
 From their labours — yes ; from toil disproportioned to 
 faculty — yes I from unwelcome work — yes I from distrac- 
 tion and sorrow — yes I But from glad praise and vigorous 
 service — never I day nor night. And so with the full ap- 
 prehension of the sweetness and blessedness of the tranquil 
 Heaven, we say : It is found only there, where His ser- 
 vants serve Him. Thus the first thought that is presented 
 here is that of an activity delivered from all that makes 
 toil on earth burdensome and unwelcome ; and which, 
 therefore, is coincident with the deepest and most perfect 
 repose. 
 
 It may seem strange to think of a blessed life which 
 has no effort in it, for effort is the very salt and spice of 
 life here below, and one can scarcely fancy the perfect 
 
128 THE TRIPLE RAYS VvHiClI MAKE 
 
 happiness of a spirit which never has the glow of warmth 
 that comes from exercise in overcoming difficulties. But 
 perhaps effort, and antagonism, and strain, and trial have 
 done their work on us when they have moulded our char- 
 acters, and when "school is over we burn the rod"; and 
 the discipline of joy may evolve nobler graces of character 
 than ever the discipline of sorrow did. At all events, we 
 have to think of work which also is repose, and of service 
 in which is unbroken tranquility. 
 
 Then there is further involved in this first idea, the 
 notion of an outer world, on which and in which to work ; 
 and also the notion of the resurrection of the body, in 
 w^hich the active spirit may abide, and through which it 
 may work. 
 
 Perhaps it may be that they who sleep in Jesus, in the 
 period between the shuffling off of this mortal coil and 
 the breaking of that day when they are raised again from 
 the dead, are incapable of exertion in an outer sphere. 
 Perhaps, it may be, that by reason of the absence of that 
 glorified body of the Resurrection, they sleep in Jesus in 
 the sense that they couch at the Shepherd's feet within 
 the fold until the morning comes, when He leads them 
 out to new pastures. It may be. At all events, this we 
 may be sure of, that if it be so they have no desires in 
 advance of th#ir capacities ; and of this also I think we 
 may be sure, that whether they themselves can come into 
 contact with an external Universe or not, Christ is for 
 them in some measure what the body is to us here now, 
 and the glorified body will be hereafter ; that being 
 absent from the body they are present with the Lord, and 
 that He is as it were, the Sensorium by which they are 
 brought into contact with and have a knowledge of ex- 
 ternal things, so that they may rest and wait and have no 
 worlv to do, and have no effort to put forth, and yet be 
 conscious of all that befalls the loved ones here below, 
 
THE WHITE LIGHT OF HEAVEN. 129 
 
 may know them in their affliction, and not be untouched 
 by their tears. 
 
 But all that is a dim region into which we have not 
 any need to look. What I emphasize is, the service of 
 Heaven means rest, and the service of Heaven means an 
 outer universe on which, and a true bodily frame with 
 which, to do the work which is delight. 
 
 The next point is this : such service must be in a far 
 higher sphere and a far nobler fashion than the service of 
 earth. That is in accordance with the analogy of the 
 Divine dealings. God rewards work with more work. 
 The powers that are trained and exercised and proved in 
 a narrower region are lifted to the higher. As some poor 
 peasant-girl, for instance, whose rich voice has risen up 
 in the harvest-field only for her own delight and that of a 
 handful of listeners, heard by some one who detects its 
 sweetness, may be carried away to some great city, and 
 charm kings with her tones, so the service done in some 
 little corner of this remote rural province of God's uni- 
 verse, apprehended by Him, shall be rewarded with a 
 wider platform, and a nobler area for work. " Thou hast 
 been faithful in a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
 many things." God sends forth His children to work as 
 apprentices here, and when they are " out of their time, " 
 and have " got a trade, " He calls them home, not to let 
 their faculties rest unused, but to practice on a larger 
 theatre what they have learned on earth. 
 
 One more point must be noticed, viz., that the highest 
 type of Heaven's service must be service for other people. 
 The law for Heaven can surely not be more selfish than 
 the law for earth, and that is, " He that is chief est amongst 
 you let him be your servant." The law for the perfect 
 man can surely not be different from the law for the 
 Master, and the law for Him is, " Even Christ pleased 
 not Himself." The perfection of the child can surely noi 
 
 K 
 
la I THE TRIPLE RAYS WHICH MAKE 
 
 be iiff erent from the perfection of the Father, and the perf ec- 
 tio.a of the Father is : " He maketh His sun to * shine,' and 
 Hiti blessings to come — on the unthankful and on the good." 
 
 ^o then the highest service for man is the service of 
 others ; — how, where, or whom, we cannot tell. We too 
 ma/ be "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister" 
 (Hcb. i. 14), but at all events not on ourselves can our 
 activities centre ; and not in self-culture can be the highest 
 form of our service to God. 
 
 The last point about this first matter is simply this — 
 that this highest form of human activity is all to be 
 worship ; all to be done in reference io Him ; all to be 
 done in suomission to Him. The will of the man in His 
 work is to be so conformed to the will of God as 
 that, whatsoever the hand on the great dial points to, 
 that the hand on the little dial shall point to also. 
 Obedience is joy and rest. To know and to do His will 
 is Heaven. It is Heaven on earth in so far as we partially 
 attain to it, and when with enlarged powers and all im- 
 perfections removed, and in a higher sphere, and without 
 interruptions we do His commandments, hearkening to 
 the voice of His word, then the perfect state will have 
 come. Then shall we enter into the liberty of the glory 
 of the childi-en of God, when, as His slaves, we serve Him 
 in the unwearied activities done for Him, which make 
 the worship of Heaven. 
 
 II. — Next, look at the second of the elements here : — 
 " They shall see His face." Now that expression " seeing 
 the face of God " in Scripture seems to me to be employed 
 in two somewhat different ways, according to one of 
 which the possibility of seeing the face is affirmed, and 
 according to the other of which it is denied. 
 
 The one may be illustrated by the Divine word to 
 Moses : — " Thou canst not see My face. There shall no 
 man see Me and live." The other may be illustrated by 
 
THE WHITE LIGHT OF HEAVEN. 13X 
 
 the aspiration and the confidence of one of the psalms : 
 " As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness." 
 
 A similar antithesis, which is apparently a contradiction, 
 may be found in setting side by side the words of our 
 Savionr : — " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 see God," with the words of the Evangelist ; " No man 
 hath seen God at any time." I do not think that the 
 explanation is to be found altogether in pointing to the 
 difference between present and possible future vision, 
 but rather I think the Bible teaches what reason would 
 also teach : — that no corporeal vision of God is ever pos- 
 sible ; still further, that no complete comprehension and 
 knowledge of Him is ever possible, and, as I think further, 
 that no direct knowledge of, or contact with, God in 
 Himself is possible for finite man, either here or yonder. 
 And the other side lies in such words as these, which I 
 have already quoted : " Blessed are the pure in heart, for 
 they shall see God." " As through a glass darkly, but then 
 face to face." Where is the key to the apparent contradic- 
 tion ? Here, I think ; Jesus Christ is the manifest God, 
 in Him only do men draw near to the hidden Deity, the King 
 Invisible, Who dwelleth in the light that is inaccessible. 
 
 Here on earth we see by faith, and yonder there will be a 
 vision, different in kind, most real, most immediate and 
 direct, not of the hidden Godhood in itself, but of the 
 revealed Godhood manifest in Jesus Christ, Whom in His 
 glorified corporeal Manhood we shall perceive, with the 
 organs of our glorified body. Whom, in His Divine beauty 
 we shall know and love with heart and mind, in know- 
 ledge direct, immediate, far surpassing in degree, and 
 different in kind from, the knowledge of faith which we 
 have of Him here below. But the infinite Godhood that 
 lies behind all revelations of Deity shall remain as it hath 
 been through them all — the King invisible. Whom no man 
 hath seen or can see. They shall see His face in so far 
 
 iL 2 
 
132 THE TRIPLE RAYS WHICH MA KB 
 
 as they shall hold commnnion with and through iheii 
 glorified body have the direct knowledge of Christ tht 
 revealed Deity. 
 
 'Uliether there be anything more, I know not ; I thini 
 there is not ; but this I am stire of, that the law for HeaveL 
 and the law for earth alike are, " He that hath seen Me 
 hath seen the Father. " 
 
 But there is another point I would touch upon in refer- 
 ence to this second thought of our text — viz, its connection 
 \^ith the previous representation, " They shall serve 
 Him, " — that is work in an outer sphere ; " they shall see 
 His face, " — ^that is contemplation. These two, the life of 
 work and the life of devout commnnion — the Martha and 
 the Mary of the Christian experience — are antagonistic 
 here below, and it is hard to reconcile their conflicting, 
 fluctuating claims and to know how much to give to the 
 inward life of gazing upon Christ, and how much to the 
 outward life of serving Him. But says my text, the two 
 shiUl be blended together. •' His servants shall serve 
 Him," nor in all their activity shall they lose the vision of 
 His face. His servants " shall see His face ; " nor in all 
 the still blessedness of their gaze upon Him shall they 
 slack the diligence of the unwearied hands, or the speed 
 of the willing feet. The Rabbis taught that there were 
 angels who serve, and angels who praise, but the two 
 classes meet in the perfected man, whose services shall be 
 praise, whose praise shall be service. They go forth to do 
 His will, yet are ever in the House of the Lord. They 
 work and gaze ; they gaze and work. Resting they serve, 
 and serving they rest ; perpetual activity and perpetual 
 vision are theirs. *' They serve Him, and see His face. *' 
 
 III. — The last element is "His name shall be in their 
 forehead." That is, as I take it — a mainfest likeness to 
 the Lord Whom they serve is the highest element in the 
 perfect stat« of redeemed men. We hear a good deal in 
 
THE WHITE LIGHT OP HEAVEN. 133 
 
 this Book of the Revelation about writing the names and 
 numbers of persons and of powers upon men's faces and 
 foreheads ; as for instance, you remember we read about 
 the "number of the beast" written upon his worshippers, 
 and about "the name of the New Jerusalem, and the name of 
 my God" bein? wTitten as a special reward, " upon him that 
 overcomes. " The metaphor, as I suppose is taken from the 
 old cruel practice of branding a slave with the name of 
 his master. And so the primary idea of this expression : " His 
 slaves shall bear His name upon their foreheads," is that their 
 ownership shall be conspicuously visible to all that look. 
 
 But there is more than that in it. How is the o\^Tier- 
 ship to be made visible ? By His name being on their 
 foreheads. What is "His name " ? Universally in Scrip- 
 ture " His name " is His revealed character, and so we 
 come to this : the perfect men shall be known to belong 
 to God in Christ, because they are like Him. The 
 ownership shall be proved by the likeness, and that 
 likeness shall no longer be hidden in their hearts, no 
 longer be difficult to make out, so blurred and obliterated 
 the letters of the name, by the imperfections of their lives 
 and their selfishness and sin ; but it shall flame in their 
 foreheads, plain as the inscription on the high priest's 
 mitre that declared him to be consecrated to the Lord. 
 
 And so that lovely and blessed thought is here of % 
 perfect likeness in moral character, at all events, and a 
 wonderful approximation and resemblance in other 
 elements of human nature to the glorified humanity of Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, which shall be the token that we are His. 
 
 Oh ! what a contrast to the partial ownership, proved to 
 be partial by our partial resemblance here on earth ! "We say, 
 as Christian men and women, that we bear His name. Is 
 it written so that men can read it, or is it like the name 
 of some person traced in letters of gas jets over a shop- 
 front — half blown out by every gust of wind that comes ? 
 
134 THE TRIPLE RAYS. 
 
 Is that the way in which His name is written on yonr 
 heart and character. My brother I a possibility great and 
 blessed opens before us of a nobler union with Him, a closer 
 approximation, a clearer vision, a perfecter resemblance. 
 " We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is I " 
 
 One last word. These three elements, service, contem- 
 plation, likeness ; these three are not different in kind 
 from the elements of a Christian man's life here. You 
 can enjoy them all sitting in these pews ; in the bustle 
 and the hurry of your daily life, you can have every one 
 of them. If you do not enjoy them here you will never 
 have them yonder. If you have never served anybody 
 but yourself how shall death make you His servant ? If 
 all the days of your life you have turned away your ear 
 when He has been saying to you : " Seek ye my face, " 
 what reason is there to expect that when death's hammer 
 smashes the glass through which you have seen darkly, 
 " the steady whole of that awful face " will be a pleasant 
 sight to you ? If all your life you have been trying, as 
 some of you men and women, old and young, have 
 been trying, and are trying now, to engrave the name of 
 the beast upon your foreheads, what reason have you to 
 expect that when you pass out of this life the foul signs 
 shall disappear in a moment, and you will bear in your 
 brow " the marks of the Lord Jesus " in their stead ? 
 No I No ! These things do not happen ; you have got 
 to begin here as you mean to end yonder. Trust Him 
 here, and you will see Him there. Serve Him here, and 
 you will serve Him yonder. Write His new Name upon 
 your heart, and when you pass from the imperfections of 
 life you will bear His Name on your foreheads. 
 
 And if you do not — I lay this upon the consciences of yon 
 all, — if you do not you will see Christ; — and you will not 
 like it ! And you will bear, not the Image of the Heaven- 
 ly, which is life, but the image of the earthy, which is 
 death and hell I 
 
THE SECEET OF GLADNESj 
 
8ERM0N XL 
 
 THE SECRET OP GLADNESS. 
 
 "Anil jes^it said unto them. Can the children of the brideohamber moom m k>m 
 U the bndfcrt . com ia with them ? " Mark ii. 19. 
 
 This is part of our Lord's answer to the question put 
 by John's disciples as to the reason for the omission of 
 the practice of tasting by his followers. The answer is 
 very simple. It is — " My disciples do not fast because they 
 are not sad." And the principle which underlies the 
 answer is a very important one. It is this : that all out- 
 ward forms of religion, appointed by man, ought only to 
 be observed when they correspond to the feeling and dis- 
 position of the worshipper. That principle cuts up all 
 religious formalism by the very roots. The Pharisee said : 
 — " Fasting is a good thing in itself, and meritorious in 
 the sight of God." The modern Pharisee says the same 
 about many externals of ritual and worship, Jesus Christ 
 Bays " No I The thing has no value except as an expres- 
 sion of the feeling of the doer.'* Our Lord did not object 
 to fasting ; He expressly approved of it as a means of 
 spiritual power. But he did object to the formal use of it 
 or of any outward form. The formalist's form, whether it 
 be the elaborate ritual of the Catholic Church, or the barest 
 
138 THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 
 
 Nonconformist service, or the silence of a Friends' meeting- 
 nouse, is rigid, unbending and cold, like an iron rod. The 
 true Christian form is elastic, like the stem of a palm tree, 
 which curves and sways and yields to the wind, and has 
 the sap of life in it. If any man is sad, let him fast ; " if 
 any man is merry let him sing psalms. " Let his ritual 
 correspond to his spiritual emotion and conviction. 
 
 But the point which I wish to consider now is not so 
 much this, as the representation that is given here of the 
 reason why fasting was incongruous with the condition and 
 disposition of the disciples. Jesus says : — " We are more 
 like a wedding-party than anything else. Can the child- 
 ren of the bridechamber mourn as long as the bridegroom 
 is with them ? " 
 
 The " children of the bridechamber " is but another name 
 for those who were called the " friends " or companions 
 " of the bridegroom. " According to the Jewish wedding 
 ceremonial it was their business to conduct the bride to 
 the home of her husband, and there to spend seven days 
 in festivity and rejoicing, which were to be so entirely 
 devoted to mirth and feasting that the companions of the 
 bridegroom were by the Talmudic ritual absolved even 
 from prayer and from worship, and had for their one duty 
 to rejoice. 
 
 And that is the picture that Christ holds up before the 
 disciples of the ascetic John as the representation of what 
 He and His friends were most truly like. Very unlike our 
 ordinary notion of Christ and His disciples as they walked 
 the earth ! The presence of the Bridegroom made them 
 glad with a strange gladness, which shook off sorrow as 
 the down on a sea-bird's breast shakes off moisture, and 
 leaves it warm and dry, though it floats amidst boundless 
 seas. I wish to-day to meditate with you on this secret 
 of imperviousness to sorrow arising from the felt presence 
 of the Christ. 
 
THE SECRBT OF GLADNESS. 139 
 
 There are three subjects for consideration arising from 
 the words of my text : The Bridegi'oom— the presence of 
 the Bridegroom— the joy of the Bridegroom's presence. 
 
 I.— Now with regard to the first, a very few words will 
 suffice. The first thing that strikes me is the singular 
 appropriateness, and the delicate pathetic beauty in the 
 employment of this name by Christ in the existing cir- 
 cumstances. Who was it that had first said : " He that 
 hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the 
 bridegroom that standeth by and heareth him, rejoiceth 
 greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy 
 therefore is fulfilled ? " Why, it was the master of these 
 very men who were asking the question. John's disciplea 
 came and said : " Why do not your disciples fast ? " And 
 our Lord reminded them of their own teacher's words, 
 when he said, " The friend of the bridegroom can only be 
 glad." And so He would say to them, " In your master's 
 own conception of what I am, and of the joy that comes 
 from my presence, you have an answer to your question. 
 He might have taught you who I am, and why it is that 
 the men that stand around Me are glad." 
 
 But this is not all. We cannot but connect this name 
 with a whole circle of ideas found in the Old Testament, 
 especially with that most familiar and almost stereotyped 
 figure which represents the union between Israel and 
 Jehovah, under the emblem of the marriage bond. The 
 Lord is the husband ; and the nation whom He has loved 
 and redeemed and chosen for Himself, is the wife ; 
 unfaithful and forgetful, often requiting love with in- 
 difference, and protection with unthankfulness, and need- 
 ing to be put away, and debarred of the society of the 
 husband that still yearns for her ; but a wife still, and in 
 the new time to be joined to Him by a bond that shall 
 never be broken and a better covenant. 
 
 And so Christ lays His hand upon all that old history 
 
140 THE SECRET OP GLADNESS. 
 
 and says : " It is fulfilled here in Me." A familiar note 
 in Old Testament ]^.lessianic prophecy too is caught and 
 echoed here, especially that grand marriage ode of the 
 forty-fifth Psalm, in which he must be a very prosaic or 
 very deeply prejudiced reader who hears nothing more 
 than the shrill wedding greetings at the marriage of some 
 Jewish king with a foreign princess. Its bounding hopes 
 and its magnificent sweep of vision are a world too wide 
 for such interpretation. The Bridegroom of that psalm is 
 the Messiah, and the Bride is the Church. 
 
 I need only refer in a sentence to what this indicates 
 of Christ's self-consciousness. What must He, w^ho takes 
 this name as His own, have thought Himself to be to the 
 world, and the world to Him ? He steps into the place of 
 the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and claims as His own 
 all these great and wonderful prophecies. He promises 
 love, protection, communion, the deepest, most mystical 
 union of spirit and heart with Himself ; and He claims 
 quiet, restful confidence in His love, absolute, loving 
 obedience to His authority, reliance upon His strong hand 
 and loving heart, and faithful cleaving to Him. The 
 Bridegroom of humanity, the Husband of the world, if it 
 will only turn to Him, is Christ Himself. 
 
 II. — But a word as to the presence of the Bridegroom. 
 It might seem as if this text condemned us who love an 
 unseen and absent Lord to exclusion from the joy which is 
 made to depend on His presence. Are we in the dreary 
 period when " the bridegroom is taken away " and fasting 
 appropriate ? " 
 
 Surely not. The time of mourning for an absent Christ 
 was only three days ; the law for the years of the Church's 
 history between the moment when the uplifted eyes of the 
 gazers lost Him in the symbolic cloud and the moment 
 when He shall come again is, " Lo, I am with you always.*' 
 The absent Christ is the present Christ. He is really with 
 
THE 8B0RET OF GLADNESS. 141 
 
 as, not as the memory or the influence of the example of 
 the dead may be said to remain, not as the spirit of a teacher 
 may be said to abide with his school of followers. We 
 say that Christ has gone up <m high and sits on the right 
 hand of God. The right hand of God is His active power. 
 Where is "the right hand of God ? " It is wherever His 
 divine energy works. He that sits at the right hand of 
 God is thereby declared to be wherever the Divine energy 
 is in operation, and to be Himself the wielder of that 
 Divine Power. I believe in a local abode of the glorified 
 human body of Jesus Christ now, but I believe likewise 
 that all through God's Universe, and eminently in this 
 world, which He has redeemed, Christ is present in His 
 consciousness of its circumstances, and in the activity of 
 His influence, and in whatsoever other incomprehensible 
 and unspeakable mode Omnipresence belongs to a Divine 
 Person. So that He is with us most really, though the 
 visible, bodily Form is no longer by our sides. 
 
 That Presence which survives, which is true for us 
 here to-day, may be a far better and more blessed and real 
 thing than the presence of the mere bodily Form in which 
 He once dwelt. We may have lost something by His going 
 away in visible form ; 1 doubt whether we have. We 
 have lost the manifestation of Him to the sense, but we 
 have gained the manifestation of Him to the spirit. And 
 just as the great men, who are only men, need to die and 
 go away in order to be measured in their true magnitude 
 and understood in their true glory ; and just as when a 
 man is in amongst the mountains, he cannot tell which 
 peak is the dominant one, but when he gets away a little 
 bit across the sea and looks back, distance helps to measure 
 magnitude and reveal the sovereign summit which towers 
 above all the rest, so looking back across the ages with the 
 foreground between us and Him of the history of the 
 Christian Church ever since, and noticing how other 
 
142 THE SECRET OP GLADNESS. 
 
 heights have sunk beneath the waves and have been 
 wrapped in clouds, and have disappeared behind the 
 great round of the earth, we can tell how high this One 
 is ; and know better than they knew Who it is that moves 
 amongst men in the form of a servant, even the Bride- 
 groom of the Church and of the world. " It is expedient 
 for you that I go away." And Christ is, or ought to be 
 nearer to us to-day in all that constitutes real nearness, in 
 our apprehension of His essential character, in our recep- 
 tion of His holiest influences, than He ever was to them 
 who walked beside Him on the earth. 
 
 But, brethren, that presence is of no use at all to us unless 
 we daily try to realise it. He was with these men whether 
 they would or no. Whether they thought about Him or 
 Jio, there He was ; and just because His presence did not 
 at all depend upon their spiritual condition, it was a lower 
 kind of presence than that which you and I have now, 
 and which depends for us altogether on our realising it by 
 the turning of our hearts to Him, and by the daily con- 
 templation of Him amidst all the bustle and the struggle. 
 
 Do you, as you go about your work, feel His nearness 
 and try to keep the feeling fresh and vivid, by occupying 
 heart and mind with Him, by referring everything to His 
 supreme control ? By trusting yourselves utterly and 
 absolutely in His hand, and gathering round you, as it 
 were, the sweetness of His love by meditation and reflec- 
 tion, do you try to make conscious to yourselves your 
 Lord's presence with you ? If you do, that presence is to 
 you a blessed reality ; if you do not, it is a word that means 
 nothing and is of no help, no stimulus, no protection, no 
 satisfaction, no sweetness to you whatever. The children 
 of the Bridegroom are glad only when, and as, they know 
 that the Bridegroom is with them. 
 
 III. — And now a word, last of all, about the joy of the 
 Bridegroom's presence. What was it that made these rude 
 
THE SECRET OP GLADNESS. 143 
 
 lives so glad when Christ was with them ; filling them 
 with strange new sweetness and power ? The charm of 
 personal character, the charm of contact with one whose 
 lips were bringing to them fresh revelations of truth, 
 fresh visions of God, whose whole life was the exhibition 
 of a nature, beautiful, and noble, and pure, and tender and 
 sweet, and loving, beyond anything they had ever seen 
 before. 
 
 Ah ! brethren, there is no joy in the world like that of 
 companionship, in the freedom of perfect love, with one 
 who ever keeps us at our best, and brings the treasures of 
 ever fresh truth to the mind, as well as beauty of charac- 
 ter to admire and imitate. That is one of the greatest gifts 
 that God gives, and is a source of the purest joy that we 
 can have. 
 
 Now you may have all that and much more in Jesus 
 Christ. He will be with us if we do not drive Him away 
 from us, as the source of our purest joy, because He is 
 the all-sufficient object for our love. 
 
 Oh I you men and women who have been wearily 
 seeking in the world for love that cannot change, for love 
 that cannot die and leave you ; you who have been made 
 sad for life by irrevocable losses, or sorrowful in the 
 midst of your joy by the anticipated certain separation 
 which is to come, listen to this One who says to you : " I 
 will never leave thee, and My love shall be round thee 
 for ever ; " and recognise this, that there is a love which 
 cannot change, which cannot die, which has no limits, 
 which never can be cold, which never can disappoint, and 
 therefore, in it, and in His presence there is unending 
 gladness. 
 
 He is with us as the source of our joy, because He is 
 the Lord of our lives, and the absolute Commander of our 
 Wills. To have One present with us Whose loving word 
 it is delight to obey, and Who takes upon Himself all re- 
 
144 THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 
 
 sponsibility for the conduct of our lives, and leaves us 
 only the task of doing what we are bid — that is peace, that 
 is gladness, of such a kind as none else in the world gives. 
 
 He is with us as the ground of perfect joy because He 
 is the adequate object of all our desires, and the whole of 
 the faculties and powers of a man will find a field of glad 
 activity in leaning upon Him, and realising His presence. 
 Like the Apostle whom the old painters loved to represent 
 lying with his happy head on Christ's heart, and his eyes 
 closed in a tranquil rapture of restful satiifaction, so if 
 we have Him with us and feel that He is with us, our 
 spirits may be still, and in the great stillness of fruition 
 of all our wishes and the fulfilment of all our needs, may 
 know a joy that the world can neither give nor take 
 away. 
 
 He is with us as the source of endless gladness in that 
 He is the defence and protection for our souls. And as 
 men live in a victualled fortress, and care not though the 
 whole surrounding country may be swept bare of all pro- 
 vision, so when we have Christ with ns we may feel safe, 
 whatsoever befalls, and " in the days of famine we shall 
 be satisfied." 
 
 He is with us as the source of our perfect joy because 
 His presence is the kindling of every hope that fills the 
 future with light and glory. Dark or dim at the best, 
 trodden by uncertain shapes, casting many a deep shadow 
 over the present, that future lies, except we see it illu- 
 mined by Christ, and have Him by our sides. But if we 
 possess His companionship, the present is but the parent of 
 a more blessed time to come ; and we can look forward 
 and feel that nothing can touch our gladness, because 
 nothing can touch our union with our Lord. 
 
 So, dear brethren, from all these thoughts and a thous- 
 and more which I have no time to dwell upon, comes 
 this one great consideration, that the joy of the presence 
 
THE ►SECRET OP GLADNESS. 145 
 
 of the Bridegroom is the victorious antagonist of all 
 sorrow and mourning. " Can the children of the bride- 
 chamber mourn whilst the bridegroom is with them ? " 
 The answer sometimes seems to be, " Yes, they can ! " 
 Our own hearts, with their experience of tears, and losses, 
 and disappointments, seem to say : " Mourning is possible, 
 even whilst He is here. We have our own share, 
 and we sometimes think, more than our share of the 
 ills that flesh is heir to.'* 
 
 And we have, over and above them, in the measure in 
 which we are Christians, certain special sources of sorrow 
 and trial, peculiar to ourselves alone ; and the deeper and 
 truer our Christianity the more of these shall we have. 
 But notwithstanding all that, what will the felt presence of 
 the Bridegroom do for these griefs that will come ? 
 Well, it will limit them for one thing ; it will prevent 
 them from absorbing the whole of our nature. There 
 will always be a Goshen in which there is light in the 
 dw^elling, however murky may be the darkness that wraps 
 the land. There will always be a little bit of soil above 
 the surface, however weltering and wide may be the inun- 
 dation that drowns onr world. There will always be a dry 
 and warm place in the midst of the winter, a kind of 
 greenhouse into which we may get from out of the tem- 
 pest and the fog. The joy of the Bridegroom's presence 
 will last through the sorrow, like a spring of fresh water 
 welling up in the midst of the sea. We may have the salt 
 and the sweet waters mingling in our lives, not sent 
 forth by one fountain, but flowing in one channel. 
 
 Our joy will sometimes be made sweeter and more won- 
 derful by the very presence of the mourning and the 
 grief. Just as the pillar of cloud, that glided before the 
 Israelites through the wilderness, glow^ed into a pillar of 
 fire as the darkness deepened, so, as the outlook around 
 becomes less and less cheery and bright, and the night 
 
 L 
 
146 THE SECRET OP GLADNESS. 
 
 falls thicker and thicker, what seemed to be but a thin 
 grey wavering column in the blaze of the sunlight will 
 gather warmth and brightness at the heart of it when the 
 midnight comes. 
 
 You cannot see the stars at twelve o'clock in the day ; 
 you have to watch for the dark hours ere heaven is filled 
 with glory. And so sorrow is often the occasion for the 
 full revelation of the joy of Christ's presence. 
 
 Why have so many Christian men so little joy in their 
 lives ? Because they look for it in all sorts of wrong 
 places, and seek to wring it out of all sorts of sapless and 
 dry things. " Do men gather grapes of thorns ? " If you 
 put the berries of the thorn into the winepress, will you 
 get -sweet sap out of them ? That is what you are doing 
 when you take gratified earthly affections, worldly com- 
 petence, fulfilled ambitions, and put them into the press, 
 and think that out of these you can squeeze the wine of 
 gladness. No I No I brethren, dry and sapless and juice- 
 less they all are. There is one thing that gives a man 
 worthy, noble, eternal gladness, and that is the felt 
 presence of the Bridegroom. 
 
 Why have so many Christians so little joy in their lives ? 
 
 A religion like that of John's disciples and that of the 
 Pharisees is a poor affair. A religion of which the main 
 features are law and restriction and prohibition, cannot be 
 joyful. And there are a great many people who call 
 themselves Christians, and have just got religion enough 
 to take the edge off worldly pleasures, and yet they have 
 not got enough to make fellowship with Christ a gladness 
 for them. 
 
 There is a cry amongst us for a more cheerful type of 
 religion. I re-echo the cry, but am afraid that I do not 
 mean by it quite the same thing that some of my friends 
 do. A more cheerful type of Christianity means to many 
 of OB a type of Christianity that will interfere less with 
 
THE SECRET OP GLADNESS. 147 
 
 my amusements ; a more indulgent doctor that will pre- 
 scribe a less rigid diet than the old Puritan type used to 
 do. Well, perhaps they went too far ; T do not care to 
 deny that. But the only cheerful Christianity is a Chris- 
 tianity that draws its gladness from deep personal ex- 
 perience of communion with Jesus Christ. There is no 
 way of men being religious and happy except being pro- 
 foundly religious, and living very near their Master, and 
 always trying to cultivate that spirit of communion with 
 Him which shall surround them with the sweetness and 
 the power of His felt presence. We do not want Pharisaic 
 fasting, but we do want that the reason for not fasting 
 shall not be that Christians like eating better, but that 
 their religion must be joyful because they have Christ 
 with them, and therefore cannot choose but sing, as a lark 
 cannot choose but cai-ol. " Religion has no power over us, 
 but as it is our happiness," and we shall never make it 
 our happiness, and therefore never know its beneficent 
 control, until we lift it clean out of the low region of out- 
 ward forms and joyless service, into the blessed heights 
 of communion with Jesus Christ, " whom having not seen 
 we love." 
 
 I would that Christian people saw more plainly that joy 
 is a duty, and that they are bound to make efforts to obey 
 the command, " Rejoice in the Lord always," no less than 
 other precepts. If we abide in Christ, His joy will abide 
 in us, and our joy will be full. We shall have in our 
 hearts a fountain of true joy which will never be turbid 
 with earthly stains, nor dried up by heat, nor frozen by 
 cold. If we set the Lord always before us our days may 
 be at once like the happy hours of the children of the 
 bridechamber, bright with gladness and musical with 
 Bong ; and also, 3aved from the enervation that sometimes 
 comes from joy, because thay are like the patient vigils of 
 the servants who wait for the Lord, when He shall return 
 
 l2 
 
148 THE SECRET OF GLADISBSS. 
 
 from the wedding. So strangely blended of fruition and 
 hope, of companionship and solitude, of feasting ami 
 watching, is the Christian life here, until the time comes 
 when His friends go in w-ith the Bridegroom to the 
 banquet, and drink for ever of the new joy of the king- 
 dom. 
 
THE LESSON OF MEMORY. 
 
6ERM0N XIL 
 
 THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 
 
 •*Thoa Bhalt remember all the way which the Lord thy QoA led thee these forty 
 years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what waa in 
 thine heart whether thoa wouldst keep Hid commaudmeuts or no." Deal. viii. 2. 
 
 The strand of our lives usually slips away smoothly 
 enough, but days such as this, the last Sunday in a year, 
 are like the knots on a sailor's log, which, as they pass 
 through his fingers, tell him how fast it is being paid out 
 off the reel, and how far it has run. 
 
 They suggest a momentary consciousness of the swift 
 passage of life, and naturally lead us to a glance back- 
 wards and forwards, both of which occupations ought to 
 be very good for us. The dead flat upon which we live 
 here may be taken as an emblem of the low present in 
 which most of us are content to pass our lives, affording 
 nowhere a distant view, and never enabling us to see 
 more than a street's length ahead of us. It is a good thing 
 to get up upon some little elevation sometimes, and take a 
 wider view, backAvard and forward. 
 
 And so this morning I venture to let the season preach 
 to us, and to confine myself simply to suggesting for you 
 one or two very plain and obvious thoughts which may 
 help to make our retrospect wise and useful. And there 
 
152 THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 
 
 are two main considerations which I wish to submit. The 
 first is — what we ought to be chiefly occupied with as we 
 look back ; and secondly, what the issue of such a retro- 
 spect ought to be. 
 
 I. — What we should be mainly occupied with as we 
 look back. Memory, like all other faculties, may 
 either help us or hinder us. As is the man, so will be 
 his remembrance. The tastes which rule his present will 
 determine the things that he likes best to think about in 
 the past. There are many ways of going wrong in our 
 retrospect. Some of us, for instance, prefer to think with 
 pleasure about things that ought never to have been done, 
 and to give a wicked immortality to thoughts that ought 
 never to have had a being. Some men's tastes and incli- 
 nations are so vitiated and corrupted that they find a joy 
 in living their badnesses over again. Some of us, looking 
 back on the days that are gone, select by instinctive pref- 
 erence for remembrance, the vanities and frivolities and 
 trifles which were the main things in them whilst they 
 lasted. Such a use of the great faculty of memory is like 
 the folly of the Egyptians who embalmed cats and vermin. 
 Do not let us be of those, who have in their memories 
 nothing but rubbish, or something worse, who let down 
 the drag-net into the depths of the past and bring it up full 
 only of mud and foulnesses, and of ugly monsters that 
 never ought to have been dragged into the daylight. 
 
 Then there are some of us who abuse memory just as 
 much by picking out, with perverse ingenuity, every 
 black bit that lies in the distance behind us, all the dis- 
 appointments, all the losses, all the pains, all the sorrows. 
 Some men look back and say, with Jacob in one of his 
 moods, " Few and evil have been the days of the years of 
 my life I " Yes ! and the same man, when he was in a 
 better spirit said, and a great deal more truly, " The God 
 that fed me all my life long, the angel which redeemed 
 
THE LESSON OF MEMORY. 153 
 
 me from all evil." Do not paint like Rembrandt, even if 
 you do not paint like Turner. Do not dip your brush 
 only in the blackness, even if you cannot always dip it in 
 molten sunshine ! 
 
 And there are some of us who, in like manner, spoil all 
 the good that we could get ©ut of a wise retrospect by 
 only looking back in such a fashion as to feed a senti- 
 mental melancholy, which is, perhaps, the most profitless 
 of all the ways of looking backwards. 
 
 Now here are the two points, in this verse of my text, 
 which would put all these blunders and all others right, 
 telling us what we should chiefly think about when we 
 look back, and from what point of view the retrospect of 
 the past must be taken in order that it should be salutary. 
 " Thou shalt remember all the way by which the Lord thy 
 God hath led thee. " Let memory work under the distinct 
 recognition of Divine guidance in every part of the past. 
 That is the^^rs^ condition of making the retrospect blessed. 
 " To humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what 
 was in ihine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His com- 
 mandments or no." Let us look back with a clear 
 recognition of the fact that the use of life is to test, and 
 reveal, and to make character. This world, and all its out- 
 ward engagements, duties and occupations, is but a 
 gcaffolding, on which the builders may stand to rear the 
 true temple, and when the building is reared you may do 
 what you like with the scaffolding. So we have to look 
 back on life from this point of view, that its joys and sor- 
 rows, its ups and downs, its work and repose, all the 
 vicissitudes and sometimes contrariety of its circumstances 
 and conditions, are all for the purpose of making us, and 
 of making plain to ourselves, what we are. " To humble 
 thee," that is, to knock the self-confidence out of us, and 
 to bring us to say :— " I am nothing and Thou art every- 
 thing ; I myself am a poor weak rag of a thing that needs 
 
154 THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 
 
 Thy hand to stiffen me, or I shall not be able to resist or 
 to do." That is one main lesson that life is meant to teach 
 us. Whoever has learnt to say by reason of the battering 
 and shocks of time, by reason of sorrows and failures, by 
 reason of joys, too, and fruition, — " Lord, I come to Thee 
 as depending upon Thee for everything," has got the su- 
 preme good out of life, and has fufilled the purpose of the 
 Father, who has led us all these years, to humble us into 
 the w^holesome diffidence that says : " Not in myself, but 
 in Thee is all my strength and my hope." 
 
 I need not do more than remind you of the other cognate 
 purposes which are suggested here. Life is meant, not 
 only to bring us to humble self -distrust, as a step towards 
 devout dependence on God, but also to reveal us to our- 
 selves, for we only know what we are by reflecting on 
 what we have done ; and the only path by which self- 
 knowledge can be attained is the path of observant recol- 
 lection of our conduct in daily life. 
 
 Another purpose for which the whole panorama of life 
 is made to pass before us, and for which all the gymnastics 
 of life exercise us, is that we may be made submissive to 
 the great Will, and may keep His commandments. 
 
 These thoughts then should be with us in our retrospect, 
 and our retrospect will be blessed : — First, we are to look 
 back and see God's guidance everywhere, and second, we 
 are to judge of the things that we remember by their 
 tendency to make character, to make us humble, to reveal 
 us to ourselves, and to knit us in glad obedience to our 
 Father God. 
 
 II. — And now turn to the other consideration which 
 may help to make remembrance a good, viz, the issuea to 
 which our retrospect must tend, if it is to be anything 
 more than sentimental recollection. 
 
 First let me say : — Remember and be thankful. If what 
 I have been saying be true, as to the standard by which 
 
THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 155 
 
 events are to be tried ; if it be the case that the main fact 
 about things is their power to mould persons and to make 
 character, then there follows, very plainly and clearly, that 
 all things that come within the sweep of our memory may 
 equally contribute to our highest good. 
 
 Good does not mean pleasure. Bright being may not 
 always be well being, and the highest good has a very 
 much nobler meaning than comfort and satisfaction. 
 And so, realising the fact that the best of things is that 
 they shall make us like God, then we can turn to the past 
 and judge it wisely, because then we shall see that all the 
 diversity, and even the opposition of circumstances and 
 events, may co-operate towards the same end. Suppose 
 two wheels in a great machine, one turns from right to 
 left and the other from left to right, but they fit into one 
 another, and they both produce one final result of motion. 
 So the movements in my life which I call blessings and 
 gladness, and the movements in my life which I call sor- 
 rows and tortures ; these may work into each other, and 
 they will do so if I take hold of them rightly, and use 
 them as they ought to be used. They will tend to the 
 highest good whether they be light or dark ; even as night 
 with its darkness and its dews has its ministration and 
 mission of mercy for the wearied eye no less than day 
 with its brilliancy and sunshine ; even as the summer and 
 the winter are equally needful, and equally good for the 
 crop. So in our lives it is good for us, sometimes, that we 
 be brought into the dark places ; it is good for us some- 
 times that the leaves be stripped from the trees, and the 
 ground be bound with frost. 
 
 And so for both kinds of weather, dear brethren, we 
 have to remember and be thankful. It is a hard lesson, 
 I know for some of us. There may be some listening to 
 me whose memory goes back to this dying year as the 
 year that has held the sorest sorrow of their lives ; to whom 
 
166 THB LESSON OP MEMORY 
 
 it has brought some loss that has made earth dark. And 
 it seems hard to tell quivering lips to be thankful, and to 
 bid a man, whose eyes fill with tears, to be grateful, as he 
 looks back on such a past. But yet it is true that it is 
 good for us to be drawn or to be driven to Him ; it is good 
 for us to have to tread even a lonely path if it makes us 
 lean more on the arm of our Beloved. It is good for us 
 to have places made empty if, as in the year when Israel's 
 King died, we shall thereby have our eyes purged to be- 
 hold the Lord sitting on the Royal Seat. 
 
 "Take it on trust a little whil^ 
 
 Thou soon shalt read the mystery rights 
 In the fall sunshine of His smile." 
 
 And for the present let us try to remember that He dwell- 
 eth in the darkness as in the light, and that we are to be 
 thankful for the things that help us to be near Him, and 
 not only for the things that make us outwardly glad. So 
 I venture to say even to those of you that may be strugg- 
 ling with sad remembrances, remember and be thankful. 
 
 I have no doubt there are many in this congregation 
 who look back, if not upon a year desolated by some blow 
 that never can be repaired, yet upon a year in which failing 
 resources and declining business, or diminished health, or 
 broken spirits, or a multitude of minute but most disturb- 
 ing cares and sorrows do make it hard to recognise the 
 loving Hand in all that comes. Yet to such, too, I would 
 say : " All things work together for good," therefore all 
 things aie to be embraced in the thankfulness of our re- 
 trospect. 
 
 The second, and simple practical suggestion that I make 
 is this : Rememoer, and let the memory lead to contrition. 
 Perhaps I am speaking to some men or women for whom 
 this dying year holds the memory of some great lapse 
 from goodness ; some young man who for the first time 
 has been tempted to sensuous sin ; some man who may 
 
THE LESSON OF MEMORY. 157 
 
 have been led into slippery places in regard of business 
 integrity. I draw a *' bow at a venture " when I speak of 
 such things — perhaps somebody is listening to me who 
 would give a great deal if he or she could forget a certain 
 past moment of this dying year — which makes their cheeks 
 hot yet whilst they think of it. To such I say : Remem- 
 ber ! Go close into the presence of the black thing, and get 
 the consciousness of it driven into your heart ; for the 
 remembrance is the first step to deliverance from the load, 
 and to your passing, emancipated from the bitterness, into 
 the year that lies before you. 
 
 But even if I have not people here to whom such re- 
 marks would apply, let us all summon up to ourselves the 
 memories of these bygone days. In all the three hundred 
 and sixty-five of them, my friend, how many moiiients 
 stand out distinct before you as moments of high 
 communion with God ? How many times can you 
 remember of devout consecration to Him ? How many, 
 when — as the people on the Riviera reckon the number 
 of days on the season in which, far across the water, 
 they have seen Corsica — you can remember this year 
 to have beheld, faint and far away, "the mountains 
 that are round about " the Jerusalem that is above ? 
 How many moments do you remember of consecration 
 and service, of devotion to your God and your fel- 
 lows ? Oh I what a miserable, low-lying stretch of God- 
 forgetting monotony our life looks when we are looking 
 back at it in the mass. One film of mist is scarcely visible, 
 but when you get a mile of it you can tell what it is — 
 oppressive darkness. One drop of muddy water does not 
 show its pollution, but when you get a pitcherful of it 
 you can see how thick it is. And so a day or an hour 
 looked back upon may not reveal the true godlessness of 
 the average life, but if you will take the twelvemonth and 
 think about it, and ask yourselves a question or two about 
 
158 THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 
 
 it, I think yon will feel that the only attitude for any of 
 us in looking back across a stretch of such brown barren 
 moorland is that of penitent prayer for forgiveness and 
 for cleansing. 
 
 But I daresay that some of you say : — " Oh I I look back " 
 and I do not feel anything of that kind of thing that 
 you describe ; I have done my duty and nobody can 
 blame me. I am quite comfortable in my retrospect. Of 
 course there have been imperfections ; we are all human, 
 and these need not trouble a man." Let me ask you, dear 
 brother, one question ; do you believe that the law of a 
 man's life is : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as 
 thyself .'' " Do you believe that that is what you ought to 
 do ? Have you done it ? If you have not, let me beseech 
 you not to go out of this year, across the artificial and 
 imaginary boundary that separates you from the next, 
 v/ith the old guilt upon your back, but go to Jesus Christ, 
 and ask Him to forgive you, and then you may pass into 
 the coming twelvemonth without the intolerable burden 
 of unremembered, unconfessed, and therefore unforgiven 
 sin. 
 
 The next point that I would suggest is this : Let us 
 remember in order that from the retrospect we may get 
 practical wisdom. It is astonishing what unteachable, 
 untameable creatures men are. They gain wisdom by 
 experience about all the little matters of daily life, but 
 they do not seem to do so about the higher. Even a 
 sparrow gets to understand a scarecrow after a time or 
 two, and any rat in a hole will learn the trick of a trap. 
 But you can trick men over and over again with the same 
 inducement, and, even whilst the hook is sticking in their 
 jaws, the same bait will tempt them once more. That is 
 very largely the case because they do not observe and 
 remember what has happened to them in bygone days. 
 
THE LESSON OF MEMORY. 159 
 
 There are two things that any man, who will bring his 
 reason and common sense to bear upon the honest esti- 
 mate and retrospect of the facts of his life, may be fully 
 convinced of. These are, first, his own weakness. One 
 main use of a wise retrospect is to teach us where we are 
 weakest. What an absurd thing it would be if the in- 
 habitants of a Dutch village were to let the sea come in at 
 the same gap in the same dyke a dozen times I What an 
 absurd thing it would be if a city were captured over and 
 over again by assault from the same point, and did not 
 strengthen its defences there I But that is exactly what 
 you do ; and all the while, if you would only think about 
 your own past lives wisely and reasonably, and like men 
 with brains in your heads, you might find out where it 
 was that you were most open to assault ; what it was in your 
 character that needed most strengthening, what it was 
 wherein the devil caught you most quickly, and so build 
 yourselves up in the most defenceless points. 
 
 Do not look back for sentimental melancholy ; do not 
 look back with unavailing regrets ; do not look back to 
 torment yourselves with useless self -accusation ; but look 
 back to see how good God has been, and look back to see 
 where you are weak and pile the wall higher there, and 
 80 learn practical wisdom from retrospect. 
 
 Another phase of practical wisdom which memory 
 should give is deliverance from the illusions of sense and 
 time. Remember how much the world has ever done for 
 you in by-gone days. Why should you let it befool you 
 once again ? If it has proved itself a liar when it has 
 tempted you with gilded offers that came to nothing, and 
 with beauty that was no more solid than the " Easter- 
 eggs " that you buy in the shops — painted sugar with 
 nothing inside, why should you believe it when it 
 comes to you once more ? Why not say : " Ah ! once burnt 
 twice shy I You have tried that trick on m© before, and 
 
160 THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 
 
 I have found it out I " Let the retrospect teach us how 
 hollow life is without God, and let it so draw us nearer 
 to Him. 
 
 The last thing that I would say is : Let us remember 
 that we may hope. It is the prerogative of Christian re- 
 membrance, that it merges into Christian hope. The 
 forward look and the backward look are really but the 
 exercise of the same faculty in two different directions. 
 Memory does not always imply hope, we remember some- 
 times because we do not hope, and try to gather round 
 ourselves the vanished past because we know it never can 
 be a present or a future. But when we are occupied with 
 an unchanging Friend, whose love is inexhaustible, and 
 whose arm is unwearied, it is good logic to say ; " It has 
 been, therefore it shall be." 
 
 With regard to this fleeting life, it is a delusion to say 
 •* to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant," 
 but with regard to the life of the soul that lives in God, that 
 is true, and true for ever. The past is a specimen of the 
 future. The future for the man that lives in Christ is but 
 the prolongation, and the heightening into superlative ex- 
 cellence and beauty of all that is goo^ in the past and in 
 the present. As the radiance of some rising sun may cast 
 its bright beams into the opposite sky, even so the glowing 
 past behind us flings its purples and its golds and its 
 scarlets on to the else dim curtain of the future. 
 
 Remember that you may hope. A paradox, but a 
 paradox that is a truth in the case of Christians whose 
 memory is of a God that has loved and blessed them ; 
 whose hope is in a God that changes never ; whose 
 memory is charged with every good and perfect gift that 
 came down from the Father of Lights, whose hope is in 
 that same Father, " with whom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning." So on every stone of remembrance, 
 every Ebenezer on which is graved : " Hitherto hath the 
 
THE LESSON OP MEMORY. 161 
 
 Lord helped us," we can mount a telescope — if I may so 
 Bay — that will look into the furthest glories of the heavens, 
 and be sure that the past will be magnified and perpetu- 
 ated in the future. Our prayer may legitimately be : 
 " Thon hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake 
 me I " And His answer will be : "I will leave thee not 
 until I have done that which I have spokei. to thee of/' 
 Remember that yon may hope, and hope becanee you 
 remember. 
 
NOW, NOW!— NOT BY-AND-BYE. 
 
 A SERMOK TO THE YOUi^G. 
 
6ERM0N XIIL 
 
 HOW, NOW — NOT BY-AND-BYB. 
 
 A SERMON TO THE YOUNG. 
 
 "And as Patd reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and Judgment to oome, Felix 
 trembled, and answered, Gk) thy way for this time ; when I have a convenient season, 
 I will call for thee." Acts xxiv. 26. 
 
 Felix and his brother had been favonnte slaves of the 
 Emperor, and so had won great power at court. At the 
 date of this incident he had been for some five or six 
 years the procurator of the Roman province of Judea ; 
 and how he used his power the historian Tacitus tells us 
 in one of his bitter sentences, in which ho says, "He 
 wielded his kingly authority with the spirit of a slave, in 
 all cruelty and lust." 
 
 He had tempted from her husband, Drusilla, a daughter 
 of that Herod whose dreadful death is familiar to us all ; 
 and his court reeked with blood and debauchery. He is 
 here face to face with Paul for the second time. On a 
 former interview he had seen good reason to conclude 
 that the Roman Empire was not in much danger from 
 this one Jew whom his countrymen, with suspicious 
 loyalty, were charging with sedition ; and so he had 
 allowed him a very large margin of liberty. 
 
166 NOW, NOW I— NOT BY-AND-BYB. 
 
 On this second occasion he had sent for him evidently 
 not as a judge, but partly with a view to try to get a bribe 
 out of him, and partly because he had some kind of 
 languid interest, as most Romans then had, in Oriental 
 thought, — some languid interest perhaps too in this 
 strange man. Or he and Drusilla were possibly longing 
 for a new sensation, and not indisposed to give a moment's 
 glance at Paul, with his singular ideas. 
 
 So they called for the Apostle, and the guilty couple 
 got a good deal more than they bargained for. Paul does 
 not speak to them as a Greek philosopher, anxious to 
 please high personages, might have done, but he goes 
 straight at their sins ; " He reasons of righteousness " with 
 the unjust judge, " of temperance " with the self-indulgent, 
 sinful pair, " of the judgment to come " with these two, 
 who thought that they could do anything they liked with 
 impunity. Christianity has sometimes to be exceedingly 
 rude in reference to the sins of the upper classes. 
 
 As Paul goes on, a strange fear began to creep about the 
 heart of Felix. It is the watershed of his life that he has 
 come to, the crisis of his fate. Everything depends on the 
 next five minutes. Will he yield ? Will he resist ? The 
 tongue of the balance trembles and hesitates for a moment 
 and then, but slowly, the wrong scale goes down. " Go 
 thy way for this time." 
 
 Ah I If he had said : " Come and help me to get rid of 
 this strange fear," how different all might have been I The 
 metal was at the very point of melting. What shape 
 would it take ? It ran into the wrong mould, and, as far 
 as we know, it was hardened there; " It might have been 
 once, and he missed it, lost it forever." No sign marked 
 out that moment from the common uneventfnl momenta^ 
 though it saw the death of a soul. 
 
 Now, my dear young friends, I am not going to say 
 anything more to you of this man and his character, but I 
 
NOW, NOW I— NOT BY-AND-BTB. 167 
 
 wish to take this incident and its lessons and urge them 
 on your hearts and consciences. 
 
 I. — Let me say a word or two about the fact, of which 
 this incident is an example, and of which I am afraid 
 many of your lives would furnish other examples, that 
 men lull awakened consciences to sleep and excuse delay 
 in deciding for Christ by half-honest promises to attend 
 to religion at some future time. 
 
 "Go thy way for this time" is what Felix is really 
 anxious about. His one thought is to get rid of Paul and 
 his disturbing message for the present. But he does not 
 wish to shut the door altogether. He gives a sop to his 
 conscience to stop its barking, and he probably deceives 
 himself as to the gravity of his present decision by the 
 lightly given, and well-guarded promise with its indefin- 
 iteness, "When I have a convenient season I will send 
 for thee." The thing he really means is — Not now, at all 
 events : the thing he hoodwinks himself with is, By-and- 
 bye. Now that is what I know some of you are doing ; 
 and my purpose and earnest prayer is to bring you to-night 
 to the decision which by one vigorous act of your wills 
 will settle the question for the future as to which God you 
 are going to follow. 
 
 So, then, I have just one or two things to say about this 
 first part of my subject. Let me remind you that however 
 beautiful, however gracious, however tender, and full of 
 love and mercy, and good tidings the message of God*s 
 love in Jesus Christ is, there is another side to it, a side 
 which is meant to rouse men's consciences and to awaken 
 men's fears. 
 
 You bring a man like the man in this story, Felix, 
 or a very much better man than he — any of us that are 
 here to night — into contact with these three thoughts : — 
 " Righteousness, temperance, judgment to come," and the 
 effect of a direct appeal to moral convictions will alwayi 
 
168 NOW, NOW !— NOT BT-AND-BTB, 
 
 be more or less to awaken a sense of failure, insufficiency, 
 defect, sin ; and to create a certain creeping dread that if I 
 set myself against the great law of God, that law of God 
 will have a way of crushing me. The fear is well founded, 
 and not only does the contemplation of God's law 
 excite it. God's Gospel comes to us, and just because it is 
 a gospel, and is intended to lead you and me to love and 
 trust Jesus Christ, and give our whole hearts and souls to 
 Him — just because it is the best " good news " that ever 
 came into the world, it begins often (not always, perhaps,) 
 by making a man feel what a sinful man he is, and how 
 he has gone against God's law, and how there hang over 
 him, by the Very necessities of the case and the constitu- 
 tion of the universe, consequences bitter and painful. Now, 
 I believe that there are very few people who, like you, 
 come occasionally into contact with the preaching of the 
 truth, who have not had their moments when they felt — 
 " Yes ! it is all true — it is all true. I am bad, and I have 
 broken God's law, and there is a dark look-out before me I " 
 I believe that most of us know what that feeling is. 
 
 And now my next step is — that the awakened conscience 
 is just like the sense of pain in the physical world, it has 
 got a work to do, and a mission to perform. It is meant 
 to warn you off dangerous ground. Thank God for pain ! 
 It keeps off death many a time. And in like manner 
 thank God for a swift conscience that speaks. It is meant 
 to ring an alarm-bell to us, to make us, as the Bible has it, 
 " flee for refuge to the hope that is set before us." My 
 imploring question to my young friends now is : " Have 
 you used that sense of evil and wrong doing, when it has 
 been aroused in your consciences, to lead you to Jesus 
 Christ, or what have you done with it ? " 
 
 There are two men in this book of the Acts of the 
 Apostles who p.. through the same stages of feeling up 
 to a certain point, and then they diverge. And the two 
 
NOW, NOW 1— NOT BT-AND-BTB. 169 
 
 men's outline history is the best sermon that I can preach 
 upon this point. Felix becoming afraid, recoils, shuts 
 himself up, puts away the thing that disturbs him and 
 settles himself back into his evil. The Philippian jailor 
 becoming afraid (the phrases in the original being almost 
 identical), like a sensible man tries to find out the reason 
 of his fear, and how to get rid of it ; and falls down at the 
 Apostles' feet and says, "Sirs, what must I do to be 
 saved ? " 
 
 The fear is not meant to last ; it is of no nee in itself 
 It is only an impelling motive that leads us to look to the- 
 Saviour, and the man that uses it so has used it rightly. 
 Yet there comes in many a heart that transparent self- 
 dece'ption of delay. " They all with one accord began to 
 make excuse." It is the history to-day as it was the his- 
 tory then. It is the history in such a congregation as this. 
 There will be dozens, I was going to say hundreds, that 
 will leave this chapel to night feeling that my poor word 
 has gone a little way into their hardened hide ; but settling 
 themselves back into their carelessness, ami forgetting all 
 impressions that have been made. dear young fi-iend, 
 do not do that, I beseech you. Do not stifle the wholesome 
 alarm, and cheat yourself with the notion of a little delay I 
 
 II. — And now, I wish next to pass very swiftly in review 
 before you, some of the reasons why we fall into this 
 habit of self-deceiving, indecision, and delay — "Go thy 
 way," would be too sharp and unmistakable if it were left 
 alone, so it is fined ofl: : " I will not commit myself be- 
 yond to-day." " For this time go thy way, and when I 
 have a convenient season I will call for thee." 
 
 What are the reasons for such an attitude as that ? Let 
 me enumerate one or two of them as they strike me : — 
 First, there is the instinctive, natural wish to get rid of a 
 disagreeable subject, — much as a man without knowing 
 what he is doing, twitches his hand away from the inr- 
 
170 NOW, NOW I— NOT BY-AND-BYB. 
 
 geon's lancet. So a great many of us do not like— and no 
 wonder we do not like — ^these thoughts of the old Book 
 about "righteousness, and temperance and judgment to 
 come," and make a natural effort to get our minds away 
 from the contemplation of the subject because it is painful 
 and unpleasant. Do you think it would be a wise thing 
 for a man, if he began to suspect that he was insolvent, to 
 refuse to look into his books or to take stock, and let things 
 drift, till there was not a halfpenny in the pound for any- 
 body ? What do you suppose his creditors would call 
 him ? They would not compliment him on either his 
 honesty or his prudence, would they ? And is it not the 
 part of a wise man, if he begins to see that something is 
 wrong, to get to the bottom of it, and as quickly as pos- 
 sible, to set it right ? And what do you call people who, 
 suspecting that there may be a great hole in the bottom of 
 the ship, never man the pumps or do any caulking, but 
 say, " Oh ! she will very likely keep afloat until we get 
 into harbour " ? 
 
 Do not you think it would be a wiser thing for you if, 
 because the subject is disagreeable, you would force your- 
 self to think about it until it became agreeable to you ? 
 Yon can change it if you will, and make it not at all a 
 shadow or a cloud, or a darkness over you. And you can 
 scarcely expect to claim the designation of wise and 
 prudent orderers of your lives until you do. Certainly it 
 is not wise to shuffle a thing out of sight because it is not 
 pleasing to think about. 
 
 Then there is another reason. A number of you young 
 people say : " Go thy way for this time, " because you 
 have got a notion that it is time enough for you to begin 
 to think about serious things and be religious when you 
 get a bit older. And some of you even, I daresay, have 
 an idea that religion is all very well for people that are 
 turned sixty and are going down the hill, but that it is 
 
NOW, NOW I — NOT BY-AND-BYE. 171 
 
 qnite nnnecessary for you. Shakespeare puts a g^rim word 
 into the mouth of one of his characters, which sets the 
 theory of many of us in its true light, when, describing a 
 dying man calling on God, he makes the narrator say : 
 *' I, to comfort him, bid him he should not think of God. 
 I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any 
 such thoughts yet." 
 
 Some of my hearers practically live on that principle, 
 and are tempted to regard thoughts of God as in place 
 only among medicine bottles, or when the shadows of the 
 grave begin to fall cold and damp on our path. " Young 
 men will be young men." " We must sow our wild oats." 
 " You can't put old heads on young shoulders "—and such 
 like sayings, often practically mean that vice and god- 
 lessness belong to youth, and virtue and religion to old 
 age, just as flowers to spring and fruit to autumn. Let 
 me beseech you not to be deceived by such a notion ; and 
 to search your own thoughts and see whether it be one of 
 the reasons which leads you to say " Go thy way for this 
 time." 
 
 Then again, some of us fall into this habit of putting 
 off the decision for Christ, not consciously, not by any 
 distinct act of saying — " No ! I will not," but simply by 
 letting the impressions made on our hearts and con- 
 sciences be crowded out of them by cares and enjoyments 
 and pleasures and duties of this world. If you had not 
 so much to do at Owen's College, you would have time to 
 think about religion. If you had not so many parties 
 and balls to go to, you would have time to nourish and 
 foster these impressions. If you had not your place to 
 make in the warehouse, if you had not this, that, and the 
 other thing to do ; if you had not love, and pleasure, and 
 ambition, and advancement, and mental culture to attend 
 to, you would have time for religion ; but as soon as the 
 seed is sown and the sower's back turned, hovering flocks 
 
172 NOW, NOW ! — NOT BY-AND-BTE. 
 
 of light-winged thoughts and vanities pounce down up«n 
 it and carry it away seed by seed. And if some stray 
 seed here and there remains and begins to sprout, the ill 
 weeds which grow apace, spring up with ranker stems 
 and choke it. " The cares of this world, and the deceit- 
 fulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, 
 choke the word," and efface the impression made upon 
 your hearts. 
 
 Here to-night some serious thought is roused ; by to- 
 morrow at mid-day it has all gone. You did not intend it 
 to go, you did not set yourself to banish it, you simply 
 opened the door to the flocking in of the whole crowd of 
 the world's cares and occupations, and away went the shy 
 solitary thought that, if it had been cared for and tended, 
 might have led you at last to the cross of Jesus Christ. 
 Do not allow yourselves to be drifted by the swaying 
 current of earthly cares from the impressions that are made 
 upon your consciences, and from the duty that you know 
 you ought to do ! 
 
 And then some of you fall into this attitude of delay, 
 and say to the messenger of God's love : — " Go thy way 
 for this time," because you do not like to give up some- 
 thing that you know is inconsistent with His love and 
 service. Felix would not part with Drusilla, nor disgorge 
 the ill-gotten gain of his province. Felix therefore was 
 obliged to put away from him the thoughts that looked in 
 that direction. I wonder if there is any young man listen- 
 ing to me now who feels that if he lets my words carry 
 him where they seek to carry him, he will have to give up 
 "fleshly lusts which war against the soul." I wonder if 
 there is any young woman listening to me now, who feels 
 that if she lets my words carry her where they would carry 
 her, she will have to live a different life from what she 
 has been doing, to have more of a high and a noble aim 
 in it, to live for something else than pleasure. I wonder 
 
NOW, NOW 1 — NOT BY-AND-BTB. 173 
 
 if there are any of you who are saying, " I cannot give up 
 that." My dear young friend 1 " If thine eye offend thee, 
 pluck it out and cast it from thee 1 It is better for thee to 
 enter into life blind than with both eyes to be cast into 
 hell-fire." 
 
 Reasons for delay, then, are these : first, getting rid of 
 an unpleasant subject ; second, thinking that there is 
 time enough ; third, letting the world obliterate the 
 impressions that have been made ; and fourth, shrink- 
 ing from the surrender of something that you know you 
 will have to give up. 
 
 III. — And now let me very briefly, as my last point, put 
 before you one or two of the reasons which I would fain 
 might be conclusive with you for present decision to take 
 Christ for your Saviour and your Master. 
 
 And I say, do not delay, but noiv choose Him for your 
 Redeemer, your Friend, your Helper, your Commander, 
 your All ; because delay is really decision the ^^Tong way. 
 Do not delay, but take Jesus Christ as the Saviour of your 
 sinful souls, and rest your hearts upon Him to-night be- 
 fore you sleep ; because there is no real reason for delay. 
 No season will be more convenient than the present season. 
 Every time is the right time to do the right thing, every 
 time is the right time to begin following Him. There is 
 nothing to wait for. There is no reason at all except their 
 own disinclination, why every man and woman in this 
 place now should not now grasp the cross of Christ as their 
 only hope for forgiveness and acceptance, and yield them- 
 selves to that Lord, to live in His service for ever. Let 
 not this day pass without your giving yourselves to J esus 
 Christ, because every time that you have this message 
 brought to you, and you refuse to accept it, or delay to accept 
 it, you make yourselves less capable of receiving it another 
 time. 
 
 If yoQ take a bit of phosphorus and put it upon a alip 
 
174 NOW, NOW I— NOT BY-AND-BYE. 
 
 of wood, and ignite the phosphorus, bright as the blaze is, 
 there drops from it a white ash that coats the wood and 
 makes it almost incombustible. And so when the flaming 
 conviction, laid upon your hearts, has burnt itself out, it 
 has coated the heart, and it will be very difficult to kindle 
 the light there again. Felix said, " Go thy way, when 
 I have a more convenient season I will send for thee." 
 Yes I and he did send for him, and he talked with 
 him often, — He repeated the conversation, but we do not 
 know that he repeated the trembling. He often communed 
 with Paul, but if was only once that he was alarmed 
 You are less likely u^ be touched by the Gospel message, 
 for every time that >oQ have heard it and put it away. 
 That is what makes my place here so terribly responsible, 
 and makes me feel that my words are so very feeble in 
 comparison with what they ought to be. I know that I 
 may be doing harm to men just because they listen and 
 are not persuaded, and so go away less and less likely to 
 be touched. 
 
 Ah ! dear friends, you will, perhaps, never again have 
 as deep impressions as you have now ; or at least, they 
 are not to be reckoned upon as probable, for the tendency 
 of all truth is to lose its power by repetition, and the 
 tendency of all emotion which is not acted upon is to 
 become fainter and fainter. And so I beseech you that 
 now you would cherish any faint impression that is being 
 made upon your hearts and consciences. Let it lead you 
 to Christ ; and take Him for your Lord and Saviour now. 
 
 I say to you : Do that now, because delay robs you of 
 large blessing. You will never want Jesus Christ more 
 than you do to-day. You need Him in your early hours. 
 Why should it be that a portion of your lives should be 
 left unfilled by that rich mercy ? Why should you post- 
 pone possessing the purest joy, the highest blessing, the 
 Divinest strength ? Why should you put off welcoming 
 
KOW, NOW I— NOT BY-AND-BYB. 175 
 
 your best Friend into your heart. Why should you ? 
 
 I say to you again, take Christ for your Lord, because 
 delay inevitably lays up for you bitter memories and 
 involves dreadful losses. There are good Christian men 
 and womijn, 1 have no doubt, in this world now, who 
 would give all they have if they could blot out of the 
 tablets of their memories some past hours of their lives, 
 before they gave their hearts to Jesus Christ. I would 
 have you ignorant of such transgression. Oh I young 
 men and women ! If you grow up into middle life not 
 Christians, then should you ever become so, you will have 
 habits to fight with, and remembrances that will smart 
 and sting ; and some of you, perhaps, remembrances that 
 will pollute even thongh you are conscious that you are 
 forgiven. It is a better thing not to know the depths of 
 evil than to know them and to have been raised from 
 them. You will escape infinite sorrows by an early 
 cleaving to Christ your Lord. 
 
 4nd last of all, I say to you, give yourselves to night to 
 Jesus Christ, because no to-morrow may be yours. Delay 
 is gambling, very irrationally, with a very uncertain thing 
 — your life and your future opportunities. " You know 
 not what shall be on the morrow.'* 
 
 Six-and-twenty years I have preached in Manchester 
 these annual sermons to the young. Ah ! how many of 
 those that heard the early ones are laid in their graves ; 
 and how many of them were laid in early graves ; and 
 how many of them said, as some of you are saying, 
 "When I get older I will turn religious." And they 
 never got older. It is a commonplace word that, but I 
 leave it on your hearts. You have no time to lose. 
 
 Do not delay, because delay is decision in the wrong 
 way ; do not delay because there is no reason for delay ; 
 do not delay because delay robs you of a large blessing ; 
 do not delay because delay lays up for you, if ever you 
 
176 NOW, NOW !— NOT BY-AND-BYB. 
 
 come back, bitter memories ; do not delay because delay 
 may end in death. And for all these reasons come as a 
 sinful soul to Christ the Saviour ; and ask Him to forgive 
 you, and follow in His footsteps. And do it now I " To- 
 day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearte." 
 
8ALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
 "Ye are the salt of the earth ; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall 
 It be salted ? It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden 
 under foot of men." Mat. v. 13. 
 
 These words must have seemed ridiculously presump- 
 tuous, when they were first spoken, and they have too often 
 seemed mere mockery and irony in the ages since. A 
 Galilean peasant, with a few of his rude countrymen who 
 had gathered round him, stai^Is up there on the mountain, 
 and says to them, " You, a handful, are the people who are 
 to keep the world from rotting, and to bring it all its best 
 light." Strange when we think that Christ believed that 
 these men were able to do these grand functions because 
 they got their power from Himself ! Stranger still to think 
 that notwithstanding all the miserable inconsistencies of 
 the professing Church ever since, yet, on the whole, the 
 experience of history has verified these words ! And 
 although some wise men may curl their lips with a sneer 
 as they say about us Christians " Ye are are the salt of the 
 earth I " yet the most progressive, and the most enlightened, 
 and the most moral portion of humanity has derived 
 
 n2 
 
180 SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
 its impulse to progress, its enlightenment about the loftiest 
 things, and the purest portion of its morality from the men 
 who received their power to impart these from Jesus Christ. 
 
 And so, dear brethren, I have to say two or thi-ee things 
 now, which I hope will be plain, and eai-nest and search- 
 ing, about the function of the Christian Church, and of 
 each individual member of it, as set forth in these words ; 
 about the solemn possibility that the qualification for that 
 function may go away from a man ; about the grave ques- 
 tion as to whether such a loss can ever be repaired ; and 
 about the certain end of the saltless salt. 
 
 I. — First, then, as to the high task of Christ's disciples 
 as here set forth. 
 
 "Ye are the salt of the earth !" The metaphor wants 
 very little explanation, however much enforcement it may 
 require. It involves two things ; a grave judgment as to 
 the actual state of society, and a lofty claim as to what 
 Christ's followers are able to do to it. 
 
 A grave judgment as to the actual state of society. It is 
 corrupt and tending to corruption. You do not salt a 
 living thing. You salt a dead one that it may not be a 
 rotting one. And, says Christ, by implication, what He 
 eays plainly more than once in other places : — " Human 
 society, without My influence, is a carcase that is rotting 
 away and disintegrating. And you, faithful handful, 
 who have partially apprehended the meaning of My mis- 
 sion, and have caught something of the spirit of My life, 
 you are to be rubbed into that rotting mass to sweeten it, 
 to arrest decomposition, to stay corruption, to give flavour 
 to its insipidity, and to save it from falling to pieces of its 
 own wickedness. Ye are the salt of the earth." 
 
 Now, it is not merely because we are the bearers of a 
 truth that will do all this that we are thus spoken of, but 
 we Christian men are to do it by the influence of conduct 
 and character. 
 
SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 181 
 
 There are two or three thoughts suggested by this meta- 
 phor. The chief one is that of our power, and therefore 
 our obligation to arrest the corruption round us, by our 
 own purity. The presence of a good man, according to 
 the old superstition, prevented the possessed from playing 
 their tricks. The presence of a good man hinders the 
 devil from having elbow room to do his work. Do you 
 and I exercise a repressive influence, (if we do not do any- 
 thing better,) so that evil and low-toned life is ashamed 
 to show itself in our presence and skulks back as do wrong- 
 doers from the bull's-eye of a policeman's lantern. It is 
 not a high function, but it is a very necessary one, and it 
 is one that all Christian men and women ought to dis- 
 charge, — rebuking and hindering the operation of corrup- 
 tion, even if they have not the power to breathe a better 
 spirit into the dead mass. 
 
 But the example of Christian men is not only re- 
 pressive. It ought to tempt foi-th all that is best and 
 purest and highest in the people with whom they come 
 in contact. Every man that does right helps to make 
 public opinion in favour of doing right ; and every man 
 that lowers the standard of morality in his own life helps 
 to lower it in the community of which he is a part. And 
 so in a thousand ways that I have no time to dwell upon 
 here, the men that have Christ in their hearts and some- 
 thing of Christ's conduct and character repeated in theirs 
 are to be the preserving and purifying influence in the 
 midst of this corrupt world. 
 
 There are two other points that I name, and do not en- 
 large upon. The first of them is— salt does its work by 
 being brought into close contact with the thing which it is 
 to work upon. And so we, brought into contact as we are 
 with plenty of evil and wickedness by many common 
 relations of friendship, of kindred, of business, of prox- 
 imity, of citizenship, and the like, — we are not to seek to 
 
182^ BALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
 withdraw ourselves from contact with the evil. The only 
 way by which the salt can purify is by being rubbed into 
 the corrupted thing. 
 
 And once more, salt does its work silently, inconspic- 
 uously, gradually. " Ye are the light of the world, " says 
 Christ in the next verse. ± ight is far-reaching and 
 brilliant, flashing that it may be seen. That is one side 
 of Christian work, the side that most of us like best, the 
 conspicuous kind of work. Ay ! but there is a very much 
 humbler, and, as I fancy, a very much more useful kind 
 of work that we have all to do. We shall never be the 
 " light of the world," except on condition of being " the 
 salt of the earth." You have to do the humble, inconspic- 
 uous, silent work of checking corruption by a pure 
 example before you can aspire to do the other work of 
 raying out light into the darkness, and so drawing men 
 to Christ Himself. 
 
 Now, brethren, why do I say all these common, thread- 
 bare platitudes, as I know they are ? Simply in order to 
 plant upon them this one question to the heart and con- 
 science of you Chi'istian men and women : — Is there 
 anything in your life that makes this text, in its applica- 
 tion to you, anything else than the bitterest mockery ? 
 
 II. — The grave possibility of the salt losing its savour. 
 
 There is no need for asking the question w^hether that 
 is a physical fact or not, whether in the natural realm it is 
 possible for any forms of matter that have saline taste to 
 lose it by any cause. That does not at all concern us. 
 The point is that it is posssible for us, who call ourselves— 
 and are — Christians to lose our penetrating pungency, 
 which stays corruption ; to lose all that distinguishes us 
 from the men that we are to better. 
 
 Now I think that nobody can look upon the present 
 condition of professing Christendom ; or, in a narrower 
 aspect, upon the present condition of English Christianity ; 
 
SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 183 
 
 or in a Btill narrower, nobody can look ronnd upon this 
 <;ongregation ; or in the narrowest view, none of us can look 
 into our own hearts — without feeling that this saying 
 comes perilously near being true of us. And I beg you, 
 dear Christian friends, while I try to dwell on this point 
 to ask yourselves this question — Lord, is it I ? and not to 
 be thinking of other people whom you may suppose the 
 cap will fit. 
 
 There is, then, manifest on every side — first of all the 
 obliteration of the distinction between the salt and the 
 mass into which is inserted, or to put it into other words, 
 Christian men and women swallow down bodily, and prac- 
 tise thoroughly, the maxims of the world, as to life, and 
 what is pleasant, and what is desirable, and as to the 
 application of morality to business. There is not a hair 
 of difference in that respect between hundreds and thou- 
 sands of professing Christian men, and the irreligious man 
 that has his office up the same staircase. I know, of course, 
 that there are in every communion saintly men and women 
 who are labouring to keep themselves unspotted from the 
 world, but I know too that in every communion there are 
 those, whose religion has next to no influence on their 
 general conduct, and does not even keep them from cor- 
 ruption, to say nothing of making them sources of purify- 
 ing influence. You cannot lay the flattering unction to 
 your souls that the reason why there is so little difference 
 between the Church and the world to-day is because the 
 world has got so much better. I know that to a large ex- 
 tent the principles of Christian ethics have permeated the 
 consciousness of a country like this, and have found their 
 way even amongst people that make no profession of being 
 Christians at all. Thank God for it ; but that does not 
 explain it all. 
 
 If you take a red-hot ball out of a furnace and lay it 
 down upon a frosty moor, two processes will go on — the 
 
184 SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
 ball will lose its heat and the surrounding atmosphere will 
 gain. There are two ways by which you equalise the 
 temperature of a hotter and a colder body, the one is by 
 the hot one getting cold, and the other is by the cold one 
 getting hot. If you are not warming the world the world 
 is freezing you. Every man influences all round about 
 him, and receives influences from them, and if there be not 
 more exports than imports, if there be not more influencefi 
 and mightier influences raying out from him than coming 
 into him, he is a poor creature, and at the mercy of cir- 
 cumstances. '' Men must either be hammers or anvils ; '* 
 — must either give blows or receive them. I am afraid 
 that a great many of us who call ourselves Christians get 
 a great deal more harm from the world than we ever 
 dream of doing good to it. Remember this, " you are the 
 salt of the earth, " and if you do not salt the world, the 
 world will rot you. 
 
 Is there any difi'erence between your ideal of happiness 
 and the irreligious one ? Is these any difference between 
 your notion of what is pleasure, and the irreligious one ? 
 Is there any difference in your application of the rules of 
 morality to daily life, any difference in your general way 
 of looking at things from the way of the ungodly world ? 
 Yes, or No ? Is the salt being infected by the carcase, or 
 is it purifying the corruption ? Answer the question, 
 brother, as before God and your ovni conscience. 
 
 Then there is another thing. There can be no doubt 
 but that all round and shared by us, there are instances of 
 ibtd cooling of the fervour of Christian devotion. That is 
 the reason for the small distinction in character and con- 
 duct between the world and the Church to day. An 
 Arctic climate will not grow tropical fruits, and if the heat 
 have been let down, as it has been let down, you cannot 
 expect the glories of character and the pure unw^orldliness 
 of conduct that you would have had at a higher tempera- 
 
SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 185 
 
 tnre. Nor is there any doubt but that the present tem- 
 perature is, with some of us, a distinct loss of heat. It 
 was not always so low. The thermometer has gone down. 
 
 There are, no doubt, people listening to me who had 
 once a far more vigorous Christian life than they have to- 
 day ; who were once far more aflame with the love of God 
 than they are now. And although I know, of course, that 
 as years go on emotion will become less vivid, and feeling 
 may give place to principle, yet I know no reason why, as 
 years go on, fervour should become less, or the warmth of 
 our love to our Master should decline. There will be less 
 sputtering and crackling when the. fire burns up ; there 
 may be fewer flames ; but there will be a hotter glow of 
 ruddy unflaming heat. That is what ought to be in onr 
 Christian experience. 
 
 Nor can there be any doubt, I think, but that the ob- 
 literation of the distinction between us and the world, 
 and the decay of the fervour of devotion which leads to 
 it, are both to be traced to a yet deeper cause, and that is 
 the loss or diminution of actual fellowship with Jesus 
 Christ. It was that which made theso men " salt." It 
 was that, which made them " light." It is that, and that 
 alone, which makes devotion burn fervid, and which 
 makes characters glow with the strange saintliness that 
 rebukes iniquity, and works for the purifying of the 
 world. 
 
 And so I would remind you that fellowship with Jesus 
 Christ is no vague exercise of the mind but is to be cul- 
 tivated by three things, which I fear me are becoming 
 less and less habitual amongst professing Christians : — 
 Meditation, the study of the Bible, private prayei. If 
 you have not these— and you know best whether you 
 have them or not — no power in Heaven or earth can 
 prevent you from losing the savour that makes you salt. 
 
 III. — Now, I come to the next step, and that is the 
 
186 SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
 solemn question, Is there a possibility of re-salting the 
 ealtless salt, of restoring the lost savour ? " Wherewithal 
 shall it be salted ? " says the Master. That is plain 
 enough, but do not let us push it too far. If the Church 
 is meant for the purifying of the world and the Church 
 itself needs purifying, is there anything in the world that 
 will do it ? If the army joins the rebels is there anything 
 that will bring back the army to submission ? Our Lord 
 is speaking about ordinary means and agencies. He is 
 saying in effect, if the one thing that is intended to pre- 
 serve the meat- loses its power, is there anything lying 
 about that will salt that ? So far, then, the answer seems 
 to be — No I 
 
 But Christ has no intention that these words should be 
 pushed to this extreme, that if salt loses its savour, if a 
 man loses the pungency of his Christian life, he cannot 
 get it back, by going again to the source from which he 
 got it at first. There is no such implication in these 
 last words. There is no obstacle in the way of a penitent 
 returning to the fountain of all power and purity, nor of 
 the full restoration of the lost savour, if a man will only 
 bring about a full reunion of himself with the source of 
 the savour. 
 
 Dear brethren I The message is to each of ns ; The same 
 pleading words, which the Apocalyptic seer heard from 
 Heaven, come to you and me : " Remember, therefore, 
 from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first 
 works." And all the savour and the sweetness that flow 
 from fellowship with Jesus Christ will come back to us 
 in larger measure than ever, if we will return unto the 
 Lord. Repentance and returning will bring back the 
 Baltness to the salt, and the brilliancy to the light. 
 
 IV. — But one last word warns us what is the certain 
 end of the saltless salt. As the other Evangelist puts it : 
 •* It is neither good for the land nor for the dnnghilL** 
 
SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 187 
 
 You cannot pnt it upon the soil ; there is no fertilizing 
 virtue in it. You cannot even fling it into the rubbish 
 heap ; it will do mischief there. Pitch it out into the road ; 
 i; will stop a cranny somewhere between the stones when 
 once it is well trodden down by men's heels. That is all 
 If it has^Faiifi^d ^as no use for it, man has no use for it. 
 it has failed altogeth&f: the only thing it was created for, 
 or a lamp that will not burn, ifeuife that will not cut, 
 handle, a beautiful stem, it may be hignrf a beautiful 
 decorated ; — does it cut, does it burn ? If not, it ^^d 
 failure altogether, and in this world there is no room for 
 failures. The poorest living thing of the lowest type 
 will jostle the dead thing out of the way. And so, for the 
 salt that has lost its savour, there is only one thing to be 
 done with it — cast it out, and tread it under foot. 
 
 Yes I Where are the Churches of Asia Minor, the 
 patriarchates of Alexandria, of Antioch, of Constantinople ; 
 the whole of that early Syrian, Palestinian Christianity ; 
 where are they ? Where is the Church of North Africa, 
 the Church of Augustine ? " Trodden under foot of men I '* 
 Over the archway of a mosque in Damascus you can read 
 the half obliterated inscription : — "Thy Kingdom, Christ, 
 is an everlasting Kingdom.'* And above it : — " There is 
 no God but God, and Mohammed is His prophet I '* The 
 salt has lost his savour, and been cast out. 
 
 And does anybody believe that the Churches of Christen- 
 dom are eternal in their present shape ? I see everywhere 
 the signs of disintegration in the existing embodiments 
 and organisations that set forth Christian life. And I am 
 sure of this, that in the days that are coming to us, the 
 storm in which we are already caught, all dead branches 
 will be whirled out of the tree. So much the better for 
 the tree 1 And a great deal that calls itself organised 
 Christianity will have to go down because there is not 
 
188 SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR. 
 
 Vitality enough in it to stand. For yon kno^v it is low 
 vitality that catches all the diseases that are going ; and it 
 is out of the sick sheep's eyeholes that the ravens peck the 
 eyes. And it will be the feeble types of spiritual life, the 
 inconsistent Christianities of our churches, t,h%t^/and 
 yield the crop of apostates and heretics ^^-^ 
 that will fall before temuty^f' Unless you go back close to 
 
 Brethren, ra^viif go further away. The deadness will 
 yaq-^^i the coldness will become icier and icier ; you will 
 lose more and more of the life, and show less and less 
 of the likeness, and purity, of Jesus Christ until you 
 come to this — I pray God that none of us come to it — 
 " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. " Dead I 
 
 My brother, let us return unto the Lord our God, and 
 keep nearer Him than we ever have done, and bring our 
 hearts more under the influence of His grace, and cultivate 
 the habit of communion with Him ; and pray and trust, 
 and leave ourselves in His hands, that His power may 
 come into us, and that we in the beauty of our characters, 
 and the purity of our lives, and the elevation of our spirits, 
 may witness to all men that we have been with Christ ; 
 and may, in some measure, check the corruption that is io 
 the world through lust. 
 
THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 THB LAMP AND THE BUSHEL. 
 
 "Te are the light of the world. A city that ia set on an hill cannot be hid. KdthflV 
 do men light a candle and put it nnder the bushel, but on the candlestick, and II 
 giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so sbinc before men, th»t 
 they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Hearen." MaM, f, 
 14, 16, 16. 
 
 The conception of the office of Christ's disciples con- 
 tained in these words is a still bolder one than that 
 expressed by the preceding metaphor, which we con- 
 sidered last Sunday. '' Ye are the salt of the earth " implied 
 superior moral purity and power to arrest corruption. 
 " Ye are the light of the world " implies superior spiritual 
 illumination, and power to scatter ignorance. 
 
 That is not all the meaning of the words, but that is 
 certainly in them. So then, our Lord here gives His 
 solemn judgment that the world without Him and those 
 who have learnt from Him, is in a state of darkness ; and 
 that His followers have that to impart which will bring 
 certitude and clearness of knowledge, together with purity 
 and joy and all the other blessed things which are " the 
 fruit of the light." 
 
 That high claim is illustrated by a very homely meta- 
 phor. In every humble house from which His peasant- 
 
192 THE LAMP AND THE BUSHHL. 
 
 followers came, there wonld be a lamp — some earthen 
 saucer with a little oil in it, in which a wick floated — a rude 
 stand to put it upon ; a meal-chest or a flour-bin ; and a 
 humble pallet on which to lie. These simple pieces of 
 furniture are taken to point this solemn lesson. " When 
 you light your lamp you put it on the stand, do you not ? 
 You light it in order that it may give light ; you do not 
 put it under the meal-measure nor the bed. So I have 
 kindled you that you may shine, and put you where yon 
 are that you may give light." 
 
 And the same thought, with a slightly different turn in 
 the application, lies in that other metaphor, which is 
 inclosed in the middle of this parable about the light. 
 " A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." Where they 
 stood on the mountain, no doubt, they could see some 
 village perched upon a ridge for safety, with its white 
 walls gleaming in the strong Syrian sunlight ; a landmark 
 for many a mile round. So says Christ, " The City which 
 I found, the true Jerusalem, like its prototype in the 
 Psalm, is to be conspicuous for situation, that it may be 
 the joy of the whole earth." 
 
 I have ventured to take all this somewhat long text this 
 morning because all the parts of it hold so closely together, 
 and converge upon the one solemn exhortation with 
 which it closes, and which I desire to lay upon your 
 hearts and consciences, " Let your light so shine before 
 men." I make no pretensions to anything like an arti- 
 ficial arrangement of my remarks, but simply follow the 
 words in the order in which they lie before us. 
 
 I. — First just a word about the great conception of a 
 Christian man's office which is set forth in that metaphor : 
 " Ye are the light of the world." That expression is wide, 
 " generic," as they say. Then in the unfolding of this 
 little parable our Lord goes on to explain what kind of a 
 light it is to which He would compare His people — the 
 
THE LAMP AND THE BU.SHBL. 193 
 
 light of a lamp kindled. Now that is the first point 
 that I wish to deal with. Christian men individually, and 
 the Christian Church as a whole, shine by derived light. 
 There is but One that is light in Himself. He who said, 
 " I am the light of the world, he that followeth Me shall 
 not walk in darkness," was comparing Himself to the sun- 
 shine, whereas when He said to us " Ye are the light of 
 the world ; men do not light a lamp and put it under a 
 bushel," He was comparing us to the kindled light of the 
 lamp, which had a beginning and will have an end. 
 
 Before, and independent of. His historical manifestation 
 in the flesh, the Eternal Word of God, who froui the be- 
 ginning was the Life, was also the light of men ; and all 
 the light of reason and of conscience, all which guides 
 and illumines, comes from that one source, the Everlasting 
 Word, by whom all things came to be and consi t. " He 
 was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh 
 into the world." 
 
 And further, the historic Christ, the Incarnate Word, is 
 the source for men of all true revelation of God and them- 
 selves, and of the relations between them ; the Incarnate 
 Ideal of humanity, the Perfect Pattern of conduct, who 
 alone sheds beams of certainty on the darkness of life, 
 who has left a long trail of light as He has passed into 
 the dim regions beyond the grave. In both these senses He 
 is the light, and we gather our radiance from Him. 
 
 We shall be " light " if we are '' in the Lord." It is by 
 union with Jesus Christ that we partake of His illumina- 
 tion. A sunbeam has no more power to shine if it be 
 severed from the sun than a man has to give light in this 
 dark world if He be parted from Jesus Christ. Cut the cur- 
 rent and the electric light dies, slacken the engine and the 
 electric arc becomes dim, quicken it and it burns bright. 
 So the condition of my being light is my keeping un- 
 broken my communication with Jesus Christ ; and every 
 
 O 
 
194 THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL. 
 
 variation in the extent to which I receive into my heart 
 the influx of His power and of His love is correctly 
 measured and represented by the greater or the lesser 
 brilliancy of the light with which I reflect His beauty. 
 "Ye were some time darkness, but now are ye light in 
 the Lord." Keep near to Him, and a firm hold of His 
 hand, and then you will be light. 
 
 And now I need not dwell for more than a moment or 
 two upon what I have already said is included in this 
 conception of the Christian man as being light. There 
 are two sides to it ; one is that all Christian people who 
 have learned to know Jesus Christ and have been 
 truly taught of Him, do possess a certitude and clear- 
 ness of knowledge which make them the lights of the 
 world. We advance no claims to any illumination as to 
 other than moral or religious truth. We leave all the other 
 fields uncontested. We bow humbly with confessed 
 ignorance and with unfeigned gratitude and admiration 
 before those who have laboured in them as our teachers, 
 but if we are true to our Master, and true to the position 
 in which He has placed us, we shall not be ashamed to 
 say that we believe ourselves to know the truth, in so far 
 as men can ever know it, about the all-important subject 
 of God and man, and the bond between them. 
 
 To-day there is need, I think, that Christian men and 
 women should not be reasoned or sophisticated or cowed 
 out of their confidence that they have the light because 
 they do know God. It is proclaimed as the ultimate word 
 of modern thought that we stand in the presence of a 
 power which certainly is, but of which we can know no- 
 thing except that it is altogether different from ourselves, 
 and that it ever tempts us to believe that we can know it, 
 and ever repels us into despair. Our answer is " Yes ! we 
 could have told you that long ago, though not alto^^ether 
 in your sense ; you have got hold of half a truth, and here 
 
THE LAMP AND THB BUSHBL. 195 
 
 is the whole of it : — No man hath seen God at any time, 
 nor can see Him 1 " (a Gospel of despair, verified by the 
 last words of modern thinkers). The only begotten Son, 
 which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
 Him" 
 
 Christian men and women 1 " Ye are the light of the 
 world." Darkness in yourselves, ignorant about many 
 things, ungifted with lofty talent, yon have got hold of 
 the (leeppst truth ; do not be ashamed to stand up and say, 
 even in the presence of Mars' Hill, with all its Stoics and 
 Epicureans : — " Whom ye ignorantly " — alas I not worship 
 — " Whom ye ignorantly speak of, Him declare we unto 
 you." 
 
 And then there is the other side, which I only name, moral 
 purity. Light is the emblem of purity as well as the 
 emblem of knowledge, and if we are Christians we have 
 within us, by virtue of our pc-session of an indwelling 
 Christ, a power which teaches and enables us to practise a 
 morality high above the theories and doings of the world. 
 But upon this there is the less need to dwell, as it was in- 
 volved in our consideration of the previous figure of the salt. 
 
 11. — And now the next point that I would make is this : 
 following the words before us, the certainty that if we are 
 light we shall shine. The nature and property of light is 
 to radiate. It cannot choose but shine ; and in like man- 
 ner the little village perched upon a hill there, glittering 
 and twinkling in the sunlight, cannot choose but be seen. So, 
 says Christ, " If you have Christian character in you, if 
 you have Me in you, such is the nature of the Christian 
 life that it will certainly manifest itself." Let us dwell 
 upon that for a moment or two. Take two thoughts : All 
 earnest Christian conviction will demand expression ; and 
 all deep experience of the purifying power of Christ upon 
 character will show itself in conduct. 
 
 All earnest conviction will demand expression. Every- 
 
 02 
 
196 THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL. 
 
 thing that a man believes has a tendency to convert its 
 believer into its apostle. That is not so in regard of 
 common ev^ery-day truths, nor in regard even of truths of 
 science, but in regard of all moral truth. For example, if 
 a man gets a vivid and an intense conviction of the evils 
 of intemperance and the blessings of abstinence, look 
 what a fiery vehemence of propagandism is at once set to 
 work ! And so all round the horizon of moral truth which 
 is intended to affect conduct. It is of such a sort that a 
 man cannot get it into brain and heart without causing 
 him before long to say — " This thing has mastered me, and 
 turned me into its slave ; and I must speak according to 
 my convictions." 
 
 That experience works most mightily in regard of 
 Christian truth, as the highest. What shall we say, then, 
 of the condition of Christian men and women if they have 
 not such an instinctive need of utterance ? Do you ever 
 feel this in your heart : — " Thy word shut up in my bones 
 was like a fire. I was weary of forbearing, and I could 
 not stay " ? Professing Christians ! do you know anything 
 of the longing to speak your deepest convictions, the feeling 
 that the fire within you is burning through all envelopings, 
 and will be out ? 
 
 What shall we say of the men that have it not ? God 
 forbid I should say there is no fire, but I do say that if the 
 fountain never rises into the sunlight above the dead level 
 of the pool there can be very little pressure at the laain ; 
 that if a man has not the longing to speak his religious 
 convictions those convictions must be very hesitating and 
 very feeble ; that if you never felt " I must say to some- 
 body I have found the Messias," you have not found Him 
 in any very deep sense, and that if the light that is in you 
 can be buried under a bushel it is not much of a light 
 after all, and needs a great deal of feeding and trimming 
 before it can be what it ous^ht to be. 
 
THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL. 197 
 
 On the other hand. aU -»--P experience of the purifying 
 of /^'-"^'^ upon character will show itself in conduct. 
 i« is all very well for people to talk about having received 
 the forgiveness of sins and the inner sanctification of God*B 
 Spirit. If you have, let us see it, and let us see it in the 
 commonest, pettiest things of daily life. The communi- 
 cation between the inmost experience and the outermost 
 conduct is such as that if there be any real revolution deep 
 down, it will manifest itself in the daily life. I make all 
 allowance for the loss of power in transmission, for the 
 loss of power in friction. 1 am glad to believe that yon 
 and I, and all our imperfect brethren, are a great deal 
 better in heart than we ever manage to show ourselves 
 to be in life. Thank God for the consolation that 
 may come out of that thought — but notwithstanding I 
 come back to my point that making all such allowance, 
 and setting up no impossible standard of absolute identity 
 between duty and fact in this present life, yet, on the whole 
 if we are Christian people with any deep central experience 
 of the cleansing power and influence of Christ and His 
 grace, we shall show it in life and in conduct. Or, to put 
 it into the graphic and plain words of my text, If we are 
 light we shall shine. 
 
 III. — Again, and very briefly, this obligation of giving 
 light is still further enforced by the thought that that 
 was Christ's very purpose in all that He has done with us 
 and for us. The homely figure here implies that He has 
 not kindled the lamp to put it under the bushel, but that 
 His purpose in lighting it was that it might give light. 
 
 God has made us partakers of His grace, and has given 
 it to us to be light in the Lord, for this among other pur- 
 poses, that we should impart that light to others. 
 
 No creature is so small that it has not the right to 
 expect that its happiness and welfare shall be regarded 
 by God as an end in His dealings with it ; but no creatm* 
 
198 THE LASrP AND THE BUSHEL. 
 
 is so great that it has tUo vi^ht to expect that its happiness 
 or well-being shall be regarded by ir^ .»,^ j^g^j^ ^^ Q^^,g 
 only end in His dealings with it. He gives us x^^^ «„^„g 
 His pardon, His love, the quickening of His Spirit by our 
 union with Jesus Christ ; He gives us our knowledge of 
 Him, and our likeness to Him — what for ? " For my own 
 salvation, for my happiness and well being," you say. 
 Certainly, blessed be His name for His love and goodness! 
 But is that all His purpose ? Paul did not think so when 
 he said, "God who commanded the light to shine out 
 of darkness hath shined into our hearts (that we might give 
 to others) the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
 in the face of Jesus Christ." And Christ did not think so 
 when He said " Men do not light a candle and put it un- 
 der a bushel, but that it may give light to all that are in 
 the house." " Heaven doth with us as we with torches do : 
 not light them for themselves." The purpose of God is that 
 we may shine. The lamp is kindled not to illumine it- 
 self, but that it may " give light to all that are in the house." 
 Consider again, that whilst all these things are true, 
 there is yet a solemn possibility that men — even good 
 men — may stifle and smother and shroud their light. You 
 can, and I am afraid a very large number of you do, this ; 
 by two ways. You can bury the light of a holy character 
 under a whole mountain of inconsistencies. If one were 
 to be fanciful, one might say that the bushel or meal-chest 
 meant material well-being, and the bed, indolence, and 
 love of ease. I wonder how many Christian men and 
 women in this place this morning have buried their light 
 under the fiour-bin and the bed, so interpreted. How 
 many of us have drowned our consecration and devotion 
 in foul waters of worldly lusts, and have let the love of 
 earth's goods, of wealth and pleasure, and creature love, 
 come like a poisonous atmosphere round the lamp of our 
 Christian character, making it burn dim and blue. 
 
THE LAMP AND THE B'JSHEL. 199 
 
 And we can bury the li.i^^lit of the Word under cowardly 
 and sheepish and indifferent silence. I wonder ho^r 
 many of us have done that. Like blue-ribbon men that 
 button their great coats over their blue ribbons when thoy 
 go into company where they are afraid to show them, 
 there are plenty of Christian people that are devout Chris- 
 tians at the Communion Table that would be ashamed to 
 say they were so in the miduellaneous company of a rail- 
 way carriage or a table d'hote. There are professing 
 Christians who have gone through life in their relationships 
 to their fathers, sisters, wives, children, friends, kindred, 
 their servants and dependants, and have never spoken a 
 loving word for their Master. That is a sinful hiding 
 your light under the bushel and the bed. 
 
 IV. — And so the last word, into which all this converges, 
 is the plain duty: If you are light, shine ! "Let your 
 light so shine before men," says the text, " that they may 
 see your good works and glorify your Father which is in 
 Heaven." 
 
 In the next chapter our Lord says : " Take heed that ye 
 do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Thou 
 Shalt not be as the hypocrites are ; for they love to pray 
 standing in the synagogues that they may be seen of men." 
 What is the difference between the two sets of men and 
 the tw^o kinds of conduct ? The motive makes the differ- 
 ence for one thing, and for another thing : " Let your light 
 so shine" does not mean "take precautions that your 
 goodness may come out into public," but it means "Shine 1" 
 You find the light, and the world will find the eyes, no 
 fear of that I You do not need to seek " to be seen of 
 men, " but you do need to shine that men may see. 
 
 The lighthouse keeper takes no pains that the ships 
 tossing away out at s^a may behold the beam that shines 
 from his lamp, but all tliat he does is to feed it and tend 
 it. And that is all that you and I have to do — tend the 
 
200 THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL. 
 
 light, and do not, like cowards, cover it up. Modestly, but 
 yet bravely, carry out your Christianity, and men will 
 see it. Do not be as a dark lantern, burning with the 
 slides down and illuminating nothing and nobody. Live 
 your Christianity, and it will be beheld. 
 
 And remember, candles are not lit to be looked at. 
 Candles are lit that something else may be seen by them. 
 Men may see God through your words, through your 
 conduct, that never would have beheld Him otherwise, 
 because His beams are too bright for their dim eyes. 
 And it is an awful thing to think that the world always — 
 always — takes its conception of Christianity from the 
 Church, and neither from the Bible nor from Christ ; and 
 that it is you and your like, you inconsistent Christians ; 
 you people that say your sins are forgiven and are doing 
 the old sins day by day which you say are pardoned ; you 
 low-toned, unpraying, worldly Christian men, who have no 
 elevation of character and no self-restraint of life and no 
 purity of conduct above the men in your own profession 
 and in your own circumstances all round you — it is you 
 that are hindering the coming of Christ's Kingdom, it is 
 you that are the standing disgraces of the Church, and 
 the weaknesses and diseases of Christendom. I speak 
 strongly, not half as strongly as the facts of the case would 
 warrant ; but I lay it upon all your consciences as profess- 
 ing Christian people to see to it that no longer your 
 frivolities, or doubtful commercial practices, nor low, 
 unspiritual tone of life, your self-indulgence in household 
 arrangements, and a dozen other things that I might 
 name — that no longer do they mar the clearness of your 
 testimony i'or your Master, and disturb with envious 
 streaks of darkness the light that shines from His 
 followers. 
 
 How effectual such a witness may be none who have 
 not seen its power can suppose. Example does tell. A 
 
THE LAMP AND THB BUSHEL. 901 
 
 holy life cnrbs evil, ashamea to show itself in that pure 
 presence. A good man or woman reveals the ugliness of 
 evil by shewing the beauty of holiness. More converts 
 would be made by a Christ-like Church than by many 
 sermons. Oh 1 if you professing Christians knew your 
 power and should use it, if you would come closer to 
 Christ, and catch more of the light from His face, you 
 might walk among men like very angels, and at your 
 bright presence darkness would flee away, ignorance 
 would grow wise, impurity be abashed and sorrow com- 
 forted. 
 
 Be not content, I pray you, till your own hearts are 
 fully illumined by Christ, having no part dark—and then 
 live as remembering that you have been made light that 
 you may shine. " Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and 
 the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee I " 
 
MAN'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 MAU'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 
 
 "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup ; Thou malntainest aij 
 lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage.* 
 Psalm XTi. 6, 6. 
 
 Wb read, in the law which created the priesthood iD 
 Israel, that " the Lord spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have 
 no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any 
 part among them. I am thy part and thine inheritance 
 among the children of Israel." (Num. xvii. 20.) Now 
 there is an evident allusion to that remarkable provision 
 in this text. The Psalmist feels that in the deepest sense 
 he has no possession amongst the men who have only 
 possessions upon earth, but that God is the treasure which 
 he grasps in a rapture of devotion and self-abandonment. 
 The priest's duty is his choice. He will " walk by faith 
 and not by sight." 
 
 Are not all Christians priests ? and is not the very 
 essence and innermost secret of the religious life this, — 
 that the heart turns away from earthly things and deliber- 
 ately accepts God as its supreme good, and its only portion ? 
 
206 MAN'S TRUE TRE iSURB IN GOD. 
 
 These first words of my text contain the essence of all 
 tme religion. 
 
 The connexion between the first clause and the others 
 is closer than many readers perceive. The " lot " which 
 " Thou maintainest," the " pleasant places," the " goodly 
 heritage," all carry on the metaphor, and all refer to God 
 as Himself the portion of the heart that chooses and trusts 
 Him. " Thou maintainest my lot." He Who is our in- 
 heritance also guards our inheritance, and whosoever has 
 taken God for his possession has a possession as sure as 
 God can make it. " The lines are fallen to me in pleasant 
 places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage." The heritage that 
 is goodly is God Himself. When a man chooses God for 
 his portion, then, and then only is he satisfied ; — " satisfied 
 with favour, and full of the goodness of the Lord." Let 
 me try and expand and enforce those thoughts, with the 
 hope that we may catch something of their fervour and 
 their glow. 
 
 I. — The first thought, then, that comes out of the words 
 before us is this : — all true religion has its very heart in 
 deliberately choosing God as my supreme good. 
 
 " The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my 
 cup." The two words which are translated in our version 
 " portion " and " inheritance " are substantially synonymous 
 The latter of them is used continually in reference to the 
 share of each individual, or family, or tribe in the par- 
 tition of the land of Canaan. There is a distinct allusion, 
 therefore, to that partition in the language of our text ; 
 and the two expressions, part or " portion," and " inherit- 
 ance," are substantially identical, and really mean just the 
 same as if the single expression had stood : — " The Lord 
 is my portion." 
 
 I may just notice in passing that these words are evi- 
 dently alluded to in the New Testament, in the Epistle to 
 the Colossians, where Paul speaks of God " having made 
 
man's true treasure in god. 207 
 
 us meet for the portion of the inheritance of the saints in 
 light." 
 
 And then the "portion of my cnp" ie a somewhat 
 strange expression. It is found in one of the other Psalms, 
 with the meaning " fortune," or " destiny," or " sum of cir- 
 cumstances which make up a man's life." There may be, of 
 course, an allusion to the metaphor of a feast here, and 
 God may be set forth as " the portion of my cup," in the 
 sense of being the refreshment and sustenance of a man's 
 Boul. But I should rather be disposed to consider that 
 there is merely a prolongation of the earlier metaphor, 
 and that the same thought as is contained in the figure of 
 the " inheritance " is expressed here, (as in common con- 
 versation it is often expressed) by the word " cup," — namely, 
 that which makes up a man's portion in this life." It is 
 used with such a meaning in the well-known words : 
 " My cup runneth over," and in another shape in, " The 
 cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it ? " 
 It is the sum of circumstances which make up a man's 
 "fortune." So the double metaphor presents the one 
 thought of God as the true possession of the devout soul. 
 
 Now how do we possess God ? We possess things in 
 one fashion and persons in another. The lowest and most 
 imperfect form of possession is that by which a man 
 simply keeps other people off material good, and asserts 
 the right of disposal of it as he thinks proper. A blind 
 man may have the finest picture that ever was painted ; 
 he may call it his, that is to say, nobody else can sell it, 
 but what good is it to him ? A lunatic may own a library 
 as big as the Bodleian, but what use is it to him ? Does 
 the man who draws the rents of a mountain-side, or the 
 poet or painter, to whom its cliffs and heather speak far- 
 reaching thoughts, most truly possess it ? The highest form 
 of possession, even of things, is when they minister to our 
 thought, to our emotion, to our moral and intellectual 
 
208 MAN'S TRUB TREASURE IN GOD. 
 
 growth. We possess even them really, according as w« 
 
 know them and hold communion with them. 
 
 But when we get up into the region of persons, we 
 possess them in the measure in which we understand 
 them, and sympathise with them, and love them. Know- 
 ledge, intercourse, sympathy, affection ; these are the ways 
 by which men can possess men, and spirits, spirits. A 
 man that gets the thoughts of a great teacher into his 
 mind, and has his whole being saturated by them, may 
 be said to have made the teacher his own. A friend or a 
 lover owns the heart that he or she loves, and which loves 
 back again ; and not otherwise do we possess God. 
 
 Such ownership must be, from its very nature, reciprocal. 
 There must be the two sides to it. And so we read in the 
 Bible, with equal frequency : the Lord is the " inheritance 
 of His people," and His people are " the inheritanee of 
 the Lord." He possesses me, and I possess Him — with 
 reverence be it spoken — by the very same tenure ; for who- 
 so loves God has Him, and whom He loves He owns. 
 There is deep and blessed mystery hivolved in this 
 wonderful prerogative, that the loving believing heart has 
 God for its possession and indwelling Guest ; and people 
 are apt to brush such thoughts aside as mystical. But 
 like all true Christian mysticism, it is intensely practical. 
 
 We have God for ours first in the measure in which our 
 minds are actively occupied with thoughts of Him. We 
 have no merely mystical or emotional possession of God 
 to preach. There is a real, adequate knowledge of Him 
 in Jesus Christ. We know God, His character, His heart, 
 His relations to us, His thoughts of good concerning us, 
 sufficiently for all intellectual and for all practical purposes. 
 I wish to ask yon a plain question. Do yon ever think 
 about Him? 
 
 There is only one way of getting God for yours, and 
 that is by bringing Him into yonr life by frequent medi- 
 
MAN'S TRUB TREASURE IN GOD. 209 
 
 tation upon His sweetness, and upon the truths that you 
 know about Him. There is no other way by which a 
 spirit can possess a spirit, that is not cognisable by sense, 
 except only by the way of thinking about Him, to begin 
 with. All else follows that. That is how you hold your 
 dear ones when they go to the other side of the world. 
 That is how you hold God Who dwells on the other si<le 
 of the stars. There is no way to " have " Him, but throuirh 
 the understanding accepting Him, and keeping firm hold 
 of Him. Men and women that from Monday morning to 
 Saturday night never think of His name ; how do they 
 possess God ? And professing Christians that never 
 remember Him all the day long — what absurd hypocrisy 
 it is for them to say that God is theirs ! 
 
 Yours, and never in your mind ! When your husband, 
 or your wife, or your child, goes away from home for a 
 week, do you forget them, as utterly as you forget God ? 
 Do you have them in any sense if they never dwell in the 
 " study of your imagination," and never fill your thoughts 
 with sweetness and with light ? 
 
 And so again when the heart turns to Him, and when 
 all the faculties of our being, will, and hope, and imagin- 
 ation, and all our affections and all our practical powers, 
 when they all touch Him, each in its proper fashion, then 
 and then only can we in any reasonable and true sense be 
 said to possess God. 
 
 Thought, communion, sympathy, affection, moral like- 
 ness, practical »bedience, these are the way — and not by 
 mystical raptures only — by which, in simple prose fact, is 
 it possible for the finite to grasp the infinite ; and for a 
 man to be the owner of God. 
 
 Now there is another consideration very necessary to be 
 remembered, and that is that this possession of God involves, 
 and is possible only by, a deliberate act of renunciation. 
 The Levite's example, that is glanced at in my text, is 
 
 F 
 
210 man's true treasure in god. 
 
 always our law. You must have no part or inheritance 
 amongst the sons of earth if God is to be your inheritance. 
 Or, to put it into plain words, there must be a giving up 
 of the material and the created if there is to be a posses- 
 sion of the Divine and the Heavenly. There cannot be 
 two supreme, any more than there can be two pole-stars, 
 one in the north, and the other in the south to both of 
 which a man can be steering. 
 You cannot stand with — 
 
 **One foot on land., and one on n% 
 To one thing constant never." 
 
 If you are going to have God as your supreme good yon 
 must empty your heart of earth and worldly things, or your 
 possession of Him will be all words, and imagination, 
 and hypocrisy. Brethren ! I wish to bring that message 
 to your consciences to-day. 
 
 And what is this renunciation ? There must be, first of 
 all, a fixed, deliberate, intelligent conviction lying at the 
 foundation of my life that God is best, and that He and 
 He only is my true delight and desire. Then there must 
 be built upon that intelligent conviction that God is best, 
 the deliberate turning away of the heart from these 
 material treasures. Then there must be the willingness 
 to abandon the outward possession of them, if they come 
 in between us and Him. Just as travellers in old 
 days, that went out looking for treasures in the western 
 hemisphere, were glad to empty out their ships of their 
 less precious cargo in order to load them with gold, 
 you must get rid of the trifles, and fling these away if 
 ever they so take up your heart that God has no room 
 there. Or, rather, perhaps, if the love of God in any 
 real measure, howsoever imperfectly, once gets into a 
 man's soul, it will work there to expel and edge out the 
 love and regard for earthly things. 
 
 Jast as when the chemist collects oxygen in a vessel 
 
MAN'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 211 
 
 filled with water, as it passes into the jar it drives out the 
 water before it ; the love of God, if it come into a man's 
 heart in any real sense, in the measure in which it comes, 
 will deliver him from the love of the world. 
 
 But between the two there is warfare so internecine 
 and endless that they cannot co-exist : and here, to-day, it 
 is as true as ever it was that if you want to have God for 
 your portion and your inheritance you must be content tc 
 have no inheritance amongst your brethren, nor part 
 amongst the sons of earth. 
 
 Men and women I Are you ready for that renunciation ! 
 are you prepared to say, " I know that the sweetness of 
 Thy presence is the truest sweetness that I can taste ; and 
 lo I I give up all besides and my own self — 
 
 " God of good, the nufathomed sea, 
 Who would not yield himself to The«?" 
 
 And remember, that nothing less than these are Christ- 
 ianity — the conviction that the world is second and not 
 first ; that God is best, love is best, truth is best ; know- 
 ledge of Him is best ; likeness to Him is best ; 
 the willingness to surrender all if it come in contest with 
 His supreme sweetness. He that turns his back upon 
 earth by reason of the drawing power of the glory that 
 excelleth, is a Christian. The Christianity that only trusts 
 to Christ for deliverance from the punishment of sin, and 
 so makes religion a kind of fire insurance, is a very poor 
 affair. We need the lesson pealed into our ears as much 
 as any generation has ever done, Ye cannot serve God and 
 mammon. A man's real working religion consists in his 
 loving God most and counting His love the sweetest of all 
 things. 
 
 II. — Now let me turn to the next point that is here, viz., 
 that this possession is as sure as God can make it. " Thou 
 maintainest my lot." Thou art Thyself both my heritage, 
 and the guardian of my heritage. He that possesses 
 
 P2 
 
212 MAN'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 
 
 God, says the text, therefore, by implication, is lifted 
 above all fear and chance of change. 
 
 The land, the partition of which amongst the tribes lies 
 at the bottom of the allusive metaphor of my text, was 
 given to them under the sanction of a supernatural defence ; 
 and the law of their continuance in it was that they should 
 trust and serve the unseen King. It was He, according to 
 the theocratic theory of the Old Testament, and not 
 chariots and horses, their own arm and their own sword, 
 that kept them safe, though the enemies on the north and 
 the enemies on the south were big enough to swallow up 
 the little kingdom at a mouthful. 
 
 And so, says the Psalmist allusively, in a similar man- 
 ner, the Divine Power surrounds the man who chooses 
 God for his heritage, and nothing shall take that heritage 
 from him. 
 
 The lower forms of possession, by which men are called 
 the owners of material goods are imperfect, because they 
 are all precarious and temporary. Nothing really belongs 
 to a man if it can be taken from him. What we may lose 
 we can scarcely be said to have. They are mine, they 
 were yours, they ivill he somebody's else to-morrow. 
 Whilst we have them we do not have them in any deep 
 sense ; we cannot retain them, they are not really ours at 
 all. The only thing that is worth calling mine is some- 
 thing that so passes into and saturates the very substance 
 of my soul ; that, like a piece of cloth dyed in the grain, 
 as long as two threads hold together the tint will be there. 
 That is how God gives us Himself, and nothing can take 
 Him out of a man's soul. He, in the sweetness of His 
 grace, bestows Himself upon man, and guards His < wn 
 gift, in the heart, which is Himself. He who dwells in 
 God and God in him lives as in the inmost keep and 
 citadel. The noise of battle may roar around the walls, 
 but deep silence and peace are within. The storm may 
 
MAN'S TRUE TRBASURB IN GOD. 213 
 
 rage upon the coasts, but he who has God for his portion 
 dwells in a quiet inland valley where the tempests never 
 come. No outer changes can touch our possession of God. 
 They belong to another region altogether. Other goods 
 may go, but this is held by a different tenure. The life 
 of a Christian is lived in two regions ; in the one his life 
 has its roots, and its brandies extend to the other. In the 
 one there may be whirling storms and branches may toss 
 and snap, whilst in the other to which the roots go down, 
 may be peace. Root yourselves in God, making Him 
 your truest treasure, and nothing can rob you of your 
 wealth. 
 
 We here in this commercial community see plenty of 
 examples of great fortunes and great businesses melting 
 away like yesterday's snow. And surely the difficulties 
 and perplexities in which much of our Lancashire trade 
 is involved to-day might preach to some of you this lesson : 
 Set not your hearts on that which can pass, but make 
 your treasure that which no man can take from you. 
 
 Then, too, there is the other thought. He will help us 
 flo that no temptations shall have power to make us rob 
 ourselves of our treasure. None can take it from us but our- 
 selves, but we are so weak and surrounded by temptations 
 BO strong that we need Him to aid us if we are not to be 
 beguiled by our own treacherous hearts into parting with 
 our highest good. A handful of feeble Jews were nothing 
 against the gigantic might of Assyria, or against the com- 
 pacted strength of civilised Egypt, but there they stood, 
 on their rocky mountains, defended, not by their own 
 strength but by the might of a present God. And so, unfit 
 to cope with the temptations round us as we are, if we 
 cast ourselves upon His power and make Him our supreme 
 delight, nothing shall be able to rob us of that possession 
 and that sweetness. 
 
 And there is just one last point that I would refer to 
 
214 MAN'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 
 
 here on this matter of our stable possession of God. It is 
 very beautiful to observe that this Psalm, which, in the lan- 
 guage of my text, rises to the very height of spiritual, and, 
 in a good sense, mystical devotion, recognising God as 
 the One good for souls, is also one of the Psalms which 
 has the clearest utterance of the faith in immortality. 
 Just after the words of my text we read these others, in 
 which the Old Testament confidence in a life beyond the 
 grave reaches its very climax : " Thou wilt not leave my 
 soul in Sheol, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to 
 see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life ; in 
 Thy presence is fulness of joy ; at Thy right hand there 
 are pleasures for evermore." 
 
 That connection teaches us that the measure in which a 
 man feels his true possession of God here and now, is the 
 measure in which his faith rises triumphant over the 
 darkness of the grave, and grasps, with unfaltering con- 
 fidence, the conviction of an immortal life. The more we 
 know that God is our portion and our treasure, the more 
 sure, and calmly sure, we shall be that a thing like death 
 cannot touch a thing like that, that the mere physical fact 
 is far too small and insignificant a fact to have any power 
 in such a region as that ; that death can no more affect a 
 man's relation to God, Whom he has learned to love and 
 trust, than you can cut thought or feeling with a 
 knife. The two belong to two different regions. Thus 
 we have here the Old Testament faith in immortality 
 shaping itself out of the Old Testament enjoyment of com- 
 munion with God, with a present God. And you will 
 find the very same process of thought in that seventy- 
 third Psalm, which stands in some respects side by side 
 ■with this one as containing the height of mystical devo- 
 tion, joined with a very clear utterance of the faith iu 
 immortality :— " Whom have I in Heaven but Thee, and 
 there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee 1 Thou 
 
MAN'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 215 
 
 wilt gnide me with Thy counsel, and afterwards receive 
 me to glory." 
 
 So Death himself cannot touch the heritage of the man 
 whose heritage is the Lord. And his ministry is not to 
 rob us of our treasures as he robs men of all treasures 
 besides (for " their glory shall not descend after them "), 
 but to give us instead of the " earnest of the inheritance," 
 — the bit of turf by which we take possession of the estate — 
 the broad land in all the amplitude of its sweep, into our 
 perpetual possession. " Thou maintainest my lot." Neither 
 death nor life shall separate us from the love of God 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord I 
 
 IlL — And then the last thought here is that he who 
 thus elects to find his treasure and delight in God is satis- 
 fied with his choice. " The lines " — the measuring cord 
 by which the estate was parted off and determined — " are 
 fallen, in pleasant places ; yea I " — not as our Bible has it, 
 merely " I have a goodly heritage," patting emphasis on 
 the fact of possession, but^ — '* the heritage is goodly to me," 
 putting emphasis on the fact of subjective satisfaction 
 with it. 
 
 I have no time to dwell upon the thoughts that spring 
 from these words. Take them in the barest outline. No 
 man that makes the worse choice of earth instead of God, 
 ever, in the retro:^pect, said : — " I have a goodly heritage. " 
 One of the later Roman Emperors, who was one of the 
 best of them, said, when he was dying : — " I have been 
 everything, and it profits me nothing." No creature can 
 satisfy your whole nature. Portions of it may be fed 
 with their appi'opriate satisfaction, but as long as we feed 
 on the things of earth there will always be part of our 
 being like an unfed ti^'er in a menagerie, growling for its 
 prey, ^vhilst its fellows are satisfied for the moment. 
 You can no more give your heart rest and blessedness by 
 pitching worldly things into it than they could fill up 
 
216 MAN'S TRUE TREASURE IN GOD. 
 
 Chat Moss, when they made the first Liverpool and Man- 
 chester Railway, by throwing in cartloads of earth. The 
 bog swallowed them and was none the nearer being filled. 
 
 No man that takes the world for his portion ever said, 
 " The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places." For the 
 make of your soul as plainly cries out " God I " as a fish's 
 fins declare that the sea is its element, or a bird's wings 
 mark it out as meant to soar. Man and God fit each other 
 like the two halves of a tally. You will never get rest nor 
 satisfaction, and yon will never be able to look at the past 
 with thankfulness, nor at the present with repose ; nor 
 into the future with hope, unless you can say, '' God is 
 the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." 
 But oh I if you do, then you have a goodly heritage, a 
 heritage of still satisfaction, a heritage which suits, and 
 gratifies, and expands all the powers of a man's nature, and 
 makes him ever capable of larger and larger possessions of 
 a God Who ever gives more than we can receive, that the 
 overplus may draw us to further desire, aud the further 
 desire may more fully be satisfied. 
 
 The one, true, pure, abiding joy is to hold fellowship 
 with God and to live in His love. The secret of all our 
 unrest is the going out of our desires after earthly things. 
 They fly forth from our hearts like Noah's raven, and 
 nowhere amid all the weltering flood can find a resting- 
 place. The secret of satisfied repose is to set our afl^ections 
 thoroughly on God. Then our wearied hearts, like Noah's 
 dove returning to its rest, will fold their wings and nestle 
 fast by the throne of God. " All the happiness of this 
 life," said William Law, " is but trying to quench thirst 
 out of golden emjjty cups." But if we will take the Lord 
 for " the portion of our cup," we shall never thirst. 
 
 Let me beseech you to choose God in Christ for your 
 supreme good and highest portion ; and having chosen, to . 
 cleave to your choice. So shall you enter on possession of 
 
MAN'S TRUE TRBABURB IN GOD. 217 
 
 good that truly shall be yours, even " that good part, which 
 shall not be taken away from you." 
 
 And, lastly, remember that if you would have God, yon 
 must take Christ. He is the true Joshua, who puts us in 
 possession of the inheritance. He brings God to you — to 
 your knowledge, to your love, to your will. He brings 
 you to God, making it possible for your poor sinful soul:3 
 to enter His presence by His blood ; and for your spirits 
 to possess that Divine Guest. "He that hath the Son, 
 hath the Father " ; and if you trust your souls to Him that 
 died for you, and cling to Him as your delight and your 
 joy, you will find that both the Father and the Son come 
 to you and make Their home in you. Through Christ the 
 Son, you will receive power to become sons of God, and if 
 children, then heirs, heire of God, because joint heirs with 
 Chrigt 
 
GOD^S TRUE TREASUEE IN MAN. 
 
8EKM0N XVIL 
 
 OOD'S TRUE TREASURE US MAH. 
 
 " The Lord's portion is His people ; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." Deat. xrxlL % 
 "Jesus Christ (Who) gave Himself for us, that He might redeem as from all iniquity 
 Mid purify unto Himself a peculiar people." Titus ii. 14. 
 
 In my last sermon I dealt with the thought that man*s 
 trne treasure is in God. My text then, was : " The Lord 
 is the portion of my inheritance ; Thou maintainest my 
 lot," and the following words. You observe the corres- 
 pondence between these words and those of my first text : 
 " The Lord's portion is His people ; Jacob is the lot of 
 His inheritance." The correspondence in the original is 
 not quite so marked as it is in our Authorised Version, 
 but still the idea in the two passages is the same. 
 
 You may remember that I said then that persons could 
 possess persons only by love, sympathy, and communion. 
 From that it follows that the possession must be mutual ; or 
 in other words, that only he can say : " Thou art mine," who 
 can say, " I am thine." And so to possess God and to be 
 possessed by God are but two ways of putting the same fact. 
 ** The Lord is the portion of His people," and *' The Lord's 
 portion is His people," are the same truth in a doable form. 
 
222 god's true treasure in man. 
 
 Then my second text clearly qnotes the well-known 
 utterance that lies at the foundation of the national life 
 of Israel : " Ye shall be unto me a peculiar treasure above 
 all people," and claims that privilege, like all Israers 
 privileges, for the Christian Church. In like manner 
 Peter (1, ii. 9) quotes the same words " a peculiar people,'* 
 as properly applying to Christians. I need scarcely re- 
 mind you that "peculiar" here is used in its proper 
 original sense of " belonging to," or, as the Revised Ver- 
 sion gives it, " a people for God's own possession," and 
 has no trace of the modern signification of "singular." 
 Similarly we find Paul in His Epistle to the Ephesians 
 giving both sides of the idea of the inheritance, in intent- 
 ional juxtaposition, when he speaks (i. 14) of the " earnest 
 of our inheritance until the redemption of God's own 
 possession." In the words before us we have the same 
 idea ; and this text tells us besides how Christ, the revealer 
 of God, wins men for Himself, and what manner of men 
 they must be whom He counts as His. 
 
 Therefore there are, as I take it, three things to be 
 spoken about now. First, God has a special ownership in 
 some people. Second, God owns these people because He 
 has given Himself to them. Third, God possesses, and is 
 posssessed by. His inheritance, that He may give and 
 receive services of love. Or, in briefer words, I have to 
 speak about this wonderful thought of a special Divine 
 ownership, what it rests upon, and what it involves. 
 
 Now, first, " the Lord's portion is His people ; Jacob is 
 the lot of His inheritance." Put side by side with that 
 other words of the Old Testament : " All souls are Mine," 
 or the utterance of the Hundredth Psalm rightly trans- 
 lated : — " It is He that hath made us, and to Him we 
 belong." There is a right of ownership and possession in- 
 herent in the very relation of Creator and creature, so 
 as that the Being made is whoUy and altogether at 
 
god's trub treasure in man. 223 
 
 the disposal, and is the property of Him that makes him. 
 
 But is that enough for God's heart ? Is that worth calling 
 ownership at all ? An arbitrary tyrant in an unconstitu- 
 tional kingdom, or a slave-owner, may have the most 
 absolute right of property over his subject or his slave ; 
 may have the right of entire disposal of all his industry, 
 of the profit of all his labour, may be able to do anything 
 he likes with him, may have the power of life and death ; 
 but such ownership is only of the husk and case of a man. 
 The man himself may be free, and may smile at the claim 
 of possession. "They may oum the body, and after 
 that they have no more that they can do." That kind of 
 authority and ownership, absolute and utter, to the point 
 of death, may satisfy a tyrant or a slave-driver : it does not 
 satisfy the loving heart of God. It is not real possession 
 at all. In what sense did Nero own Paul when he shut 
 him up in prison, and cut his head off ? Does the slave- 
 owner own the man that he whips within an inch of his 
 life, and who dare not do anything without his permission ? 
 Does God in any sense that corresponds with the yearning 
 of infinite love, own the men that reluctantly obey Him, 
 and are simply, as it were, tools in His hands ? He covets 
 and longs for a deeper relationship and tenderer ties, and 
 though all creatures are His, and all men are His servants 
 and His possession, yet, like certain regiments in our own 
 British army, there are some who have the right to bear in 
 a special manner on their uniform and on their banners 
 the emblazonment, "The King's Own." "The Lord's 
 portion is His people ; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." 
 
 Well then, the next thought is that the special relation- 
 ship of possession is constituted by mutual love. I said at the 
 beginning of these remarks that the only ways by 
 which spiritual beings can possess each other are by love, 
 sympathy, and communion, and that these must necessarily 
 be mutual. We have a perfect right to apply the human 
 
224 GOD'S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN. 
 
 analogy here ; in fact we are bound to do it if we would 
 rightly understand such words as those of my text ; and it 
 just leads us to this, that the one thing whereby God 
 reckons that He possesses a man at all is by His love 
 falling upon that man's heart and soaking into it ; and by 
 the springing up in the heart of a corresponding affection. 
 The men who welcome the Divine love that goes through 
 the whole world, "seeking such to worship it," and to 
 trust it, and to be its treasure and who therefore, lovingly 
 yield to the loving Divine will, and take it for their law ; 
 — these are the men whom He regards as His portion and 
 the lot of His inheritance. So " God is mine," " I am 
 God's," are two sides of one truth ; '* I possess Him " and 
 " I am possessed by Him " are but the statement of one 
 fact expressed from two points of view. In the one case 
 you look upon it from above, in the other case you look 
 upon it from beneath. All the sweet commerce of mutual 
 surrender and possession which makes the joy of our 
 hearts, in friendship and in domestic life, we have the 
 right to lift up into this loftier region, and find in it the 
 best teaching of what makes the special bond of mutual 
 possession between God and man. 
 
 Deep words of Scripture point in that direction. Those 
 parables of our Lord's, — the lost sheep, the lost coin, the 
 lost son, in their infinite beauty, whilst they contain a 
 great deal besides this, do contain this in their several 
 ways. The money, the animal, the man, belong to the 
 woman of the house, to the shepherd, to the father. Each 
 is lost in a different fashion, but the most clear revelation 
 is given in the last parable of the three, which explains 
 the other two. The son was " lost " when he did not love 
 the father, and he was " found " by the father when he 
 returned the yearning of the father's heart. 
 
 And so, dear brethren, it ever is ; the one thing that 
 knits men to God is that the silken bond of love let down 
 
god's true treasure in man. 225 
 
 from the Heaven should by our own hand be wrapped 
 round our own hearts, and then we are united to Him. 
 We are His and He is ours by the same double action ; 
 His love manifested by Him and His love received by us. 
 
 Now there is nothing in all that of favouritism. The 
 declaration that there are people who have a special rela- 
 tionship to the Divine heart may be so stated as to have a 
 very ugly look, and it often has been so stated as to be 
 nothing more than self-complacent Pharisaism, which 
 values a privilege principally because its possession is an 
 insult to somebody else who has not it. 
 
 There has been plenty of Christianity of that sort in the 
 world, but rightly looked at there is nothing of it in the 
 thoughts of these texts. There is only this : it cannot but 
 be that men who yield to God and love Him, and try to 
 live near Him and do righteousness, are His, in a manner 
 that those, who steel themselves against Him and turn 
 away from Him, are not. It should be joy to believe that 
 whilst all creatures have a place in His heart, and all His 
 creatures are flooded with His benefits, and get as much 
 of Him, as ever they can hold, the men who recognise the 
 source of their blessing, and turn to it with grateful hearts, 
 are nearer Him than those that do not do so. Let us take 
 care, lest for the sake of seeming to preserve the impartial- 
 ity of His love, we have destroyed all in Him that makes 
 His love worth having. If to Him the good and the 
 bad, the men that fear Him and the men thiit fear Him 
 not, are equally satisfactory and in the same manner the 
 objects of an equal love, then He is not a God that has 
 pleasure in righteousness ; and if He is not a God that has 
 pleasure in righteousness, He is not a God for me to trust 
 to. We are not giving countenance to the notion that God 
 has any step-children, any petted members of His family, 
 when we cleave to this truth that they that have wel- 
 comed His love into their hearts are dearer to Him than 
 those that haye closed the door against it. 
 
god's true treasure in man. 
 
 And there is one more point here about this matter of 
 ownership on which I dwell for a moment, namely, that 
 this conception of certain men being in a special sense 
 God's possession and inheritance means also that He has a 
 special delight in, and lofty appreciation of them. 
 
 All this material creation exists for the sake of growing 
 good men and women. That is the use of the things that 
 are seen and temporal ; they are like greenhouses built for 
 the Great Gardener's use in striking and furthering the 
 growth of His plants ; and when He has got the plants He 
 has got what He wanted, and you may pull the greenhouse 
 down if you choose. So God estimates, and teaches 
 us to estimate, the relative value and greatness of the 
 material and the spiritual in this fashion, that He tells 
 us in effect that all these magnificences and magnitudes 
 round us are small and vulgar as compared with this — a 
 heart in which wisdom and Divine truth and the love and 
 likeness of God have attained to some tolerable measure 
 of maturity and of strength. " These are His jewels," as 
 the Roman matron said about her two boys. The Great 
 Father looks upon the men that love Him as His jewels ; 
 and having got the jewels, the rock in which they were 
 imbedded and preserved may be crushed when you like. 
 " They shall be Mine," said the Lord, " My treasures, in 
 that day which I make." 
 
 And so, my brother, all the insignificance of man, as 
 compared with the magnitude and duration of the universe, 
 need not stagger our faith that the divinest thing in the 
 universe is a heart that has learnt to love God and aspire 
 after Him ; and should but increase our wonder and our 
 gratitude, for that Christ who has been " mindful of man, 
 and has visited the son of man," in order that He might 
 give Himself for men, and so might win men for Himself. 
 II. — That brings me, and very briefly, to the other points 
 that I desire to deal with this morning. The second one 
 
god's true treasure in man. 227 
 
 which is BUggested to us from my second text in the Epistle 
 to Titus is that God owns men because God has given Him- 
 self to man. 
 
 The Apostle puts it very strongly In the Epistle to 
 Titus : " The glorious appearing of the great God and our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us " — " that 
 He might purify unto Himself ^people for a possession,*^ 
 
 Israel, according to one metaphor, was God's son, be- 
 gotten by that great redeeming act of deliverance from 
 the captivity of Egypt. (Deut. xxxii. 6-19.) According 
 to another metaphor, Israel was God's bride, wooed and 
 won for His own by that same act. Both of which just 
 point to the thought that in order to get man for 
 His own He has to give Himself to man. The very 
 height and sublimity of that truth is found in the 
 Christian fact which the Apostle points to here. We 
 need not depart from human analogies here either. Christ 
 gave Himself to us that He might get us for Himself. 
 Absolute possession of others is only possible at the price 
 of absolute surrender to them. No human heart ever gave 
 itself away unless it was convinced that the heart to which 
 it gave itself had given itself to it. 
 
 On the lower levels of human experience the only thing 
 that binds one man to another in utter submission is the 
 conviction that that other has given himself in absolute 
 sacrifice for him. A doctor goes into the wards of an 
 hospital with his life in his hands, and because he does he 
 wins the respect, confidence, and affection of all that are 
 there. You cannot buy a heart with anything less than a 
 heart. In the barter of the world it is not skin for skin, 
 but it is self for self. If you want to own me, you must give 
 yourself altogether to me ; and the measure in which 
 teachers, and guides, and preachers and philanthropists of 
 all sorts make conquests of men is the measure in which 
 ihey make themselves sacrifices for meru 
 
 Q2 
 
228 GOD'S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN. 
 
 All that is true, and is lifted to its superlative truth, in 
 the great central fact of the Christian faith. But there is 
 more than human analogy here. Christ is not only self- 
 sacrifice in the sense of surrender, but He is sacrifice in 
 the sense of giving Himself for our propitiation and for- 
 giveness. He has not only given Himself to us, He has 
 given Himself for us. And there, and on that, is builded, 
 and on that alone has He a right to build, or have we a 
 right to yield, Hifl claim of absolute authority over each 
 of us. 
 
 He has died for us, therefore the springs of onr life are 
 at His disposal ; and the strongest motives which can 
 sway our wills are set in motion by His touch. His death, 
 says this text, redeems us from iniquity and purifies us. 
 That points to its power in delivering us from the service 
 and practice of sin. He buys us from the despot whose 
 slaves we were, and makes us His own in the hatred of 
 evil and the doing of righteousness. Moved by His death, 
 we become capable of heroisms and martyrdoms of devo- 
 tion to Him. Brethren ! It is only as that self-sacrificing 
 love touches us, which died for our sins upon the Crosp, 
 that the diabolical chain of selfishness shall be broken 
 from our affections and our wills, and we shall be led " into 
 a large place " of glad surrender of ourselves to the sweet- 
 ness and the gentle authority of His omnipotent love. 
 
 III. — The last thought which I suggest is the issues to 
 which the mutual possession points. God owns men, and is 
 owned by them, in order that there may be a giving and 
 receiving of mutual services of love. 
 
 " The Lord's portion is His people." That in the Old 
 Testament is always laid as the foundation of certain 
 obligations under which Ht has come, and which He will 
 abundantly discharge. What is a great landlord expected 
 to do to his estate ? " What ought I to have done to my 
 Tineyard ? " the Divine Proprietor asks through the mouth 
 
GOD'S TRUi: TREASURE IN MAW. 229 
 
 of Hie servant the prophet. He ought to till it, He onght 
 not to starve it ; He ought to fence it ; He ought to cast a 
 wall about it ; He ought to reap the fruits. And He does 
 all that for His inheritance. God's honour is concerned in 
 His portion not being waste. It is not to be a garden of 
 the sluggard, by which people who pass can see the thorns 
 growing there. So He will till it, He will plough it, He 
 will pick out the weeds ; and all the discipline of life will 
 come to ns ; and the ploughshare will be driven deep into 
 the heart that " the peaceable fruit of righteousness" may 
 spring up. He will fence His vineyard. Round about 
 His inheritance His hand will be cast ; within His people 
 His spirit will dwell. No harm shall come near thee if 
 thy love is given to Him. Safe and untouched by evil, 
 thou Shalt walk if thou walk with God. " He that toucheth 
 you toucheth the apple of Mine eye." The soul that trusts 
 Him He accepts in pledge, and before any evil can befall 
 it He must be overcome by a stronger than He, who can 
 take away from Him ,His goods, " He is able to keep that 
 which I have committed unto Him against that day." 
 " The Lord's portion is His people ;" and " none shall 
 pluck them out of His hand." 
 
 And on the other side. What do we owe to God, as be- 
 longing to Him ? What does the vineyard owe the 
 husbandman ? Fruit. We are His, therefore we are 
 bound to absolute submission. " Ye are not your own.** 
 Life, circumstances, occupations, all ; we hold them at 
 His will. We have no more right of property in 
 anything than a slave in the bad old days had in his 
 cabin and patch of ground. They belonged to the master 
 to whom he belonged. Let us recognise our stewardship, 
 and be glad to know ourselves His, and all events and 
 things which we sometimes think ours, to be His also. 
 
 We are His, therefore we owe absolute trust. The slave 
 has at least this blessing in his lot, that he need have no 
 
230 GOD'S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN. 
 
 anxieties. Nor need we. We belong to God, and He will 
 take care of us. A rich man's horses and dogs are well cared 
 for, and our Owner will not leave us unheeded. Our well- 
 being involves His good name. Leave anxious thought to 
 masterless hearts which have to front the world with nobody 
 at their backs. If you are God's you will be looked after. 
 
 We are His, therefore we are bound to live to His praise. 
 That is the conclusion which one Old Testament passage 
 draws. " This people have I formed for Myself ; they 
 shall show forth My praise." (Isaiah xliii. 21.) The 
 Apostle Peter quotes these words immediately after those 
 from Exodus, which describe Israel as " a people for God's 
 own possession" — "that ye should show forth the praises 
 of Him who hath called you." Let us then live to His 
 glory, and remember that the servants of the king are 
 bound to stand to their colours amid rebels, and that they who 
 know the sweetness of possessing God and the blessedness 
 of yielding to His supreme control should tell what they 
 have found of His goodness, and '* show forth the honour 
 of His name, and make His praise glorious." Let not all 
 the magnificent and wonderful expenditure of Divine 
 longing and love be in vain, nor run off your hearts like 
 water poured upon a rock. Surely the Sun's flames leap- 
 ing leagues high, they tell us, in tongues of bui-ning gas, 
 must melt everything that is near them. Shall we keep 
 our hearts sullen and cold before such a fire of love ? 
 Surely that superb and wonderful manifestation of the 
 love of God in the Cross of Christ should melt into running 
 rivers of gratitude all the ice of our hearts. 
 
 " He gave Himself for me I " Let us turn to Him and 
 say : " Lo 1 I give myself to Thee. Thou art mine. Make 
 me Thine by the constraint of Thy love, so utterly, and so 
 saturate my spirit with Thyself, that it shall not only be 
 Thine, but in a very deep sense it shall be Thee, and that it 
 may be no more I that live, but Chi-ist that liveth in me.** 
 
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE INHERIT- 
 ANCE—GOD'S IN US, AND OURS IN GOD. 
 
BERMON XVIIL 
 
 »HB PRESENT AND THE FUTURE rNHBRITAWC»— 
 OOD'S IH US AND DUES IN GOD. 
 
 " Which la the earnert of oar Inheritance until the redemption of the p«rnhe«l 
 
 poeaesaion." Ephos 1. 14. 
 
 I HAVE chosen these words this morning, and ventured 
 to isolate them from their connection because of their bear- 
 ing upon the subject of our last two sermons. You will 
 observe that the Apostle here is evidently intending to 
 bring together the two aspects of the reciprocal possession 
 of God by believers, and of believers by God, which has 
 occupied us in these discourses. 
 
 " The Holy Spirit of promise," given to all who believe, 
 iB here declared to dwell in and to seal believers as 
 the " earnest " of their " inheritance " ; whilst, on the other 
 hand, that sealing is declared to last until— or, as seemB 
 more probably the rendering of the proposition here, to be 
 done with a view unto — the full redemption of God's 
 purchased " possession." So that the two halves of the 
 thought are intentionally brought together in these words 
 of our text. And about both of them— God's possession of 
 as and our possession of Goil — it is asserted or implied, that 
 
2M THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERITANCB. 
 
 they are partially realised here, and are to be realised 
 more fully in the future. 
 
 An " earnest " is a portion of the estate which is paid 
 over to the purchaser on the completion of the purchase, 
 as the token that all is his and will come into his hands 
 in due time. Like that part of a man's wages given to 
 him in advance when he is engaged ; like the shilling put 
 into the hand of a recruit ; like the half-crown given to 
 the farm-servant at the hiring-fair ; like the bit of turf 
 that in some old ceremonials used to be solemnly pre- 
 sented to the sovereign on his investiture ; it is a portion 
 of the whole possession, the same in kind, but a very tiny 
 portion, which yet carries with it the acknowledgment of 
 ownership and the assurance of full possession. 
 
 So, says my text, the Spirit of God is the " earnest of 
 the inheritance," a small portion of it granted to us to-day, 
 and the pledge that all shall be granted in the future. 
 And the same idea of present imperfection is suggested in 
 the corresponding clause, which speaks about God's entire 
 purchase (for such is the emphasis in the original) of His 
 possession as also a thing of the future. 
 
 So then here are the three points that I purpose to 
 consider ; first, the imperfect present ; second, the present, 
 imperfect as it is, still a guarantee and pledge of the future ; 
 and lastly, the perfect future which is the outcome of the 
 imperfect present. 
 
 I. — First a word about this imperfect present, which is 
 put here as being on the one side the earnest of our inheri- 
 tance, and on the other side as being God's partial acquisi- 
 tion of us as His Possession. 
 
 Now, you may remember, perhaps, that in the former 
 sermons I said that we possess God in the measure in 
 which we know Him, love Him, and have communion 
 and sympathy with Him. These things, knowledge, love, 
 communion, sympathy, make a very real and a very 
 
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHEIRITANCE. 235 
 
 precious possession of God, and he who has God thus has 
 II im as truly, though not as perfectly, as the angels in 
 Heaven that bow before His throne. 
 
 But though that is true, there is yet another aspect of 
 this possession of God suggested in the words of my text. 
 The Holy Spirit of promise comes to every man that 
 believes in Jesus Christ, and enters into his heart and 
 becomes his. That is the truest way in which man possesses 
 God. The greatest gift that my faith brings down to me 
 from Heaven is the gift of an indwelling Spirit — of an 
 indwelling God. For the Spirit of God is God. He that 
 has God in his heart by the dwelling there, in mystic 
 reality, of the Divine Spirit, possesses Him as truly as he 
 possesses love or memory, imagination or hope. 
 
 There can be no possession deeper, none greater, none 
 more real than the possession w^hich every one of us may 
 have of an indwelling God for our life and our peace. It 
 passes all human analogy. Love gives us the ownership, 
 most really and most sweetly, of the hearts that we love ; 
 but after all the yearning desires for union, and experience 
 of oneness in sympathy, the awful wall of partition be- 
 tween spirits remains. Life may, and death must, separate, 
 but he that has God's Divine Spirit with him, has God for 
 the life of his life and the soul of his soul. And we 
 possess Him when, by faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit of 
 God dwells in our hearts. 
 
 But most real and most blessed as that union and pes- 
 session is, my text tells us it is incomplete. 
 
 I need not dwell upon that in order to prove it ; I only 
 want to apply and urge the truth for a moment. We have 
 an Infinite Spirit to dwell with us ; how finite and little 
 is our possession of it 1 The Spirit of God is set forth in 
 Scripture under the symbol of " a rushing, mighty wind,*' 
 and you and I say that we are Christ's, and that we have 
 Him^ How does it come, then, that our sails flap idly on 
 
236 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERITANCE. 
 
 the mast, and we lie becalmed, and making next to no 
 progress ? The Spirit of God is set forth in Scripture 
 under the symbol of " flaming tongues of fire," and you 
 and I say that we have it ; how is it, then, that this thick- 
 ribbed ice is round our hearts, and our love is all so tepid ? 
 The Spirit of God is set forth in Scripture under the sym- 
 bol of "rivers of water"; and you and I say that we 
 possess it. How is it, then, that so much of our hearts 
 and of onr natures is given up to barrenness, and dryness, 
 and deadness ? Oh, brethren, with an Infinite Spirit for 
 our Guest and Indweller, any of us that look at our own 
 hearts must feel that my text is too surely true, and that 
 the present possession of God by the best of ns is but a 
 partial and incomplete possession. 
 
 And the same facts of wavering faith, cold affection, 
 and imperfect consecration which show how little we 
 have of God, show likewise how little God has of us. 
 We say that we are His, and live to please ourselves. 
 We profess to belong to another, and to that other we 
 render fragments, of ourselves, and scarcely even frag- 
 ments of our time and of our efforts. His ! and yet all 
 day long never thinking of Him. His I and yet from morn- 
 ing till night never refraining from a thing because we 
 know it is contrary to His will, or spurred to do a thing 
 that is contrary to ours because we know it is His. His ! 
 and yet we wallow in selfishness. His I and yet we live 
 Godless. Christian men and women I it is only a little 
 corner of your souls that really belongs to God. Alas, 
 alas I for the imperfections and incompleteness of our 
 possession of God, of Whom w^e hold but the merest shred, 
 and of His possession of us, Who has conquered such a 
 little strip of the whole field of our nature. 
 
 Now, do not forget that this incompleteness of posses- 
 sion, looked at in both aspects, is to a certain extent 
 inevitable »ncl must go with ud all through life. And bo 
 
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHBRITANCH. 237 
 
 do not let any of us rush precipitately to the conclusion 
 that we are not Christians because we find what poor 
 Christians we are. Do not let us say — " If there were 
 any reality in my faith, it would he, not a dotted line, but 
 one continuous and unbroken." Do not let us write bitter 
 things against ourselves, because we find that we have 
 only got " the earnest of the inheritance," and that the 
 Inheritance has not yet come. 
 
 And, on the other hand, do not make a pillow for lazi- 
 ness of that most certain truth, nor, because there must 
 always be imperfections in the Christian career here, apply 
 that as an excuse for the individual instances of imper- 
 fection as they crop up. You know, when you are honest 
 with yourselves, that each breach of continuity in your 
 faith and obedience might have been prevented. You 
 know that there was no inevitable necessity for your doing 
 that piece of badness that rises in your memory ; that 
 there was no reason that could not have been overcome, 
 for any failure of consecration or wavering of faith or act 
 of disobedience and rebellion which has ever marked your 
 course. Granted, that imperfection is the law, but also remem- 
 ber that the individual instances of imperfection are to be 
 debited not to law, but to us, and are not to be lamented 
 over as inevitable, though painful, issues of our condition, 
 but to be confessed as sins. " My fault, Lord 1 my fault 
 and mine only." 
 
 Many Christian people forget that if our present condi- 
 tion be, as it certainly is, necessarily imperfect, it ought 
 also to be, and it will be, if there be any vital force of 
 Christian principle within us, constantly and indofiiiitely 
 approximating to the ideal standard of perfection that 
 gleams there ahead of us. Or, to put it int^. plainer 
 English, if you have life you will grow. If there be any 
 real possession of the inheritance, it will be like the roll- 
 ing fences that they used to have in certain parts of the 
 
238 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERIT AJJCB. 
 
 conntry, -where a squatter settled himself down upon a 
 bit of a royal forest, and had a hedge that could be moved 
 outwards and shifted on by degrees ; till from having 
 begun with a little bit big enough for a cabbage garden, 
 he ended with a piece big enough for a farm. 
 
 And that is what we are always to do, to be always 
 acquiring, " adding field to field " in the great inheritance 
 that is ours. But a mournfully large number of professing 
 Christians have lost the very notion of progress; and con- 
 tent themselves with saying : " Oh 1 we shall always be 
 imperfect. As long as we are here in this world we cannot 
 make ourselves different." No I you cannot make your- 
 selves perfect, but if you are not growing at all, I would 
 pray you to ask yourselves if you are living at all. Do 
 not be content, as so many of you are, to be like invaders, 
 who, after years of occupation, are unable to advance 
 beyond the strip of shore which they seized at first, while 
 all the interior lies unconquered and in arms against them. 
 
 So remember that if we have any real possession of God 
 or God of us, it will not only be an imperfect possession, 
 but an imperfect possession daily becoming more complete. 
 
 II. — Now turn to the second thought here — that this 
 imperfect present, in its very imperfection, is a prophecy 
 and a pledge of a perfect future. The " earnest of our 
 inheritance'* points on to the full "redemption of the 
 purchased possession." 
 
 The facts of Christian experience are such as that they 
 inevitably lead up to the conclusion that there is a life be- 
 yond. All that is good and blessed about religion, our faith, 
 the joy that comes from our faith, the sweetness of com- 
 munion, the aspiration after the increase of fellowship with 
 Him ; all these, to the man that enjoys them, are the best 
 proof that they are going to last for ever, and that death can 
 have no power over them. " Like thoughts whose very 
 •weetness yieldeth proof that they are bom for immortalitv," 
 
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERITANCE. 239 
 
 To love, to know, to reach the hands out through the 
 shows of time and sense, and to grasp an unseen reality 
 that lies away beyond, is, to any man that has ever expe- 
 rienced the emotion and done the thing, one of the strong- 
 est of all demonstrations that nothing belonging to this 
 dusty low region of the physical can touch that immortal 
 aspiration that knits him to God ; but that whatsoever may 
 befall the husk and shell of him, his faith, his love, his 
 obedience, his consecration, are eternal, and may laugh at 
 death and the grave. And I believe that even to the men 
 who have not that experience, the fact of religious emotion, 
 the fact of worship, ought to be one of the best demons- 
 trations of a future life. 
 
 But I pass that with these simple remarks, and touch 
 another thing ; the very incompleteness of our possession 
 of God, and of God's possession of us, points onwards to, 
 and, as it seems to me, demands a future. The imperfec- 
 tion, as well as the present attainments of our Christian 
 experience, proclaim a coming time. That we are no 
 better than we are, being as good as we are, seems to make 
 it inconceivable that this evidently half-done work is 
 going to be broken off short at the side of the grave. 
 
 Here is a certain force acting in a man's nature, the 
 power of God's good Spirit, evidently capable of producing 
 effects of entire transformation. Such being the cause, 
 who, looking at the effects, can doubt that sometime and 
 somewhere there will be less disproportion between the 
 two ? The engine is evidently not working full power. 
 The characters of Christians at the best are so inconsistent 
 and contradictory that they are evidently only in the 
 making. It is clear that we are looking at unfinished 
 work, and surely the great Master Builder who has laid 
 Buch a foundation-stone tried and precious, will not begin 
 to build and be unable to finish. Every Christian life, at 
 its best and noblest, shows, as it were, the ground plan 
 
240 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHBRITANOB. 
 
 of a great structure partly carried out — a bit of walling 
 here, vacancy there, girders spanning wide spaces, but 
 gaping for a roof, a chaos and a confusion. It may look 
 a thing of shreds and patches, and they that pass by the 
 way begin to mock. But the very fact that it is incom- 
 plete prophesies to wise men, of the day when the 
 teadstone shall be brought with shouting, and the flag 
 hoisted on the roof tree. Fools and children, says the 
 proverb, should not see half-done work — certainly they 
 should not judge it. 
 
 Wait a bit. There comes a time when tendencies shall 
 be facts, and when influences shall have produced their 
 appropriate effects ; and when all that is partial and bro- 
 ken shall be consummate and entire in the Kingdom 
 beyond the stars. Wait ! and be sure that the good and 
 the bad, so strangely blended in Christian experience, are 
 alike charged with the prophecy of a glorious and perfect 
 future. 
 
 III. — Then, lastly, my text in the one clause asserts, and 
 in the other implies, that the future is the perfecting of 
 the present. 
 
 The " earnest " points onwards to an inheritance the 
 same in kind, but immensely greater in degree. The 
 "redemption of the possession" is a somewhat singular 
 expression ; for we are accustomed to regard the great act 
 of redemption as already past in the sacrifice of Christ 
 upon the Cross. But the expression is employed here, as 
 in several other places, to express not so much the act of 
 purchase, the paying of the price of our salvation, which 
 is done once for all and long ago, as the historical working 
 out of the results of that price paid in the entire deliver- 
 ance of the whole nature of man from every form of cap- 
 tivity to anything that would prevent his full possession 
 by God. 
 
 A very essential part of that entire deliverance is that 
 
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERITANCH 243 
 
 which the Apostle calls the redemption of the body (Rom. 
 viii, 23), and which he there puts in contrast with the 
 present possession of the ^'first-fruits of the Spirit," as 
 here the redemption is contrasted with the earnest of the 
 Spirit. That full deliverance takes place, according to 
 this Epistle (iv. 30) at a definite future period, called 
 therefore, " the day of redemption," which is, I suppose, 
 the time when the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, in 
 the Resurrection-glory shall be delivered from every form 
 of evil, limitation, and sin ; and shall be lifted up into the 
 full light and knowledge of God. Tlien God will possess 
 men, when the whole man is capable of holding or 
 possessing God. Then redemption will be completed in 
 effect, which was completed in cause and in purchase 
 when He said : " It is finished," and bowed His head and 
 died. 
 
 Time will not allow me to dwell upon the many 
 thoughts involved here. One is that the main hope and 
 glory of that future is the perfect possession of and by 
 God. 
 
 " We shall know even as we are known." *' Through a 
 glass darkly, but then face to face," says Paul, suggesting 
 great changes in the degree of our knowledge of, and 
 friendly communion with, God, but also seeming to imply 
 some unknown changes in the manner of our beholding, 
 which may be connected with the new powers of that 
 "body of glory " like our Lord's which will then be ours. 
 It is quite conceivable that the physical universe may 
 have qualities as real as light and heat, and scent and 
 sound, which we could appreciate if we had other senses 
 appropriate, as we have sight and touch, and smell and 
 hearing. And so it is quite conceivable that when clothed 
 upon with our " house which is from Heaven," which will 
 have a great many more windows in it than the earthly 
 house of this tabernacle, which is built for stormy weather, 
 
 B 
 
242 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE LNHERITANOB. 
 
 there will be sides and aspects of the Divine nature that 
 we do not know anything about to-day which shall be 
 communicable and communicated to us. 
 
 Be that as it may, a deeper knowledge, a fixed love, an 
 unbroken communion, with all distractions and interrup- 
 tions swept clean away for ever, so that we shall dwell for 
 evermore in the House of the Lord, these are the plain 
 elements which make the very Heaven of heavens, and 
 which ought to make the joy of our hope. In the measure 
 in which we know and love Him, in that measure shall 
 we be known and loved by Him. He and we shall be so 
 interwoven as that we shall be inseparable. We shall 
 cleave to God and God shall cleave to ub. 
 
 Oh I how small and insignificant all other notions of a 
 future life are as compared with that I The accidents of 
 locality and circumstance should ever be kept subordinate 
 in the pictures which imagination may draw of what is 
 beheld through " the gates ajar " by " little pilgrims in the 
 unseen." The representations which seem to aim at 
 making another world as like this one as may be, dwarf 
 its greatness, and tend to obscure the conditions of entering 
 into its rest. " It doth not yet appear what we shall be " 
 is as much a revelation as *' When He shall appear we shall 
 be like Him." As a great painter concentrates finish and 
 light on the face of his sitter, and purposely keeps the 
 rest of the picture slight, there is one face that should 
 fill the dim, dark curtain of the future — the face of Christ, 
 and all else may be thrown in in mere sketchy outline. We 
 know that future chiefly by negations and by symbols, 
 and the one positive fact is that we shall have Him and 
 He will possess ns. It is enough for the disciple that he 
 be as, and that he be with and have, his Master. 
 
 It is a solemn thought that this ultimate perfect posseB- 
 Bion of and by God is evolved from a germ which must 
 be planted now if it is to flourish there. ** The child is 
 
THB PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERITANCE. 243 
 
 father of the man." Every present is the result of all the 
 past ; every future will be the result of the past and the 
 present. Everybody admits that about this lif e^ but there 
 are some of us that seem to forget it with regard to another 
 world. 
 
 We know too little of the effect that is produced upon 
 men by the change of death to dogmatise ; but one may be 
 quite sure that the law of continuity will go on into the 
 other world. Or, to put it into plainer English, a man on 
 the other side of the grave will be the same as he was on 
 this side. The line will run straight on ; it may be slightly 
 refracted by passing from an atmosphere of one density to 
 another of a diJierent, but it will be very slightly. The 
 main direction will be the same. 
 
 What is there in death that can change a man's will f 
 I can fancy death making an idiot wise, because idiocy 
 comes from physical causes. I can fancy death giving 
 people altogether dilTerent notions of the folly of sin ; but 
 I do not know anything in the physical fact of death, or 
 in the accompanying alterations that it produces upon 
 spiritual consciousness, in so far as they are known to us, 
 that can alter the dominant bias and set of a man's nature. 
 It seems to me more likely that it will intensify that domi- 
 nant bias, whatever it is ; that good men will become 
 better, and bad men worse when the limitations of incom- 
 plete organs are gone. At all events, do not run risks 
 with such a very shaky hypothesis as that death will 
 change the main direction of your life ; but remember that 
 what a man sows he shall reap, that the present is the 
 parent of the future, and that unless we have the earnest 
 of the inheritance here, and pass into the other world, bear- 
 ing that earnest in our hands, there seems little reason 
 why we should expect that, when we stand before Him 
 empty-handed, we can claim a portion therein. 
 
 I was passing a little town garden a day or two ago, of 
 B2 
 
244 THE PRESENT AND FUTURE INHERITANCE. 
 
 which the owner had got a young weeping willow that he 
 had put in the plot in front of his door. He had bent 
 down its branches and put them round the hoop of an old 
 wine-cask to teach them to droop. And after a bit, when 
 they have been set, he will take away the hoop, but though 
 it be gone the branches will never spring upwards, wher- 
 ever you transplant the tree. 
 
 Are you doing that with your souls ? If you give them 
 the downward set they will keep it, though the earth to 
 which you have fastened them be burnt up with fervent 
 heat, and the soul be transplanted into another region. 
 
 Let me beseech you to yield yourself to God in Christ, 
 and by faith, love, and true submission, to take Him for 
 your treasure and your King. Then Heaven will perfect 
 the partial knowledge and incomplete seivice of earth, and 
 will be the consumn^ation and not the contradiction of 
 your life here. Let it be true of you that there is none on 
 earth whom you desire beside God, and it will be true 
 thftt He will be for you the very Heaven of heavens ! 
 
THE SEKVANT OF THE LORD AND HI^ 
 BLESSING. 
 
SERMON XIX. 
 
 THB SERVANT OP THE LORD AND HIS BLESSINQ. 
 
 " Unto you flrst, Gkxi, having raised up His Servant, sent Him to bless you, in tur» 
 ing away every one of you from your iniquities." Acts iii. 26 (Revised Version). 
 
 Six weeks passed between the Crucifixion and Pentecost. 
 The incidents recorded in this chapter must certainly 
 have occurred very soon, if not immediately, after the Day 
 of Pentecost. The entire revolution in the whole tone 
 and bearing of the disciples, in that short space of a couple 
 of months, is a problem that needs accounting for. The 
 greatness of the change is nowhere more conspicuous than 
 in the instance of the Apostle Peter himself — two monthg 
 before, frightened out of all his faith by a saucy maid- 
 servant and a few hangers-on at Pilate's court ; two 
 months before, having buried all his hopes in his Master's 
 grave ; and now grown all at once into a hero, with 
 altogether a new insight into Christian truth. How had it 
 all come about ? Is it to be believed that nothing had 
 happened but Christ's death ? How could that have cleared 
 and strengthened these men's conceptions and faith ? 
 How could that have bound them far more closely to- 
 
248 THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING. 
 
 gether than ever they had been before ? Something it 
 wanted to account for the change. 
 
 If you bring in the Resurrection and the Ascension, 
 and the gift of the Holy Spirit, you get an adequate ex- 
 planation. If you try to get rid of these for the sake of 
 eliminating the supernatural from the history, you get rid 
 of the supernatural, and you make it unnatural ; a psy- 
 chological contradiction, in blank, staring antagonism to 
 all the possibilities of the action of sane men. 
 
 These words come out of one of the three addresses 
 belonging to this period, which are preserved for us in 
 the Book of the Acts— addresses which, in certain respects, 
 are unlike both what the Apostles said and thought before, 
 and what they said and thought afterwards. They bear 
 traces of a transition period ; and the facts that we meet 
 in them some forms of speech which we do not find at a 
 subsequent period, and that also we do not meet in them 
 some teaching that afterwards appeared in the course of 
 the development of Christian doctrine, are very valuable 
 evidence that these are authentic records of the first days 
 of the Church. 
 
 I. — In dealing with these words, we may notice first, 
 the boldness and loftiness of the claim which is here 
 made for Jesus Christ. 
 
 Long ago Peter had said, " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
 of the living God." And as long as Jesus Christ had been 
 with them none of them had wavered in that belief : but 
 the Cross shattered all that for a time ; and the sad-faced 
 two that went down to Emmaus represented accurately 
 the feelings of all their brethren when they said, with 
 such a bitter emphasis upon the past tense : " We trusted 
 that it had been He that should have redeemed Israel." 
 In the interval between the death and resurrection, Jebus 
 Christ was in the same category as "Theudas wi»ich had 
 boasted himself to be somebody, and was slain and ali 
 
THE tiEitVAJST AKD M18 BLESiSlJSG 249 
 
 as many as obeyed him. were scattered and brought to 
 nought." (Acts V. 36.) There had been plenty of pre- 
 tenders to the Messiahship, and death had disposed of all 
 their claims. And so it would have been with Christ ; 
 and you would never have heard anything about Him 
 unless He had risen from the dead. But the faith and 
 hope in His Messiahship which had died with Him on 
 the Cross, rose with Him to newness of life — crucified in 
 weakness, and raised in strength and glory — as we see 
 from such words as these of Peter here, in which he pro- 
 claims with new meaning and emphasis the mission of 
 his Master : — " God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent 
 Him to bless you." 
 
 Now the characteristic of these early addresses contained 
 in the second, third, and fourth chapters of the Acts, is 
 the clear decisiveness with which they put forward Christ 
 as the fulfilment of Jewish prophecy. It seems as if the 
 Cross and the Resurrection had poured a flood of light 
 on the Old Testament. Psalm and prophecy assume new 
 significance. Lawgiver and monarch have a new purpose. 
 They point onwards to Him, and " all they that go before 
 cry, Hosanna, blessed be He that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord." If we could read these discourses 
 with sympathy for the speaker, and think of them as the 
 eager words of a man awed and surprised and gladdened as 
 the new light floods his mind, we should know them better. 
 To ns they are rigid and cold, like iron bars ; but they 
 were all hot and fluid when they poured from his lips 
 like metal from the furnace. 
 
 Almost every word here has reference to some great 
 utterance of the past, which now for the first time Peter is 
 beginning to understand. 
 
 For instance, " God. having raised up His Son Jesus.'* 
 Now in these words there is no reference to the Resurrec- 
 tion, but if you look back for a verse or two you will see 
 
250 THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING. 
 
 what there is a reference to. " Moses truly said nnto the 
 fathers : A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto 
 you of your brethren, like unto me ; Him shall ye hear in 
 all things whatsoever He shall say unto you." And what 
 can be more clear here than that the Apostle is claiming 
 that the ancient prophecy of a prophet like unto his 
 brethren, raised up by God, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ ? 
 Now that prediction fi-om the Pentateuch, no doubt, refers 
 to the prophetic order, and the word, " a prophet," is not 
 primarily a singular, meaning an individual, but a collec- 
 tive, meaning a class. But still the order does not come 
 np to the ideal of the prophecy — as was seen even before 
 a person appeared who did. For the appendix to the 
 Book of Deuteronomy is plainly referring to the prophecy, 
 and declaring the shortcomings of the whole prophetic 
 order when it sadly says, " And there arose not a prophet 
 since in Israel like unto Moses." When these words were 
 added we do not know. Evidently they presuppose the 
 existence of a series of prophets extending through a con- 
 siderable period, and if we adopted modern theories of 
 the date of the book, these would increase the significance 
 of these last words, considered as the verdict of experience 
 on the inferiority of all the prophets to the great law-giver 
 in certain specified respects. That saying at the close of 
 the book of the law is a confession of unfulfilled hopes 
 which still burn on, though disappointed for weary years, 
 and still spread before God His own promise as in unspoken 
 prayer that He would accomplish His own word on which 
 He had caused men to hope. And it seems a perfectly 
 legitimate position to say that the prophetic order itself 
 was a prophecy by reason of the very incompleteness of 
 the noble men who composed it, and that not only by 
 their words, but by their office and by their limitations, 
 they pointed onwards to Him who is the perfect Revealer 
 of God to man, the perfect Inspirer, to whom God gives 
 
THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING. 251 
 
 not His Spirit by measure, nor at intervals, and who not 
 only, like the great law-giver, beheld God face to face, but 
 from the beginning dwelt in the bopom of the Father 
 and therefore declares Him perfectly to men. The manifold 
 methcds and fragmentary portions of the revelations to 
 the prophetic order are surpassed by the one final and 
 complete uttejance in the Son, given to the world for ever- 
 more as noon day outshines the twilight dawn. He is 
 chief of the prophets as He is Prince of all the kings of 
 the earth and the Priest. And all this is hinted and 
 implied in that one significant and pregnant word : " God, 
 having raised up His Son." 
 
 Another great claim for Christ is suggested by that 
 other word " His Son Jesus." Now those of you who use 
 the Revised Version will see that for " Son " is substituted 
 "Servant," and rightly. This is not the place to enter 
 into any discussion of the reasons for that change, but I 
 may just perhaps in tw^o or three sentences explain it suf- 
 ficiently to my hearers who do not follow the original. 
 The Greek word, then, w^hich our Authorised Version 
 translates " Son " and the Revised Version translates 
 " Servant " means, literally, a " boy " or a " child," and like 
 our own English equivalent, is sometimes used with the 
 meaning of " a servant." For instance, we talk about " a 
 boy," or "a maid," or "a man," meaning thereby to 
 express the fact of service in a graceful and gentle way ; 
 to cover over the harsher features of authority. So the 
 centurion in Matthew^'s Gospel, when he comes to Christ 
 and asks Him to heal his little page, calls him " his boy," 
 which our Bible properly translates as "servant," — ^the 
 same word that is employed here. The reasons for adopt- 
 ing " servant " here rather than " son " are these : that the 
 New Testament has a distinct expression for the " Son of 
 God," which is not the word employed here : and that the 
 Septuagint — ^the Greek version of the Old Testament — has 
 
252 THE SBRVAirr and his blessing. 
 
 the same expression which is employed here as the trane- 
 lation of the well-known phrase occurring especially in 
 Isaiah's prophecy, " the Servant of the Lord." 
 
 Now it is interesting to notice that this expression, " the 
 Servant of God," as applied to Jesus Christ, only occurs at 
 this period. We never find it earlier, we never find it 
 later. "We find it here and here only, in this sermon of 
 Peter's, and in some other words of his in the next chapter. 
 Altogether it occurs four times in these two chapters, and 
 never again Does not that look like the frequent repeti- 
 tion of a new thought which had just come to a man and 
 was taking up his whole mind for the time ? The Cross 
 and the Resurrection had opened his eyes to see that the 
 dim majestic figure that looked out on him from the 
 prophecy had had a historical existence in the dear Master 
 whom he had lived beside ; and we can almost perceive the 
 gladness and surprise swelling his heart as he thinks — 
 " Ah ! then He is ' My servant whom I upheld.' Of whom 
 speaketh the prophet this ? Wonder of wonders, it is of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, and we are His witnesses." It is not 
 strange that that name should be ever on his lips in these 
 lays. 
 
 If you turn to the second half of Isaiah's prophecies, you 
 rvill find that they might almost be called the biography 
 ^f the Servant of the Lord. And whilst I quite admit, in 
 the same way as I admitted about the " Prophet like unto 
 me," that the collective Israel is often intended by the 
 title " the Servant of the Lord," there remain other parts 
 of the prophecy — the shining summits of the table-land, 
 as it were — which cannot apply to any class, but have 
 distinctly a person for their subject, and which cannot 
 apply to any person but One, that is the Person that died 
 and lived again. 
 
 For instance, is there any fact in the history of any 
 community or any person which can correspond to the 
 
THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING/ 253 
 
 words, *• when His soul shall make an offering for sin He 
 shall see His seed " ? Who is it whose death is the birth 
 of His children, whom after His death He will see ? Who 
 is it whose death is His own voluntary act ? Who is it 
 whose death is a sacrifice for others' sin ? Who is it whose 
 days are protracted after death, and who carries out more 
 prosperously the pleasure of the Lord after He has died ? 
 Surely there is but One of whom these things, and many 
 more that are said of the Servant of the Lord, are true. 
 
 But that name on Peter's lips is not only a reference to 
 prophecy, but it is a very beautiful revelation of the im- 
 pression of absolute perfection which Christ's character 
 made. Here was a man that "had conipanied with Him 
 all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst 
 them," who knew Him through and through ; and the 
 impression made upon him, when he came to think of his 
 Master's life, was this : — " All the time that I saw Him 
 there was never a trace of anything but obedience. All 
 His life was pure and perfect submission to the Divine 
 will." Jesus asserted the same thing for Himself in many 
 words. No consciousness of sin or incompleteness ever 
 found utterance from His lips, but, on the other hand, 
 words unexampled in the serenity of their claim to abso- 
 lute purity : — " I do always the things that please Him ; " 
 " Which of you convinceth Me of sin ? " Strange claims 
 from one who is meek and lowly of heart ! Stranger still, 
 the world, not usually tolerant of pretensions to sanctity, 
 has allowed and endorsed the claim, and these humble 
 friends of His, who stood by and watched Him, who 
 summered and wintered with Him, bear eager witness to 
 His perfect life. 
 
 So the claim rises up into yet loftier regions ; for clearly 
 enough, a perfect and stainless man is either an impossible 
 monster or something more. And they that fully believe 
 that God's will was absolutely and exclusively and com- 
 
254 THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING. 
 
 pletely done by Jesus Christ, in all consistency, if they 
 will carry out their principles, must go a step further and 
 say, " He that perfectly did the Father's will was more 
 than one of us, stained and sinful men." There is one 
 biography, and there is but one, on the title-page of which 
 might be written, " Lo, I come. I delight to do Thy will, 
 my God," and the last page of which might truly bear, 
 ** He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth " 
 — and God and man, and Heaven with its attendant angels, 
 and hell with its baffled Prince, would attest the words. 
 
 II. — Now, turn to the next point that comes out of the 
 words before us, the dawning vision of a kingdom of 
 world-wide blessings. 
 
 Peter and all his brethren had had their full share of 
 Jewish prejudices. But I suppose that when they found 
 the tongues of fire sitting on their heads, and when they 
 found themselves speaking in so many different languages, 
 even they began to apprehend that they had been ia- 
 trusted with a w^orld-wide gospel ; and Pentecost taught 
 them, if it taught nobody else, that Christ's Kingdom was 
 to cover all the earth. The words before us mark very 
 clearly the growing of that consciousness of the world- 
 wide destination of the Gospel, while yet the Jewish pre- 
 rogative of precedence is firmly held. " Unto you first " 
 — that was the law of the apostolic working. But they 
 were beginning to learn that if there were a " first," there 
 must also be a '* second " ; and that the very words of 
 promise to the father of the nation which he had just 
 quoted pointed to " all the nations of the earth " being 
 blessed in the seed of Abraham. 
 
 If Israel was first to receive the blessing, it was only 
 that through Israel it might flow over into the whole 
 Gentile world. That is the true spirit of "Judaism," 
 which is so often spoken of as " narrow" and "exclusive." 
 There is nothing clearer in the Old Testament than that, 
 
THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING. 255 
 
 according to its view, the fire is kindled in Israel that it 
 may give warmth to all that are in the house ; and the 
 candle is lighted in Israel in order that it might shed light 
 on all the chambers of the world. Israel was the first re- 
 picient, in order that it might be the transmitter of God's 
 light and knowledge to all the world. That was the 
 genius of " Judaism," and that is Peter's faith here. 
 
 Then again what grand confidence is here ! What a 
 splendid audacity of faith it is for the Apostle with his 
 handful of friends to stand up in the face of his nation 
 to say : " This Man, whom you hung on a tree, is going 
 to be the blessing of the whole world." 
 
 Why ! it is like the old Roman story of putting up to 
 auction in the Forum the very piece of land that the 
 enemy's camp was pitched upon, whilst their tents were 
 visible over the wall. So magnificent was their confidence 
 that victory is certain. 
 
 And how did all that come ? Was all that heroism and 
 enthusiasm of confident success born out of the grave of a 
 dead man, do you think ? I do not believe it, and I do 
 not think anybody that has an eye for the probabilities 
 of human conduct will believe it. But the Resurrection 
 ■was the foundation of it, and explains it, as nothing else 
 can do. 
 
 III. — The last thing to be observed here is the purely 
 spiritual conception of what Christ's blessing is. "To 
 bless you in turning away every one of you from his 
 iniquities." 
 
 What has become of all the Jewish notions of the bless- 
 ings of Messiah's Kingdom ? Most of them, no doubt, had 
 faded away, as the meaning of and need for the Cross began 
 to be more clear, and the high and pure conception of 
 Christ's work which it teaches began to take definiteness 
 in their minds. That had not been the kind of kingdom 
 d which they had dreamed when they had sought to be 
 
256 THE SERVANT AND HIS BLI^SSINO. 
 
 first In it. But now the Cross had taught Peter that, as 
 he says in one of his other early discourses, Him hath 
 God raised up a Prince and a Saviour to give — strange 
 gift for a prince to have in his hand — " to give repentance 
 unto Israel, and remission of sins." 
 
 The heart, then, of Christ's work for the world is 
 deliverance from sin. That is what man needs most. 
 There are plenty of other remedies offered for the world's 
 ills — culture, art, new political and social arrangements, 
 progress of science and the like. God forbid that I should 
 say a word that might seem to depreciate these, but I tell 
 you, and your own consciences tell you, that the disease 
 goes deeper than these things can cure. The Bible diag- 
 noses the disease grimly and gravely, because it knows it 
 can cure it. You may as well try to put out Vesuvius 
 with a tea-spoonful of cold water as to cure the sickness 
 of humanity with anything that does not grapple with 
 the fundamental mischief, and that is a wicked heart. 
 There is only one Man that ever pretended He could deal 
 with that, and that is Jesus Christ. And it took Him all 
 His power to deal with it ; but He did it I And there is 
 only one way by which He could deal with it, and that 
 was by dying for it, and He did it ! So He has conquered. 
 
 " Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook ? " When 
 you can lead a crocodile out of the Nile with a bit of silk 
 thread round his neck, you will be able to overcome the 
 plague of the world, and that of your own heart, with 
 anything short of the great sacrifice made by Jesus Christ. 
 
 The one thing the world wants is the blessing He alone 
 can give it, and that blessing is deliverance from sin. No 
 man will understand Christ's Gospel unless He begins 
 there. I believe that the secret of most of the mistaken 
 and partial views of Christian truth lies here, that people 
 have not got into their hearts and consciences a sense 
 of their own sinfulness. And so you get a tepid, self- 
 
THE SERVANT AND HIS BLESSING. 257 
 
 sufficient and superficial Christianity ; and yon get 
 ceremonials, and high and dry morality, masquerading 
 nnder the gnise of religion : and you get Unitarian and 
 semi-Unitarian tendencies in churches and preachers and 
 thinkers. But if once there came a wholesome, living 
 consciousness of what is meant when men say " We are 
 sinners," all such mutilated Christianity would crumble 
 because it would be felt to be all inadequate to the needs 
 of the conscience. 
 
 So, brethren, I beseech yon, to put yourself in the right 
 place to understand the Gospel by the recognition of that 
 fact. But do not stop there. More than the right under- 
 standing of Christianity is at stake. It is a matter of life 
 and death for you to put yourselves in the right place to 
 receive Christ's richest blessing. You can only do that 
 by feeling in your own conscience the fact of your own 
 personal sin, and so coming to Him to do for you what 
 you cannot do for yourselves, and no one but He can do 
 for you— deliver you from your sins by His forgiving love, 
 and turn you from the inclination to them by His sancti- 
 fying Spirit. 
 
 And notice how strongly the text puts the individuality 
 of this process. " Every one " — or rather " each one " — 
 singly to be turned, and so, as it were, universality 
 reached through the multitude of single souls. If all 
 kindreds of earth are to be blessed, they are to be blessed 
 one by one, as every one is turned from his iniquities. 
 The inadequate notions of Christianity that I have been 
 speaking about are all characterised by this amongst other 
 things : that they regard it as a social system diffusing 
 social blessings and operating on communities by eleva- 
 ting the general tone and quickening the public con- 
 science — and so on. Christianity does do that. But it be- 
 gins with dealing with men one by one, and men must deal 
 one by one with it, orthey will never get its highest blessings. 
 
 S 
 
258 THE SERVANT AND HIS BLBSSINO. 
 
 Christ is like a great King, who passing through the 
 streets of His capital scatters His largesse over the multi- 
 tude, but He reserves His richest gifts for the men that 
 enter His presence chamber. Even those of us who have 
 no close personal union with Him receive of His gifts. 
 Every man, woman, and child in England is better and 
 purer to-day because Christ died on the Cross. But for 
 their deepest needs and their highest blessings they must 
 go to Christ by their own personal faith. As the old 
 mystics defined prayer, so I might define faith : the flight 
 of the solitary soul to the only Christ. You must go to 
 Him by yourself and for yourself, and receive into your 
 own hands the blessing which is for the world. The straight 
 gate, like the wicket at some public hall, takes in one at 
 a time. Blessed be God I There is nothing to pay as 
 you pass through, and when you pass you enter into a 
 large place. 
 
THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN. 
 
SERMON X3L 
 
 THE GRADUAL HEALINO OF THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 "And Jesus cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto Him, and be- 
 •ouglit Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out 
 of the town ; and when He had spit on hia eyes, and put Hia hands upon him, He 
 asked him if he saw aught. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees walking. 
 After that He put His hands upon his eyes and made him look ap ; and he was restored 
 and saw every man clearly." Mark Till, 22-2f. 
 
 This miracle, which is only recorded by the Evangelist. 
 Mark, has about it several very peculiar features. Some 
 of these it shares with one other of our Lord's miracles, 
 which also is found only in this Gospel, and which 
 ocurred nearly about the same time ; that miracle of 
 healing the deaf and dumb man recorded in the previous 
 chapter. Both of them have these points in common : 
 that our Lord takes the sufferer apart and works His 
 miracle in privacy ; that in both there is an abundant use 
 of the same singular means — our Lord's touch, and the 
 saliva upon His finger ; and that in both there is the 
 urgent injunction of entire secrecy laid upon the recipient 
 of the benefit. 
 
 But this miracle had another peculiarity, in which it 
 stands absolutely alone, and that is that the work is done 
 in stages ; that the power which at other times has but to 
 speak and it is done, here seems to labour, and the cure 
 
262 THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THB BLIND MAN. 
 
 comes slowly ; that in the middle Christ pauses, and like 
 a physician trying the experiment of a drug, asks the 
 patient if any effect is produced, and getting the answer 
 that some mitigation is realised, repeats the application, 
 and perfect recovery is the result. 
 
 Now, how unlike that is to all the rest of Christ's 
 miraculous working we do not need to point out ; but the 
 question may arise, what is the meaning, and what the 
 reason, and what the lessons of this unique and anomalous 
 form of miraculous working ? It is to that question 
 that I wish to turn now : for I think that the 
 answer will open up to us some very precious things in 
 regard to that great Lord, the revelation of whose heart 
 and character is the inmost and the loftiest meaning both 
 of His words and of His works. 
 
 I take these three points of peculiarity to which I have 
 referred : the privacy, the strange and abundant use of 
 means veiling the miraculous power, and the gradual, slow 
 nature of the cure. I see in them these three things : 
 Christ isolating the man that He would heal ; Christ 
 stooping to the sense-bound nature by using outward 
 means ; and Christ making His power work slowly, to 
 keep abreast of the man's slow faith. 
 
 I. — First, then, here we have Christ isolating the man 
 whom He wanted to heal. Now, there may have been some- 
 thing about our Lord's circumstances and purposes at the 
 time of this miracle which accounted for the great urgency 
 with which at this period He impresses secrecy upon all 
 around Him. What that was it is not necessary for us to 
 enquire here, but this is worth noticing, that in obedience 
 to this wish, on His own part, for privacy at the time, He 
 covers over with a veil His miraculous working, and does 
 it quietly, as one might almost say, in a corner. He never 
 sought to display His miraculous working ; here He 
 absolutely tries to hide it. That fact of Christ taking pains 
 
THB GRADUAL HEALING OP THE BLIND MAN. 263 
 
 to conceal His miracle carries in it two great truths, first, 
 about the purpose and nature of miracles in general, and 
 second, about His character, as to each of which a few 
 words may be said. 
 
 This fact, of a miracle done in intended secrecy, and 
 shrouded in deep darkness, suggests to us the true point of 
 view from which to look at the whole subject of miracles. 
 
 People say they were meant to be attestations of His 
 Divine mission. Yes, no doubt that is true partially ; 
 but that was never the sole nor even the main purpose for 
 which they were wrought ; and when anybody asked 
 Jesus Christ to work a miracle for that purpose only, He 
 rebuked the desire and refused to gratify it. He wrought 
 the miracle, not coldly, in order to witness to His mission, 
 but every one of them was the token, because it was the 
 outcome, of His own sympiithetic heart, brought into con- 
 tact with human need. And instead of the miracles of 
 Jesus Christ being cold, logical proofs of His mission, 
 they were all glowing with the earnestness of a loving 
 sympathy, and came from Him at sight of sorrow as 
 naturally as rays from the sun. 
 
 Then, on the other hand, the same fact carries with it, 
 too, a lesson about His character. Is not He here doing 
 what He tells us to do ; " Let not thy left hand know 
 what thy right hand doeth ? " He dares not wrap His talent 
 in a napkin, He would be unfaithful to His mission if Ho 
 hid His light under a bushel. All goodness " does good 
 by stealth," even if it does not " blush to find it fame ** — 
 and that universal mark of true benevolence marked His. 
 He had to solve in His human life what we have to solve, 
 the problem of keeping the narrow path between ostenta- 
 tion of powers and selfish concealment of faculty ; and 
 He solved it thus, leaving us an example that we should 
 follow in His steps. 
 
 But that is somewhat aside from the main purpose to 
 
264 THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 which I wanted to turn in these first remarks. Christ did 
 not invest the miracle with any of its peculiarities for His 
 own sake only. All that is singular about it, will, I think, 
 find its best explanation in the condition and character of 
 the subject, the man on whom it was wrought. What sort 
 of a man was he ? Well, the narrative does not tell us 
 much, but if we use onr historical imagination and our 
 eyes we may learn something about him. First he was a 
 Gentile ; the land in which the miracle was wrought was 
 the half -heathen country on the east side of the Sea of 
 Galilee. In the second place, it was other people that brought 
 him ; he does not come of his own accord. Then again, it is 
 their prayer that is mentioned, not his — he asks nothing. 
 
 You see him standing there, hopeless, listless ; not 
 believing that this Jewish stranger is going to do anything 
 for him ; with his impassive blind face glowing with no 
 entreaty to re-enforce his companions' prayers. And suppose 
 he is a man of that sort, with no expectation of an3rthing 
 from this Rabbi, how is Christ to get at him ? It is no 
 use talking to him. His eyes are shut, so cannot see the 
 sympathy beaming in His face. There is one thing 
 possible — ^to lay hold of Him by the hand ; and the touch, 
 gentle, loving, firm, says this, at least : " Here is a man 
 that has some interest in me, and whether He can do any- 
 thing or not for me. He is going to try something.'* 
 Would not that kindle an expectation in him ? And is it 
 not in parable just exactly what Jesus Christ does for the 
 whole world ? Is not that act of His by which He put 
 out His hand and seized the unbelieving limp hand of the 
 blind man that hung by his side, the very same in princi- 
 ple as that by which He " taketh hold of the seed of 
 Abraham," and is made like to His brethren ? Is not the 
 mystery of the Incarnation and the meaning of it wrapped 
 up as in a germ in that little simple incident, " He put out 
 His hand and touched him ?" 
 
THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN. 2G5 
 
 Is there not in it too a lesson for all you good-hearted 
 Christian men and women, in all your work ? If you 
 want to do anything for your Master and brethren, there 
 is only one way to do it — to come down to their level and 
 get hold of their hands, and then there is some chance of 
 doing them good. We must be content to take the hands 
 of beggars if we are to make the blind to see. 
 
 And then, having thus drawn near to the man, and es- 
 tablished in his heart some dim expectation of something 
 coming. He gently draws him away out of the little village. 
 I wonder no painter has ever painted that, instead of re- 
 peating dd nauseam two or three scenes out of the 
 Gospels. I wonder none of them has ever seen what a 
 parable it is— the Christ leading the blind man out into 
 Bolitude before He can say to him " Behold ! " How as they 
 went, step by step, the poor blind eyes not telling the man 
 where they were going, or how far away he was being 
 taken from his friends, his conscious dependence upon this 
 stranger would grow I How he would feel more and more 
 at each step, " I am at His mercy ! What is He going to 
 do with me ? " And how thus there would be kindled in 
 his heart some beginnings of an expectation, as well as 
 some surrendering of himself to Christ's guidance I These 
 two things, the expectation and the surrender, have in 
 them, at all events some faint beginnings and rude germs 
 of the highest faith, to lead up to which is the purpose of 
 all that Christ here does. 
 
 And is not that what He does for us all ? Sometimes by 
 sorrows, sometimes by sick-beds, sometimes by shutting 
 ns out from chosen spheres of activity, sometimes by 
 striking down the dear ones at our sides, and leaving us 
 lonely in the desert — is He not saying to us in a thousand 
 ways. '* Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place " ? 
 Ab Israel was led into the wilderness that God might 
 " Bpeak to her heart," so often Christ draws us aside, if 
 
THE GRADUAL HEALING OP THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 not by outward providences such, as these, yet by awaking 
 in us that solemn sense of personal responsibility and 
 making us feel our solitude, that He may lead us to feel 
 His all-sufficient companionship. 
 
 Ah 1 brethren, here is a lesson from all this — if you 
 want Jesus Christ to give you His highest gifts and to 
 reveal to you His fairest beauty, you must be alone with 
 Him. He loves to deal with single souls. Our lives, many 
 of them, can never be outwardly alone. We are jammed 
 up against one another in such a fashion, and the hurry 
 and pressure of city life is so great with us all that it is 
 often impossible for us to find the outward secrecy and 
 solitude. But a man may be alone in a crowd ; the heart 
 may be gathered up into itself, and there may be a still 
 atmosphere round about us in the shop and in the market, 
 and amongst the busy ways of men, in which we and 
 Christ shall be alone together. Unless there be, I do not 
 think any of us will see the King in His beauty or the f ar- 
 ofE land. " I was left alone, and I saw this great vision " 
 is the law for all true beholding. 
 
 So, dear brethren, try to feel how awful this earthly life of 
 ours is in its necessary solitude ; that each of us by himself 
 must shape out his owti destiny, and make his own charac- 
 ter ; that every unit of the swarms upon our streets is a 
 unit that has to face the solemn facts of life for and by 
 itself ; that alone you live, that alone you will die ; that alone 
 you will have to give account of yourself before God, and 
 in the solitude let the hand of your heart feel for His 
 hand that is stretched out to grasp yours, and listen to 
 Him saying " Lo I I am with you always ; to the end of 
 the world." There was no dreariness in the solitude 
 when it was Christ that "took the blind man by the hand 
 and led him out of the city." 
 
 II. — We have Christ stooping to a sense-bound nature 
 by the use of material helps. No doubt there was 
 
THE GRADUAL HEALING OP THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 267 
 
 Bomething in the man, as I have said, which made it 
 advisable that these methods should be adopted. If 
 he were the sort of person that I have described, slow 
 of faith, not much caring about the possibility of 
 cure, and not having much hope that anything would 
 come of it— then we can see the fitness of the means 
 adopted ; the hand laid upon the eyes, the finger possibly 
 moistened with saliva touching the ball, the pausing to 
 question, the repeated appli - ^ion. They make a ladder by 
 which his hope and confidence might climb to the appre- 
 hension of the blessing. And that points to a general 
 principle of the Divine dealings. God stoops to a feeble 
 faith, and gives to it outward things by which it may rise 
 to an apprehension of spiritual realities. 
 
 Is not that the meaning of the whole complicated system 
 of Old Testament revelation ? Is not that the meaning of 
 the altars, and priests, and sacrifices, and the old cumbrous 
 apparatus of the Mosaic law ? Was it not all a picture- 
 book in which the infant eyes of the race might see in a 
 material form deep spiritual realities ? Was not that the 
 meaning and explanation of our Lord's parabolic teaching ? 
 He veils spiritual truth in common things that He may 
 reveal it by common things— taking fishermen's boats, 
 their nets, a sower's basket, a baker's dough, and many 
 another homely article, and finding in them the emblems 
 of the loftiest truth. 
 
 Is not that the meaning of His own Incarnation ? It is 
 no use talking to men about God, let them see Him ; no 
 use preaching about principles, give them the facts of His 
 life. Revelation does not consist in the setting forth of 
 certain propositions about God, but in the exhibition of 
 the acts of God in a human life. 
 
 " And 80 the Word was flesh and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creedB." 
 
 And still further, may we not say that this is the inmosJ 
 
268 THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 meaning and purpose of the whole frame of the material 
 nniverse ? It exists in order that, as a parable and a 
 symbol, it may proclaim the things that are unseen and 
 eternal. Its depths and heights, its splendours, and its 
 energies are all in order that through them spirits may 
 climb to the apprehension of the " King eternal, immortal, 
 invisible," and the realities of His spiritual kingdom. 
 
 So in regard of all the externals of Christianity, forms 
 of worship, ordinances, and so on — all these, in like 
 manner, are provided in condescension to our weakness, 
 in order that by them we may be lifted above themselves ; 
 for the purpose of the temple is to prepare for the time 
 and the place where the seer " saw no temple therein." 
 They are but the cups that carry the wine, the flowers 
 whose chalices bear the honey, the ladders by which the 
 ■oul may climb to God Himself, the rafts upon which the 
 precious treasure may be floated into our hearts. 
 
 If Christ's touch and Christ's saliva healed, it was not 
 because of anything in them, but because He willed it so ; 
 and He Himself is the source of all the healing energy. 
 Therefore, let us keep these externals in their proper place 
 of subordination, and remember that in Him, not in them, 
 lies the healing power ; and that even Christ's touch may be- 
 come the object of superstitious regard, as it was when that 
 poor woman that came through the crowd to lay her finger 
 on the hem of His garment, thinking that she could bear 
 away a surreptitious blessing without the conscious out- 
 going of His power. He healed her because there was a 
 spark of faith in her superstition, but she had to learn that 
 it was not the hem of the garment but the loving will of 
 Christ that cured, in order that the dross of superstitious 
 reliance on the outward vehicle might be melted away, and 
 the pure gold of faith in His love and power might remain. 
 
 III. — Lastly, we have Christ accommodating the pace of 
 His power to the slowness of the man's faith. 
 
THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN. 269 
 
 The whole story, as I have said, is nnique, and especially 
 that part of it — " He put His hands upon him, and asked 
 him if he saw aught." One might have expected an 
 answer with a little more gratitude in it, with a little 
 more wonder in i(^ with a little more emotion in it. 
 Instead of these it is almost surly, or at any rate strangely 
 reticent — a matter of fact answer to the question, and 
 there an end. As our Revised Version reads it better : " I 
 see men, for I behold them as trees walking." Curiously 
 accurate I A dim glimmer had come into the eye, but 
 there is not yet distinctness of outline nor sense of mag- 
 nitude, which must be acqnired by practice. The eye has 
 not yet been educated, and it was only because these 
 blurred figures were in motion that he knew they were 
 not trees. " After that He put His hands upon his eyes 
 and made him look up." Or as the Revised Version has 
 it with a better reading, "and he looked steadfastly." 
 An eager straining of the new faculty to make sure that 
 he had got it, and to test its limits and its perfection. 
 " And he was restored and saw all things clearly." 
 
 Now I take it that the worthiest view of that strangely 
 protracted process, broken up into two halves by the 
 question that is dropped into the middle, is this, that it 
 was determined by the man's faith, and was meant to in- 
 crease it. He was healed slowly because he believed 
 slowly. His faith was a condition of his cure, and the 
 measure of it determined the measure of the restoration ; 
 and the rate of the gro^vth of his faith settled the rate of 
 the perfecting of Christ's work on him. As a rule, faith 
 in His power to heal was a condition of Christ's healing, 
 and that mainly because our Lord would rather have men 
 believing than sound of body. They often wanted only 
 the outward miracle, but He wanted to make it the means 
 of insinuating a better healing into their spirits. And so, 
 not that there was any necessary connection between 
 
270 THE GBADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 their faith and the exercise of His n iraonlous power, but 
 in order that He might bless them with His best gifts, He 
 nsually worked on the principle, " According to your faith 
 be it unto you." And here, as a nurse or a mother with 
 her child might do, He keeps step with the little steps, 
 and goes slowly because the man goes slowly. 
 
 Now, both the gradual process of illumination and the 
 rate of that process as determined by faith, are true for 
 US. How dim and partial a glimmer of light comes to 
 many a soul at the outset of the Christian life I How^ little 
 a new convert knows about God and self and the starry 
 truths of His great revelation ! Christian progress does 
 not consist in seeing new things, but in seeing the old 
 thing more clearly ; the same Christ, the same Cross, only 
 more distinctly and deeply apprehended, and more closely 
 incorporated into my very being. We do not grow away 
 from Him, but we grow into knowledge of Him. The 
 first lesson that we get is the last lesson that we shall learn, 
 and He is the Alpha at the beginning, and the Omega at 
 the end of the alphabet — the letters of which make up our 
 knowledge for earth and Heaven. 
 
 But then let me remind you that just in the measure in 
 ■which you expect blessing of any kind, illumination and 
 purifying and help of all sorts from Jesus Christ, just in 
 that measure will you get it. You can limit the working 
 of Almighty power, and can determine the rate at which 
 it shall work on you. God fills the water-pots to the brim, 
 but not beyond the brim ; and if, like the woman in the 
 Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil will 
 stop flowing. It is an a^^^ul thing to think that we have 
 the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase 
 or diminish, or cut off altogether the supply of God's 
 mercy and Christ's healing and cleansing love in our 
 hearts. You will get as much of God as you want and no 
 more. The measure of your desire is the measure of your 
 
THE GRADUAL HEALING OP THE BLIND MAN. 271 
 
 capacity, and the measure of your capacity is the measure 
 of God's gift. " Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it." 
 And if your faith is heavily shod and steps slowly, His 
 power and His grace will step slowly along with it ; 
 keeping rank and step. " According to your faith shall it 
 be unto you." 
 
 Ah I dear friends, " Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are 
 straitened in yourselves." Desire Him to help and bless 
 you, and He will do it. Expect Him to do it, and He will 
 do it. Go to Him like the other blind man, and say to 
 Him — "Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me, 
 that I may receive my sight," and He will lay His hand 
 upon you, and at any rate a glimmer will come, which 
 will grow in the measure of your humble, confident desire, 
 until at last He takes you by the hand and leads you out 
 of this poor little village of a world, and lays ilis finger 
 for a brief moment of blindness upon your eyes and asks 
 you if you see aught. Then you look up, and the first face 
 that you behold shall be His, whom you saw " as through 
 a glass darkly " with your dim eyes in this twilight 
 world. 
 
 May that be your experience and mine, through Hit 
 mercy I 
 
THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 
 
SERMON XXL 
 
 THB NAME ABOVE EVERT NAMl. 
 
 "ThOTtfow I«t all the house of Israel know aasnredly that God hath mad« that Mm* 
 JesTiB, Whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." Acta ii., 88. 
 
 It is no part of my purpose at this time to consider 
 the special circumstances under which these words were 
 spoken, nor even to enter upon an exposition of their 
 whole scope. I select them for one reason, the occurrence 
 in them of the three names by which we designate our 
 Saviour— Jesus, Christ, Lord. To us they are very little 
 more than three proper names ; they were very different 
 to these men who listened to the characteristically vehe- 
 ment discourse of the Apostle Peter. It wanted some 
 courage to stand up at Pentecost and proclaim on the 
 housetop what he had spoken in the ear long ago. " Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God 1 " To most of 
 his listeners to say "Jesus is the Christ" was folly, and 
 to say " Jesus is the Lord " was blasphemy. 
 
 The three names are names of the same Person, but 
 they proclaim altogether different aspects of His work 
 and His character. The name " Jesus " is the name of 
 
 t2 
 
S76 THE NAMB ABOVE EVERY NAMB. 
 
 the Man, and brings to ns a brother ; the name " Christ •* 
 is the name of office, and brings to us a Redeemer ; the 
 name " Lord " is the name of dignity, and brings to as a 
 King. 
 
 I. — First, then, the name Jesns is the name of the Man, 
 which tells us of a Brother. 
 
 There were many men in Palestine who bore the name 
 of Jesus when He bore it. We find that one of the early 
 Christians had it ; and it comes upon us with almost a 
 shock when we read that one " Jesus, called Justus," was 
 the name of one of the friends of the Apostle Paul (Col. 
 iv., 11). But, through reverence on the part of Christians, 
 and through horror on the part of Jews, the name 
 ceased to be a common ox>e. And its disappearance from 
 familiar use has hid from us the fact of its common 
 employment at the time when our Lord bore it. Though 
 it was given to Him as indicative of His office of saving 
 His people from their sins, yet none of all the crowds who 
 knew Him as Jesus of Nazareth supposed that in His 
 name there was any greater significance than in those of 
 the " Simons," " Johns," and Judahs," in the circle of His 
 disciples. 
 
 Now the use of Jesus as the proper name of our Lord, 
 is very noticeable. In the Gospels, as a rule, it stands 
 alone hundreds of times, whilst in combination with any 
 other of the titles it is rare. ** Jesus Christ," for instance, 
 only occurs, if I count aright, twice in Matthew, once in 
 Mark, twice in John. But if you turn to the Epistles and 
 the latter books of the Scriptures, the proportions are 
 reversed. There you have hundreds of instances of the 
 occurrence of such combinations as " Jesus Christ," " Christ 
 Jesus," "The Lord Jesus," "Christ the Lord," and not 
 frequently the full solemn title, " The Lord Jesus Christ." 
 But the occurrence of the proper name *' Jesus " alone is 
 the exception. So far as I know, there are only some 
 
THE NAME aB jVE EVERY NAME. 277 
 
 thirty or forty instances of its use singly in the whv)le of 
 the books of the New Testament outside of the four 
 Evangelists. The occasions where it is used are all of 
 them occasions in ^vhich one may see that the writer's 
 intention is to put strong emphasis, for some reason or 
 other, on the Manhood of our Lord Jesus, and to assert as 
 broadly as may be, His entire participation with ns in the 
 common conditions of our human nature, corporeal and 
 mental. 
 
 And I think I shall best bring out the meaning and 
 woi-th of the name by putting a few of these instances 
 before you. 
 
 For example, we find more than once phrases like this : 
 "we believe that Jesus died," " having therefore boldness 
 to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,'' and the 
 like — which emphasise His death as the death of a man 
 like ourselves, and bring us close to the historical reality 
 of His human pains and agonies for us. " Christ died " 
 is the statement which makes the purpose and efficacy of 
 His death more plain, but ''^ Jesus died" shows us His 
 death as not only the work of the appointed Messiah, but 
 as the act of our brother man, the outcome of His human 
 love, and never rightly to be understood if His work be 
 thought of apart from His personality. 
 
 There is brought into view too, prominently, the side 
 of Christ's sufferings which we are all apt to forget — the 
 common human side of His agonies and His pains. I 
 know that a certain school of preachers, and of unctuous 
 religious hymns, and other forms of composition, dwell a 
 great deal too much for reverence, upon the mere physical 
 aspect of Christ's sufferings. But the temptation, I be- 
 lieve, with most of us is to dwell too little upon that, — to 
 argue about the death of Christ, to think about it as a 
 matter of speculation, to regard it as a mysterious power, 
 to look upon it as ftn official act of the Messiah that was 
 
278 THB NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 
 
 sent into the world for us ; and to forget that He bore a 
 manhood like our own, a body that was impatient of pains 
 and wounds and sufferings, and a human life which like 
 all human lives, naturally recoiled and shrank from the 
 agony of death. 
 
 And whilst, therefore, the great message, " It is Christ 
 that died," is ever to be pondered, we have also to think 
 with sympathy and gratitude on the homelier representa- 
 tion coming nearer to our hearts, which proclaims that 
 " Jesus died." Let us not forget the Brother's manhood 
 that had to agonise, and to suffer, and to die as the price 
 of our salvation. 
 
 Again, when the Scripture would set our Lord before 
 ns, as in His humanity, our pattern and example, it some- 
 times uses this name, in order to give emphasis to the 
 thought of His Manhood — as, for example, in the words 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " looking unto Jesus, the 
 Author and Perf ecter of faith." That is to say — a mighty 
 stimulus to all brave perseverance in our efforts after 
 higher Christian nobleness lies in the vivid and constant 
 realisation of the true manhood of our Lord, as the type 
 of all goodness, as having Himself lived by faith, and that 
 in a perfect degree and manner. We are to turn away our 
 eyes from contemplating all other lives and motives, and 
 to " look off " from them to Him. In all our struggles let 
 us think of Him. Do not take poor human creatures for 
 your ideal of excellence, nor tune your harps to their key- 
 notes. To imitate men is degradation, and is sure to lead 
 to deformity ; none of them is a safe guide. Black veins 
 are in the purest marble, and flaws in the most lustrous 
 diamonds ; but to imitate Jesus is freedom, and to be like 
 Him is perfection. Our code of morals is His life. He is 
 the Ideal incarnate. The secret of all progress is, " Run, — 
 looking unto Jesus." 
 
 Then, again, we have His manhood emphasised when 
 
THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 27^ 
 
 His sympathy is to be commended to our hearts. "The 
 great High Priest, who is passed into the heavens" 
 is " Jesus " . . . " who was in all points tempted like 
 as we are." To every sorrowing soul, to all men burdened 
 with heavy tasks, unwelcome duties, pains and sorrows of 
 the imagination, or of the heart, or of the memory, or of 
 physical life, or of the circumstances — to all there comes 
 the thought, "Every ill that flesh is heir to" He knows 
 by experience, and in the Man Jesus we find not only the 
 pity of a God but the sympathy of a Brother. 
 
 The Prince of Wales, a fortnight ago, went for an after- 
 noon into the slums in Holborn ; and everybody said, and 
 said deservedly, "right" and "princely." This Prince has 
 " learned pity in the huts where poor men lie " ; and 
 knows by experience all their squalor and misery. The Man 
 Jesus is the sympathetic Priest. The Rabbis, who did not 
 usually see very far into the depth of things, yet caught 
 a wonderful glimpse when they said : " Messias will be 
 found sitting outside the gate of the city amojigst the 
 lejwrsy That is where He sits ; and the perf ectness of His 
 sympathy, and the completeness of His identification of 
 Himself with all our tears and our sorrows, is taught us 
 when we learn that our High Priest is not merely Christ 
 the official, but Jesus the Man. 
 
 And then you read such words as these : " If we believe 
 that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which 
 sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." I think any- 
 body that reads with sympathy must feel how very much 
 closer to our hearts that consolation comes, " Jesus rose 
 again," than even the mighty word which the Apostle 
 uses on another occasion, " Christ is risen from the dead." 
 The one tells us of the risen Redeemer, the other tells ua 
 of the risen Brother. And wherever there are sorrowing 
 souls, learning loss and following their dear ones into the 
 darkneee with yearning hearts, there, too, the consolation 
 
280 THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 
 
 comes ; they lie down beside their Brother, and with their 
 Brother they shall rise again. 
 
 So, again, most strikingly, and yet somewhat singularly, 
 in the words of Scripture which paint most loftily the ex- 
 altation of the risen Saviour to the right hand of God, and 
 His wielding of absolute power and authority, it is the old 
 human name that is used ; as if the writers would bind 
 together the humiliation and the exaltation, and were 
 holding up hands of wonder at the thought that a Man 
 had risen thus to the Throne of the Universe. What an 
 emphasis and glow of hope there is in such words as these 
 " We see not yet all things put under Him, but we see 
 Jesus''"' — the very Man that was here with us — "crowned 
 with glory and honour." So in the Book of the Revelation 
 the chosen name for Him that sits amidst the glories of 
 the heavens, and settles the destinies of the universe, and 
 orders the course of history, is Jesus. As if the Apostle 
 would assure us that the face which looked down upon 
 him from amidst the blaze of the glory was indeed the 
 face that he knew long ago upon earth, and the breast that 
 " was girded with a golden girdle " was the breast upon 
 which he so often had leaned his happy head. 
 
 So the ties that bind us to the Man Jesus should be the 
 human bonds that knit us to one another, transferred to Him 
 and purified and strengthened. All that we have failed to 
 find in men we can find in Him, 
 
 Human wisdom has its limits, but here is a Man whose 
 word is truth, who is Himself the truth. Human love is 
 sometimes hollow, often impotent ; it looks down upon us, 
 as a great thinker has said, like the Yenus of Milo, that 
 lovely statue, smiling in pity, but it has no arms. But 
 here is a love that is mighty to help, and on which we can 
 rely without disappointment or loss. Human excellence 
 is always limited and imperfect, but here is One whom we 
 may imitate and be pure. So let us do like that poor 
 
THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAMB. 281 
 
 woman in the Gospel story — bring the precions alabaster 
 box of ointment — the love of these hearts of ours, which 
 is the most precious thing we have to give. The box of 
 ointment that we have so often squandered upon un- 
 worthy heads — let us come and pour it upon His, not un- 
 minglel with our tears, and anoint Him, our beloved and 
 our King. This Man has loved each of us with a brother's 
 heart ; let us love Him with all our hearts. 
 
 II. — So much for the first name. The second — " Christ " 
 is the name of office, and brings to us a Redeemer. I 
 need not dwell at any length upon the original signifi- 
 cance and force of the name ; it is familiar, of course, to 
 us all. It stands as a transference into Greek of the 
 Hebrew Messias ; the one and the other meaning as we 
 all know, the Anointed. 
 
 But what is the meaning of claiming for Christ that He 
 is anointed ? A sentence will answer the question. It 
 means that He fulfils all which the inspired imagination 
 of the great ones of the past had seen in that dim Figure 
 that rose before the prophet and psalmist. It means that 
 He is anointed or inspired by the Divine indwelling to be 
 Prophet, Priest, and King all over the world. It means 
 that He is — though the belief had faded away from the 
 minds of His generation— a sufferer whilst a Prince, and 
 to " turn away unrighteousness " from the world, and not 
 from " Jacob " only, by a sacrifice and a death. 
 
 I cannot see less in the contents of the Jewish idea, the 
 prophetic idea of the Messias, than these points : Divine 
 inspiration or anointing ; a sufferer who is to redeem ; 
 the fulfiller of all the rapturous visions of psalmist and of 
 prophet in the past. 
 
 And so, when Peter stood up amongst that congregation 
 of wondering strangers and scowling Pharisees, and said : 
 " The Man that died on the Cross, the Rabbi-peasant from 
 half-heathen Galilee, is the Person Whom all the genera- 
 
282 THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 
 
 tions have been looking forward to," no wonder that 
 nobody believed him except those whose hearts were 
 touched, for it is never possible for the common mind, at 
 any epoch, to believe that the man that stands beside them 
 is very much bigger than themselves. Great men have 
 always to die, and get a halo of distance around them 
 before their true stature can be seen. 
 
 And now two remarks are all I can afford myself upon 
 that, and one is this : the hearty recognition of His 
 Messiahship is the centre of all discipleship. The eailiest 
 and the simplest Christian creed, which yet — like the little 
 brown roll in which the infant beech leaves lie folded up 
 — contains in itself all the rest, was thia : " Jesus is 
 Christ," and although it is no part of my business to say 
 how much imperfection and confusion of head compre- 
 hension may exist with a heart acceptance of Jesus that 
 eaves a soul from sin, yet I cannot in faithfulness to my 
 own convictions conceal the belief that he who contents 
 himself with "Jesus" and does not grasp " Christ" has 
 cast away the most valuable and characteristic part of the 
 Christianity which he professes. Surely the most simple 
 inference is that a Christian is at least a man who recog- 
 nises the Christship of Jesus. And I press that upon you, 
 my friends ; it is not enough for the sustenance of your 
 own souls and for the cultivation of a vigorous religious 
 life that men should admire, howsoever profoundly and 
 deeply the humanity of the Lord unless that humanity 
 leads them on to see the office of the Messiah to whom 
 their whole hearts cleave. " Jesus is the Christ " is the 
 minimum Christian creed. 
 
 And then, still further, let me remind yon how the 
 recognition of Jesus as Christ is essential to giving its full 
 value to the facts of the manhood. " Jesus died I Yes ! 
 What then ? What is that to me ? Is that all I have to 
 tay ? If that is simply a human death, like all the rest, I 
 
THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 283 
 
 want to know what makes it a Gospel. 1 want to know 
 what more interest I have in it than I have in the death 
 of Socrates, or in the death of any men or women whose 
 names were in the obituary column of yesterday's news- 
 paper. "Jesus died." That is the fact. What is wanted 
 to turn the fact into a Gospel ? That I shall know Who 
 it was that died, and why lie died. " I declare unto you 
 the Gospel which I preach," Paul says, "how that Christ 
 died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." The belief 
 that the death of Jesus was the death of the Christ is need- 
 ful to make that death the means of my deliverance from 
 the burden of sin. If it be only the death of Jesus, it is 
 beautiful, pathetic, as many another martyr's has been, 
 but if it be the death of Christ, then "my faith can lay 
 her hand" on that great sacrifice and know " her guilt was 
 
 there." 
 
 So in regard of His perfect example. If we only see 
 His manhood when we are "looking unto Jesus," the 
 contemplation of His perfection would be as paralysing 
 as spectacles of supreme excellence usually are. But 
 when we can say, " ChHst also suffered for us, leaving us an 
 example," and so can deepen the thought of His ISIanhood 
 into that of His Messiahship and the conception of His 
 work as example into that of His work as sacrifice, we can 
 hope that His Divine power will dwell in us to mould 
 our lives to the Ukeness of His human life of perfect 
 
 obedience. 
 
 So in regard to His resurrection and glorious ascension 
 at the right hand of God. We have not only to think of 
 the solitary man raised from the grave and caught up to 
 the throne. If it were only "Jesus" Who rose and 
 ascended, His resurrection and ascension might be as 
 much to us as the raising of Lazarus, or the rapture of 
 Elijah— namely, a demonstration that death did not 
 destroy conscious being, and that a man could rise to 
 
S84 THB NAME ABOVE BYBBT NAMB. 
 
 Heaven, bnt they would be no more. But if " Christ ie 
 risen from the dead," He is " become the first-fruits of 
 them that slept." If Jesus has gone up on high, others 
 may or may not follow in His train. It may show that 
 manhood is not incapable of elevation to heaven, but it 
 has no power to draw othei^ up after it. But if Christ is 
 gone up He is gone to prepare a place for us, not to fill a 
 solitary throne, and His ascension is the assurance that He 
 will lift us ioo to dwell with Him, and share His triumph 
 over death and sin. 
 
 Most of the blessedness and beauty of His example, all 
 the mystery and meaning of His death, and all the power 
 of His resurrection depend on the fact that " it is Christ 
 that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at 
 the right hand of God." 
 
 III. — "The Lord" is the name of dignity and brings 
 before us the King. There are three grades, so to speak, 
 of dignity expressed by this one word " Lord " in the New 
 Testament. The lowest is that in which it is almost the 
 equivalent of our own English title of respectful courtesy, 
 " Sir," in which sense it is often used in the Gospels, and 
 refers to our Lord as to many other of the persons there. 
 The second is that in which it expresses dignity and 
 authority — and in that sense it is frequently applied to 
 Christ. The third highest is that in which it is the equiv^ 
 alent of the Old Testament " Lord," as a Divine name ; in 
 which sense also it is applied to Christ in the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 The first and last of these may be left out of consideration 
 now : the central one is the meaning of the word here. 
 I have only time to touch upon two thoughts — to connect 
 this name of dignity first with one and then with the other 
 of the two names that we have already considered. 
 
 " Jesus is Lord," that is to say, wonderful as it is, the 
 manhood ii exalted to supreme dignity. It is the teaching 
 
THE NAME AbOVB EVERY NAME. 285 
 
 of the New TeBtament, that onr nature in Jesns, the Child 
 of Mary, sits on the throne of the universe and rules over 
 all things. Those rude herdsmen, brothers of Joseph, 
 came into Pharaoh's palace — strange contrast to their tenta 
 — and there found their brother ruling over that ancient and 
 highly civilised land I We have the Man Jesus for the 
 Lord over all. Trust His dominion and rejoice in Hie 
 rule, and bow before His authority. Jesus is Lord. 
 
 Christ is Lord. That is to say : His sovereign authority, 
 •nd dominion are built upon the fact of His being 
 Deliverer, Redeemer, Sacrifice. His Kingdom is a King- 
 dom that rests upon His suffering. '* Wherefore God alsG 
 hath exalted Him, and given Him a name that is above 
 every name." 
 
 It is because He wears a vesture dipped in blood, that 
 on the vesture is the name written " Kings of kings, and 
 Lord of lords." It is "because He shall deliver the 
 needy when he crieth," as the prophetic psalm has it, that 
 ** all kings shall fall down before Him and all nations shall 
 serve Him." Because He has given His life for the world 
 He is the Master of the world. His humanity is raised to 
 the throne because His humanity stooped to the cross. 
 As long as men's hearts can be touched by absolute un- 
 selfish surrender ; and as long as men can know the 
 blessedness of responsive surrender, so long will He who 
 gave Himself for the world be the Sovereign of the woild, 
 and the First-born from the dead be the Prince of all the 
 kings of the earth. 
 
 And so, dear friends, our thoughts to-day all poiat to 
 this lesson. Do not you content yourselves with a maimed 
 Christ. Do not tarry in the Manhood ; do not be content 
 with an adoring reverence for the nobility of His soul, the 
 gentle wisdom of His words, the beauty of His character, 
 the tenderness of His compassion. All that will be of 
 small help for your needs. There is more in Hie mission 
 
286 THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME. 
 
 than that — even His death for you and for all men. Take 
 Him for your Christ, but do not lose the Person in the 
 Work, any more than you lose the Work in the Person 
 And be not content with an intellectual recognition of 
 Him, but bring Him the faith which cleaves to Him and 
 His work as its only hope and peace, and the love which, 
 because of His work as Christ, flows out to the beloved 
 Person Who has done it all. Thus loving Jesus and 
 trusting Christ, you will bring obedience to your Lord 
 and homage to your King, and learn the sweetness and 
 power of the name that is above every name — the name 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 May we all be able, with clear and unfaltering con- 
 viction of the understanding and loving affiance of our 
 whole souls, to repeat as our own the grand words in 
 which so many centuries have proclaimed their faith — 
 words which shed a spell of peacefulness over stormy 
 lives, and fling a great light of hope into the black jaws of 
 the grave. " I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our 
 Lord I " 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
8ERM0N XXIL 
 
 THB SON OP MA». 
 "Who iB this Son of Man ?" John zll. M. 
 
 Last Sunday, as you may rojr ember, we were consid- 
 ering the names given in Scni)txire to our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. I have thought that a suitable sequel to that 
 sermon may be one devoted to the consideration of the 
 remarkable name which our Lord gives to Himself — 
 the Son of Man. And I have selected this instance of itf 
 occurrence rather than any other because it brings out 
 a point which is too frequently overlooked, viz., that the 
 name was an entirely strange and enigmatical one to the 
 people who heard it. 
 
 This question of utter bewilderment distinctly shows us 
 that, and negatives, as it seems to me, the sui^position 
 which is often made that the name " Son of Man " upon 
 the lips of Jesus Christ was equivalent to Messiah. 
 Obviously there is no such significance attached to it by 
 those who put this question. As obviously, for another 
 reason, the two names do not cover the same ground ; for 
 
 U 
 
290 THE SON OP MAN. 
 
 our Lord sedulously avoided calling Himself the Christ, 
 and habitually called Himself the Son of Man. 
 
 Now one thing to observe about this name is that it is 
 never found upon the lips of any but Jesus Christ. No 
 man ever called Him the Son of Man whilst He was upon 
 earth, and only once do we find it applied to Him in the 
 rest of Scripture, and that is on the occasion on which 
 the first martyr, Stephen, dying at the foot of the old wall, 
 saw " the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing 
 at the right hand of God." Two other apparent instances 
 of the use of the expression occur, both of them in the 
 Book of Revelation, both of them quotations from the Old 
 Testament, and in both the more probable reading gives : — 
 A Son of Man, not " the Son of Man." 
 
 One more preliminary remark, and I will pass to the 
 title itself. The name has been often supposed to be 
 taken from the remarkable prophecy in the Book of Daniel, 
 of one " like a Son of man," who receives from the Ancient 
 of Days an everlasting kingdom which triumphs over 
 those kingdoms of brute force which the prophet had seen. 
 No doubt there is a connection between the prophecy and 
 our Lord's use of the name, and it is to be observed that 
 what the prophet speaks of is not — " the Son, " but " one like a 
 Son of man," or in other words, that what the prophecy 
 dwells upon is simply the manhood of the future King in 
 contradistinction to the bestial forms of Lion and Leopard 
 and Bear, whose kingdoms go down before him. Of 
 course Christ fulfils that prediction, and is the " One like 
 a Son of man," but we cannot say that the title is derived 
 from the prophecy, in which, strictly speaking, it does not 
 occur. 
 
 What, then, is the force of this name, as applied to 
 Himself by our Lord ? 
 
 First, we have in it Christ putting out His hand, if I 
 may say so, to draw us to Himself, identifying Himself 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 291 
 
 with UB. Then we have, just as distinctly, Christ, by the 
 nse of this name, in a very real sense distinguishing 
 Himself from us, and claiming to hold a unique and 
 solitary relation to mankind. And then we have Christ, 
 by the use of this name in its connection with the ancient 
 prophecy, pointing us onward to a wonderful future. 
 
 I.— First then, Christ thereby identifies Himself 
 with us. The name Son of Man, whatever more 
 it means, declares the historical fact of His Incarnation 
 and the reality and genuineness, the completeness 
 and fulness of His assumption of humanity. And 
 so it is significant to notice that the name is em- 
 ployed continually in the places in Scripture where 
 especial emphasis is to be placed, for some reason or other, 
 upon our Lord's manhood. As for instance when He 
 would brincr into view the depth of His humiliation. It 
 is this name that He uses when He says : " Foxes have 
 holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of 
 Man hath not where to lay His head." The use of the 
 term there is very significant and profound ; He contrasts 
 His homelessness, not with the homes of men that 
 dwell in palaces, but with the homes of the inferior 
 creatures. As if He would say, " Not merely am I indi- 
 vidually homeless and shelterless, but I am so because I 
 am truly a man, the only creature that builds houses, 
 and the only creature that has not a home. Foxes 
 have holes, anywhere they can rest, the birds of the 
 air have"-not as our Bible gives it-" nests,' but "roost- 
 ing places ; any bough will do for them. All living 
 creatures are at home in this material universe ; T, as a 
 Representative of humanity, wander a pilgrim and a 
 soiourner." We are all restless and homeless ; the creatures 
 correspond to their environment. We have d-ires and 
 longings, wild yearnings, and deep-seated needs, that 
 Cande; through eternity ;" the Son of Man, the repre- 
 
 U 2 
 
292 THE SON OP MAN. 
 
 sentative of manhood — " hath not where to lay His 
 
 head." 
 
 Then the same expression is employed on occasions 
 ■when our Lord desires to emphasise the completeness of 
 His participation in all onr conditions. As, for instance, 
 "the Son of Man came eating and drinking," knowing 
 the ordinary limitations and necessities of corporeal hu- 
 manity ; having the ordinary dependence upon external 
 things ; nor unwilling to taste, with pure and thankful 
 lip, whatever gladnesses may be found in man*s path 
 through the supply of natural appetites. 
 
 And the name is employed habitually on occasions 
 when He desires to emphasise His manhood as having 
 truly taken upon itself the whole weight and weariness of 
 man's sin, and the whole burden of man's guilt, and the 
 whole tragicalness of the penalties thereof. As in the 
 familiar passages, so numerous that I need only refer to 
 them and need not attempt to quote them, in which we 
 read of the Son of Man being betrayed into the hands of 
 sinners ; in those words, for instance, which so marvel- 
 lously blend the lowliness of the Man and the lofty 
 consciousness of the mysterious relation which He bears 
 to the whole world : " The Son of Man came, not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a 
 ransom for the many." 
 
 Now if we gather all these instances (and they are only 
 siDecimens culled almost at random) together, and medi- 
 tate for a moment on the name as illuminated by such 
 words as these, they suggest to us, first, how truly and 
 how blessedly He is " bone of our bone, and flesh of our 
 flesh." All our human joys were His. He knew all 
 human sorrow. The ordinary wants of human nature 
 belonged to Him ; He hungered. He thirsted and was 
 weary ; He ate and drank and slept. The ordinary wants 
 of the banian heart He knew ; — He was hurt by hatred, 
 itnng by ingratitude, yearned for love ; His spirit ex- 
 
THE SON OF MAM. 293 
 
 jMnded amongst friends and was pained when they fell 
 away. He fought and toiled, and sorrowed and enjoyed. 
 He had to pray, to trust and to weep. He was a Son of 
 Man, a true man among men. His life was brief ; we 
 have but fragmentary records of it for three short years. 
 In outward form it covers but a narrow area of human 
 experience, and large tracts of human life seem to be 
 unrepresented in it. Yet all ages and classes of men, 
 in all circumstances, however unlike those of the 
 peasant Rabbi who died when He was just entering 
 mature manhood, may feel that this Man comes closer 
 to them than all beside. Whether for stimulus for duty, 
 or for grace and patience in sorrow, or for restraint in 
 enjoyment, or for the hallowing of all circumstances 
 and all tasks, the presence and example of the Son of 
 Man are sufficient. \.herever we go, we may track His 
 footsteps by the drops of His blood upon the sharp flints 
 that we have to tread. In all narrow passes, where the 
 briars tear the wool of the flock, we may see, left there on 
 the thorns, what they rent from the pure fleece of the 
 Lamb of God that went before. The Son of Man is our 
 Brother and our Example. 
 
 And is it not beautiful, and does it not speak to ub 
 fcOuchingly and sweetly of our Lord's earnest desire to get 
 very near us and to bring us very near to Him, that this 
 name, which emphasises humiliation and weakness, and 
 the likeness to ourselves, should be the name that is 
 always upon His lips ? Just as, if I may compare great 
 things with small, some teacher or philanthropist that 
 went away from civilised into savage life, might leave 
 behind him the name by which he was known in Europe, 
 and adopt some barbarous designation that was significant 
 in the language of the savage tribe to whom he was sent, 
 and say to them " That is my name now, call me by that " : 
 —so this great Leader of our souls that has lauded upon 
 
894 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 our coasts with His hands full of blessings, His heart fnll 
 of love, has taken a name that makes Him one of ourselves, 
 and is never wearied of speaking to our hearts and telling 
 US that it is that by which He chooses to be known. It is 
 a touch of the same infinite condescension which prompted 
 His coming, that makes Him choose as His favourite and 
 habitual designation the name of weakness and identifica- 
 tion, the name " Son of Man." 
 
 II. — But, now, turn to what is equally distinct and clear 
 in this title. Here we have our Lord distinguishing Him- 
 self from us, and plainly claiming an unique relationship 
 to the whole world. 
 
 Just fancy how absurd it would be for one of us to be 
 perpetually insisting on the fact that he was a man, to be 
 taking that as his continual description of himself, and 
 pressing it upon people's attention as if there was some- 
 thing strange about it I The idea is preposterous ; and 
 the very frequency and emphasis with which the name 
 comes from our Lord's lips lead one to suspect that there 
 is something lying behind it more than appears on the 
 surface. That impression is confirmed and made a con- 
 viction if you mark the article which is prefixed, the Son 
 of Man. A son of man is a very different idea. When He 
 says " the Son of Man " He seems to declare that in Him- 
 self there are gathered up all the qualities that constitute 
 humanity ; that He is, to use modern language, the realised 
 Ideal of manhood, the typical Man, in Whom is every- 
 thing that belongs to manhood, and Who stands forth as 
 complete and perfect. 
 
 Appropriately, then, the name is cdntinually used with 
 suggestions of authority and dignity contrasting with 
 those of humiliation. " The Son of Man is Lord of the 
 Sabbath.'* "The Son of Man hath power on earth to 
 forgive sins," and the like. So that you cannot get away 
 from this, that this Man Whom the whole world has con- 
 
THB SON OP MAN. 295 
 
 spired to profess to admire for His gentleness, and His 
 meekness, and His lowliness, and His religious sanity, 
 stood forward and said : " I am complete and perfect, and 
 everything that belongs to manhood you will find in Me." 
 
 And it is very significant in this connection that the 
 designation occurs more frequently in the first three 
 Gospels than in the fourth ; which is alleged to present 
 higher notions of the nature and personality of Jesus 
 Christ than are found in the other three. There are more 
 instances in Matthew's Gospel in which our Lord calls 
 Himself the Son of Man, with all the implication of 
 uniqueness and completeness which that name carries, 
 there are more even in the Gospel of the Servant — the 
 Gospel according to Mark — than in the Gospel of the 
 Word of God, the Gospel according to John. And so I 
 think we are entitled to say that by this name, which the 
 testimony of all four Gospels makes it certain, even to the 
 most suspicious reader, that Christ applied to Himself, He 
 declared His humanity, His absolutely perfect and com- 
 plete humanity. 
 
 In substance He is claiming the same thing for Himself 
 that Paul claimed for Him when he called Him the second 
 Adam. There have been two men in the world, says Paul, 
 the fallen Adam, with his infantile and undeveloped per- 
 fections, and the Christ, with His full and complete 
 humanity. All other men are fragments. He is the " entire 
 and perfect chrysolite." As one of our epigrammatic seven- 
 teenth century divines has it, " Aristotle is but the rubbish 
 of an Adam," and Adam is but the dim outline sketch of a 
 Jesus. Between these two there have been none. The 
 one Man as God meant him, the type of man, the perfect 
 humanity, the realised ideal, the home of all the powers 
 of manhood, is He who Himself claimed that place for 
 Himself, and stepped into it with the strange words upon 
 His lips — " I am meek and lowly of heart." 
 
296 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 " Who is this Son of Man ? " Ah ! brethren, " who can 
 bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one." A per- 
 fect Son of Man, born of a woman, " bone of our bone and 
 flesh of our flesh," must be more than a Son of Man. And 
 that moral completeness and that ideal perfection in all the 
 faculties and parts of His nature which drove the betraj^er 
 to clash down the thirty pieces of silver in the sanctuary 
 in despair that " he had betrayed innocent blood ; " which 
 made Pilate wash his hands " of the blood of this just 
 person ; " which stopped the mouths of the adversaries 
 when He challenged them to convince Him of sin, and 
 which all the world ever since has recognised and honoured, 
 ought surely to lead us to ask the question, " Who is this 
 Son of Man ? " and to answer it, as I pray we all may 
 answer it, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
 
 This fact of absolute completeness invests His work 
 with an altogether unique relationship to the rest of man- 
 kind. And so we find the name employed upon His own 
 lips in connections in which He desires to set Himself 
 forth as the single and solitary medium of all blessing and 
 salvation to the world. As for instance, " The Son of Man 
 came to give His life a ransom for the many ; " " Ye shall 
 see the Heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending 
 and descending on the Son of Man." He is what the ladder 
 was in the vision to the patriarch, with his head upon the 
 stone and the Syrian sky over him — the Medium of all 
 communication between earth and Heaven. And thai 
 ladder which joins Heaven to earth, and brings all angel 
 down on the solitary watchers comes straight down, as tli* 
 sunbeams do, to every man wherever h^ is. Each of ii. 
 sees the shortest line from his own standing place to the 
 central light, and its beams come straight to the apple of 
 each man's eye. So because Christ is more than a man, 
 because He is the Man, His blessings come to each of us 
 direct and straight, as if they had been launched from the 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 297 
 
 throne with a pnrpose and a message to us alone. Thus 
 He who is in flimself perfect manhood touches all men, 
 and all men touch Him, and the Son of Man, whom God 
 hath sealed, will give to every one of us the bread from 
 heaven. The unique relationship which brings Him into 
 connection with every soul of man upon earth, and makes 
 Him the Saviour, Helper, and Friend of us all, is expressed 
 when He calls Himself the Son of Man. 
 
 III. — And now one last word in regard to the predictive 
 character of this designation. Even if we cannot rei^'ard it 
 as being actually a quotation of the prophecy in the Hook 
 of Daniel, there is an evident allusion to that propliecy, 
 and to the whole circle of ideas presented by it of an ever- 
 lasting dominion, which shall destroy all antagonistic 
 power, and of a solemn coming for judgment of one like 
 a Son of Man. 
 
 We find, then, the name occurring on our Lord's lips 
 very frequently in that class of passages with which we 
 are so familiar ; and which are so n-nuerous that I need 
 not quote them to .you ; in which he speaks of the second 
 coming of the Son of Man. As, for instance, that one 
 which connects itself most distinctly with the Book of 
 Daniel, the words of high solemn import before the tribu- 
 nal of the High Priest. " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of 
 Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the 
 LT lories of heaven." Or, as when He says, " He hath given 
 Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the 
 Son of Man." Or as when the proto-martyr, with his last 
 words, declared in sudden burst of surprise and thrill of 
 gladness, " 1 see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man 
 standing at the ritiht hand of God. 
 
 Two thoughts are all that I can touch on here. The name 
 carries with it a blessed message of the preseiit activity 
 and perpetual manhood of the risen Lord. Stephen does not 
 see Him as all the rest of Scripture paints Him, sitting at 
 
298 THE SON OF MAll. 
 
 the right hand of God, but standing there. The emblem of 
 His sitting at the right hand of God represents triumphant 
 calmness in the undisturbed confidence of victory. It de- 
 clares the completeness of the work that He has done upon 
 earth, and that all the history of the future is but the un- 
 folding of the consequences of that work which by His own 
 testimony was finished when He bowed His head and died. 
 But the dying martyr sees Him standing^ as if He had 
 sprung to His feet in response to the cry of faith from the 
 first of the long train of sufferers. As if the Emperor upon 
 His seat, looking down upon the arena where the 
 gladiators are contending to the death, could not sit quiet 
 amongst the flashing axes of the lictors and the purple 
 curtains of His throne, and see their death-struggles, but 
 must spring to His feet to help them ; or at least bend 
 down with the look and with the reality of sympathy. So 
 Christ, the Son of Man, bearing His manhood with Him, 
 
 "Still bends on earth a brother's eye ;" 
 
 and is the ever-present Helper of all struggling souls that 
 put their trust in Him. 
 
 Then as to the other and main thought here in view — 
 the second coming of that perfect Manhood to be our 
 Judge. It is too solemn a subject for human lips to say 
 much about. It has been vulgarised, and the power taken 
 out of it by many well-meant attempts to impress it upon 
 men's hearts. But that coming is certain. That manhood 
 eould not end its relationship to us with the Cross, nor yet 
 with the slow, solemn, upward progress which bore Him, 
 pouring down blessings, up into the same bright cloud 
 that had dwelt between the cherubim and had received 
 Him into its mysterious recesses at the Transfiguration. 
 That He should come again is the only possible completion 
 of His work. 
 
 That Judge is our brother. So in the deepest sense we 
 are tried by our Peer. Man's knowledge at »♦? Mfirhest 
 
THE SON OP MAN. 
 
 cannot tell the moral desert of anything that any man doea. 
 You may judge action, you may sentence for breaches of 
 law, you may declare a man clear of any blame for such, 
 but for any man to read the secrets of another man's heart 
 is beyond human power ; and if he were only a man that 
 is the Judge there will be wild work, and many a blunder 
 in the sentences that are given. But when we think that 
 it is the Son of Man that is our Judge, then we know that 
 the Omniscience of Divinity, that ponders the hearts and 
 reads the motives, will be all blended with the tenderness 
 and sympathy of Humanity ; that we shall be judged by 
 One who knows all our frame, not only with the know- 
 ledge of a Maker, if I may so say, as from outside, but 
 with the knowledge of a possessor, as from within ; that 
 we shall be judged by One who has fought and conquered 
 in all temptations ; and most blessed of all, that we shall 
 be judged by On© with whom w^e have only to plead His 
 own work and His own love and His Cross that we may 
 Btand acquitted before His throne. 
 
 So, brethren, in that one mighty name all the past, 
 present, and future are gathered and blended together. 
 In the past His Cross fills the retrospect : for the future 
 there rises up white and solemn, His Judgment throne. 
 ** The Son of Man is come to give His life a ransom for 
 the many." That is the centre point of all history. The 
 Son of man sJiall come to judge the world. That is the 
 one thought that fills the future. Let us lay hold by true 
 faith on the mighty work which He has done on the 
 Cross, then w^e shall rejoice to see our Brother on the 
 throne, when the "judgment is set and the books are 
 opened." Oh, friends, cleave to Him ever in trust and 
 love, in communion and imitation, in obedience and con- 
 fession, that ye may be accounted worthy " to stand before 
 the Son of Man " in that day. 
 
TWO FORTRESSBS. 
 
SERMON XXIIL 
 
 TWO FORTRESSBa 
 
 " The name of the Lord Is a strong tower : the righteous runneth into it, and is safe 
 The rich man's wealth is hJj strong city, and ai a high wall in hia own conceit." 
 Proverbs xviii. 10, 11. 
 
 The mere reading of these two verses shows that, con- 
 trary to the usual rule in the Book of Proverbs, they have 
 a bearing on each other. They are intended to suggest a 
 very strong contrast, and that contrast is even more 
 emphatic in the original than in our translation ; because, 
 as the margin of your Bibles will tell you, the last word 
 of the former verse might be more correctly rendered, 
 " the righteous runneth into it and is set on high" It is 
 the same word which is employed in the next verse : — 
 " a high wall." 
 
 So we have " the strong tower " and " the strong city " ; 
 the man lifted up above danger on the battlements of the 
 one, and the man fancying himself to be high above it, (and 
 only fancying himself) in the imaginary safety of the other. 
 
 I. — Consider then, first, the two fortresses. 
 
 One need only name them side by side to feel the full 
 force of the intended contrast. On the one hand, the Name 
 
304 TWO FORTRESSBS. 
 
 of the Lord with all its depths and glories, with its blaze of 
 lustrous purity, and infinitudes of inexhaustible power ; 
 and on the other, " the rich man's wealth." What con- 
 tempt is expressed in putting the two side by side I It is 
 is if the author had said, Look on this picture and on 
 this ! Two fortresses 1 Yes I The one is like Gibraltar, 
 inexpugnable on its rock, and the other is like a painted 
 castle on the stage ; flimsy canvas that you could put your 
 foot through, solid! cy by the side of nothingness. For 
 even the poor appearance of solidity is an illusion, as our 
 text says with bitter emphasis, " a high wall in his own 
 conceit.'''* 
 
 "The name of the Lord," of course, is the Biblical 
 expression for the whole character of God, as He has 
 made it known to us, or in other words, for God Himself, 
 as He has been pleased to reveal Himself to mankind. 
 The syllables of that name are all the deeds by which He 
 has taught us what He is ; every act of power, of wisdom, 
 of tenderness, of grace that has manifested these qualities 
 and led us to believe that they are all infinite. In the 
 name, in its narrower sense, the name of Jehovah, there is 
 much of " the name " in its wider sense. For that name 
 "Jehovah," both by its signification and by the circum- 
 stances under which it was originally employed, tells us 
 a great deal about God. It tells us, for instance, by virtue 
 of its signification, that He is self-existent, depending 
 upon no other creature. " I AM THAT I Am ! " No other 
 being can say that. All the rest of us have to say, " I am 
 that which God made me." Circumstances and a hundred 
 other things have made me ; God finds the law of His 
 being and the fountain of His being within Himself. 
 
 " He sits on no precarious throne, 
 Nor borrows leave to be." 
 
 His name proclaims Him to be self-existent, and as self- 
 existent, eternal ; and as eternal, changeless ; and as self- 
 
TWO PORTHIfSSES. 305 
 
 existent, eternal, changeless, infinite in all the qualities 
 by which He makes Himself known. This boundless 
 Being, all full of wisdom, power, and tenderness ; with 
 Whom we can enter into relations of amity and concord, 
 surely He is " a strong Tower into which we may run and 
 be safe." 
 
 But far beyond even the sweep of that great name, 
 Jehovah, is the knowledge of God's deepest heart and 
 character which we learn in Him who said "I have 
 declared Thy name unto My brethren, and will declare 
 it." Christ in His life and death, in His meekness, 
 sweetness, gentleness, calm wisdom, infinite patience, 
 attractiveness ; yearning over sinful hearts, weeping over 
 rebels, in the graciousness of His life, in the sacredness 
 and the power of His Cross, is the Revealer to our hearts 
 of the heart of God. If I may so say, He has builded 
 "the strong tower" broader, has expanded its area and 
 widened its gate, and lifted its summit yet nearer the 
 heavens, and made the name of God a wider name and a 
 mightier name, and a name of surer defence and blessing 
 than ever it was before. 
 
 And so, dear brethren, it all comes to this, the name 
 that is "the strong tower" is the name "My Father I" 
 a Father of infinite tenderness, and wisdom, and power. 
 Oh ! where can the child rest more quietly than on the 
 mother's breast, where can the child be safer than in the 
 circle of the father's arms ? " The name of the Lord is a 
 strong tower." 
 
 Now turn to the other lor a moment : — " The rich man's 
 wealth is" (with great emphasis on the next little word) 
 ** his strong city, and as a high wall in his own conceit." 
 Of course we have not to deal here only with wealth in 
 the shape of money, but all external and material goods, 
 the whole mass of the things seen and temporal are 
 gathered together here in this phrase. 
 
306 TWO PORTRESSES. 
 
 Men nse their imaginations in very strange fashion, and 
 make, or fancy they make, for themselves out of the things 
 of the present life a defence and a strength. Like some 
 poor lunatic, out upon a moor, that fancies himself ensconced 
 in a castle ; like some barbarous tribes behind their 
 stockades or crowding at the back of a little turf wall, or 
 in some old tumble-down fort that the first shot will bring 
 rattling about their ears, fancying themselves perfectly 
 fiecure and defended, — so do men deal with these outward 
 things that are given them for another purpose altogether : 
 they make of them defences and fortresses. 
 
 It is difficult for a man to have them and not to trust 
 them. So Jesus said to His disciples once : — " How 
 hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom ; 
 and when they were astonished at His words. He repeated 
 them with the significant variation, ** How hard is it for 
 them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdom of 
 God." So He would teach that the misuse and not the 
 possession of wealth is the barrier, but so, too, He would 
 warn us that, nine times out of ten, the possession of them 
 in more than a very modest measure, tempts a man into 
 confidence in them. 
 
 The illusion is one that besets ns all. We are all 
 tempted to make a defence of the things that we can see 
 and handle. Is it not strange, and is it not sad, that most 
 of us just turn the truth round about and suppose that 
 the real defence is the imaginary, and that the imaginary 
 one is the real ? How many men are there in this chapel, 
 that, if they spoke out their deepest convictions would 
 say : — " Oh yes I the promises Oi. God are all very well, 
 but I would rather have the cash down. I suppose that I 
 may trust that He will provide bread and water, and all 
 the things that I need, but I would rather have a good 
 solid balance at the banker's." How many of you would 
 rather honestly, and at the bottom of your hearts, liaT* 
 
TWO PORTRESSES. 307 
 
 that than God's word for your defence ? How many of yon 
 think that to trust in a living God is but grasping at a very 
 airy and unsubstantial kind of support ; and that the real solid 
 defence is the defence made of the things that you can see ? 
 
 My brother 1 it is exactly the opposite way. Turn it 
 clean round, and you get the truth. The unsubstantial 
 shadows are the material things that you can see and 
 handle ; illusory as a dream, and as little able to ward off 
 the blows of fate as a soap bubble. The Real is the 
 Unseen beyond, " the things that are,^'' and He who 
 alone really is, and in His boundless and absolute Being 
 is our only defence. 
 
 In one aspect or another, that false imagination with 
 which my last text deals is the besetting sin of Manchester. 
 Not the rich man only, but the poor man just as much, is 
 in danger of it. The poor man who thinks that every- 
 thing would be right if only he were rich, and the rich 
 man who thinks that everything is right because he is 
 rich, — are exactly the same man. The circumstances 
 differ, but the one man is but the other turned inside out. 
 And all round about us we see the fierce fight to get more 
 and more of these things, the tight grip of them when we 
 have got them, the over-estimate of the value of them, the 
 contempt for the people that have less of them than our- 
 selves. Our aristocracy is an aristocracy of wealth ; in 
 some respects, one by no means to be despised, because 
 there often go a great many good qualities to the making 
 and the stewardship of wealth ; but still it is an evil that 
 men should be so largely estimated by their money as they 
 are here. It is not a sound state of opinion which has 
 made, " what is he worth ? " mean " how much of it has 
 he ? *' We are taught here to look upon the prizes of life 
 as being mainly wealth. To win that is " success " — 
 " prosperity " — and it is very hard for us all not to be in- 
 fluenced by the prevailing tone. 
 
 x2 
 
308 TWO FORTRBSS»S. 
 
 I would urge yon, yonng men, especially to lay this to 
 heart — that of all delusions that can beset yon in yonr 
 course, none will work more disastrously than the notion 
 that the summum bonuTn, the shield and stay of a man, 
 is the abundance of the things that he possesses. I fancy 
 I see more listless, discontented, unhappy faces looking 
 out of carriages than I see upon the pavement. And I 
 am sure of this, at any rate, that all which is noble and 
 Bweet and good in life can be wrought out and possessed, 
 upon as much bread and water as will keep body and soul 
 together, and as much furniture as will enable a man to 
 sit at his meal and lie down at night. And as for the rest, 
 it has many advantages and blessings, but oh I it is all 
 illusory as a defence against the evils that will come, 
 sooner or later, to every life. 
 
 II. — Consider next how to get into the true refuge. 
 
 " The righteous runneth into it and is safe," says my 
 text. You may get into the illusory one very easily 
 Imagination will take you there. There is no difficulty 
 at all about that. And yet the way by which a man 
 makes this world his defence may teach you a lesson as to 
 how you can make God your defence. How does a man 
 make this world his defence ? By trusting to it. He 
 that says to the fine gold, " Thou art my confidence," has 
 made it his fortress — and that is how you will make God 
 your fortress — by trusting to Him. The very same emotion, 
 the very same act of mind, heart, and will, may be turned 
 either upwards or downwards, as you can turn the beam 
 from a lantern which way you please. Direct it earth- 
 wards, and you " trust in the uncertainty of riches." 
 Flash it heavenwards, and you " trust in the living God." 
 
 And that same lesson is taught by the words of our text : 
 " The righteous runneth into it." I do not dwell upon 
 that word " righteous." That is the Old Testament point 
 of Tiew, which could not conceive it possible that any 
 
TWO FORTRESSES. 309 
 
 man could have deep and close communion with God, ex- 
 cept on condition of a pure character. I will not speak of 
 that at present, but point to the picturesque metaphor, 
 which will tell us a great deal more about what faith is 
 than many a philosophical dissertation. Many a man who 
 would be perplexed by a theologian's talk will understand 
 this : ■• The righteous runneth into the name of the Lord." 
 
 The metaphor brings out the idea of eager harte in be- 
 taking oneself to the shelter, as when an invading army 
 comes into a country, and the unarmed peasants take their 
 portable belongings and their cattle, and catch up their 
 children in their arms, and set their wives upon their 
 mules, and make all haste to some fortified place ; or as 
 when the manslayer in Israel fled to the city of refuge, or as 
 when Lot hurried for his life out of Sodom. There would be 
 no dawdling then : but wiih every muscle strained, men 
 would run into the stronghold, counting every minute a 
 year till they were inside its walls, and heard the heavy 
 door close between them and the pursuer. No matter how 
 rough the road, or how over-powering the heat. No time 
 to stop to gather flowers, or even diamonds on the road^ 
 when a moment's delay might mean the enemy's sword in 
 your heart ! 
 
 Now that metaphor is frequently used to express the re- 
 solved and swift act by which, recognising in Jesus Christ, 
 who declares the name of the Lord, our hiding-place, we 
 shelter ourselves in Him, and rest secure. One of the 
 picturesque words by which the Old Testament expresses 
 "trust" means literally "to flee to a refuge." The Old 
 Testament trust is the New Testament faith, even as the 
 Old Testament " Name of the Lord " answers to the New 
 Testament " Name of Jestis^ And so we run into this 
 sure hiding-place and stroii-r fortress of the name of the 
 Lord, when we betake ourselves to Jesus and put our trust 
 in Him as our defence. 
 
310 TWO PORTRESSES. 
 
 Such a faith — the trust of mind, heart, and will— -laying 
 hold of the name of the Lord, makes us " righteous," and 
 so capable of " dwelling with the devouring fire " of God*s 
 perfect purity. The Old Testament point of view was 
 righteousness, in order to abiding in God. The New 
 Testament begins, as it were, at an earlier stage in the re- 
 ligious life, and tells us how to get the righteousness, without 
 which, it holds as strongly as. the Old Testament, no man 
 Bhall see the Lord. It shows us that our faith, by which 
 we run into that fortress, fits us to enter the fortress, 
 because it makes us partakers of Christ's purity. 
 
 So my earnest question to you all is — Have you " fled 
 for refuge to lay hold " on that Saviour in whom God has 
 set His name ? Like Lot out of Sodom, like the manslayer 
 to the city of refuge, like the un warlike peasants to the 
 baron's tower, before the border thieves, have you gone 
 thither for shelter from all the sorrows and guilt and 
 dangers that are marching terrible against you ? Can you 
 take up as yours the old grand words of exuberant trust in 
 which the Psalmist heaps together the names of the Lord 
 as if walking about the city of his defence, and telling the 
 towers thereof ? " The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, 
 and my deliverer ; my God, my strength, in whom I will 
 trust ; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my 
 high tower." If you have, then " because you have made 
 the Lord your refuge, there shall no evil befall you. " 
 
 III. — So we have, lastly, what comes of sheltering in 
 these two refuges. 
 
 As to the former of them, I said at the beginning of 
 these remarks that the words " is safe " were more accur- 
 ately as well as picturesquely rendered by is " set aloft." 
 They remind us of the psalm which has many points of 
 resemblance with this text, and which gives the very same 
 thought when it says " I will set him on high, because he 
 hath known My name." The fugitive is taken within the 
 
•TWO FORTRESSES. 311 
 
 safe walls of the strong tower, and is set up high on the 
 battlements, looking down upon the baffled pursuers, and 
 far beyond the reach of their arrows. To stand upon that 
 tower lifts a man above the region where temptations fly, 
 above the region where sorrow strikes, lifts him above sin 
 and guilt and condemnation, and fear, and calumny, and 
 slander and sickness, and separation, and loneliness, and 
 death ; " and all the ills that flesh is heir to." 
 
 Or, as one of the old Puritan commentators has it : — 
 " The tower is so deep that no pioneer can undermine it, 
 so thick that no cannon can breach it, so high that no 
 ladder can scale it." " The righteous runneth into it," and 
 is perched up there ; and can look down like Lear from 
 his cliff, and all the troubles that afflict the lower levels 
 shall " show scarce so gross as beetles " from the height 
 where he stands, safe and high, hidden in the Name of 
 the Lord. 
 
 I say little about the other side. Brethren, the 
 world in any of its forms, the good things of this life 
 in any shape, whether that of money or any other, can 
 do a great deal for us. They can keep a great many in- 
 conveniences from us, they can keep a great many cares 
 and pains and sorrows from us. I was going to say, to 
 carry out the metaphor, they can keep the rifle bullets 
 from us. But, ah ! when the big siege guns get into 
 position and begin to play ; when the great trials that 
 every life must have, sooner or later, come to open fire at 
 ns, then the defence that auythini? in this outer world can 
 give comes rattling auuuo our ears very quickly. It 
 is like the pasteboard helmet which looked as good as 
 if it had been steel, and did admirably as long as no sword 
 struck it. 
 
 There is only one thing that will keep us peaceful and 
 unharmed, and that is to trust our poor shelterless lives 
 and sinful souls to the Saviour who has died for ub. In 
 
312 TWO PORTRESSES. 
 
 Him we find the hiding-place in which seenre, as beneath 
 the shadow of a great rock, dreaded evils will pass us by, 
 as impotent to hurt as savages before a castle fortified by 
 modern skill. All the bitterness of outward calamities 
 will be taken from them before they reach us. Their 
 arrows will still wound, but He will have wiped the 
 poison off before He lets them be shot at us. The force 
 of temptation will be weakened, for if we live near Him 
 we shall have other tastes and desires. The bony fingers 
 of the skeleton death, that drags men from all other 
 homes, will not dislodge us from our fortress-dw^elling. 
 Hid in Him we shall neither fear going down to the 
 grave, nor coming up from it, nor judgment, nor eternity. 
 Then, I beseech you, make no delay. Escape, flee for your 
 life. A growing host of evil marches swift against yon. 
 Take Christ for your defence and cry to Him, 
 
 *• Lo ! from sin and griex and sham*, 
 Hide n.e, Jesiis, in 'i liy nama." 
 
A LIVING SACRIFICE. 
 
SERMON xxnr. 
 
 A LIVING SACRIFIOa 
 
 ** I tiiiieh JOB, therefore, brethren, by the meroie« of God, that j* prtMat you 
 
 bodlea • liring sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto Qod, which la yoar reaaonaUa mitIm." 
 Romaaa zil. 1. 
 
 This verse makes a transition from the first to the 
 second half of this letter. All before it is what we call 
 doctrinal, the most of what comes after it is practical. 
 And the " therefore " of my text carries us back, not 
 merely to the words immediately preceding, but to the 
 whole presentation of the Christian scheme of salvation 
 from the beginning of the Epistle up to the present point. 
 That is to say, in PauFs notion, all the practical is to be 
 built upon all the doctrinal. There are many men that 
 say : " Give us the morality of the New Testament ; never 
 mind about the theology." But you cannot get the 
 morality without the theology, unless you like to have 
 rootless flowers and lamps without oil. If you want men 
 to live as Paul enjoins, you will have to get them to yield 
 to the mercies of God, which Paul pleads as the motive 
 for all holy life. 
 
 And, on the other hand, a great many good people, and 
 
316 4 LIVING 8ACRIPI0B. 
 
 some professed theologians and Christian ministers forget 
 that the end of doctrine is life, and that the meaning of 
 all that we are taught about God is conduct and character, 
 and that therefore the most orthodox orthodoxy, divorced 
 from practice, is like the dried flowers which botanists put 
 between sheets of blotting-paper, with no perfume nor 
 colour, nor growth nor life in them — the skeletons of dead 
 beauty. 
 
 Let ns, then, always remember this little word "there- 
 fore " that binds together indissolubly the two halves of 
 Christian teaching — the setting forth of Christian truth, 
 and the earnest exhortation — built upon that truth — to all 
 manner of Christian duty. 
 
 These words of my text are not only the flower and the 
 outcome of all that has gone before, but they are likewise 
 the basis of all that follows. The whole of the detailed 
 exhortations which fill up the rest of the Epistle lie, as 
 the folded leaves in the spring time in the sheath-like 
 bud, here in this exhortation. The two precepts of this 
 verse, and of the one that follows it, give us, in the most 
 general terms, the highest notion of Christian morality 
 and duty. Sacrifice and transformation, these two, if yon 
 will analyse and expand them, you will find to lead up to 
 all manner of nobilities and heroisms and holinesses, of 
 life and conduct. 
 
 I. — So then, we have here, I think, in onr text a very 
 remarkable way of putting what I may call the sum of 
 Christian service. 
 
 " I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that 
 ye present your bodies" — "present," of course, being the 
 sacrificial word for bringing the ofi'ering — "a living sacri- 
 fice " ; not dragged dead to the altar, but living when 
 brought there ; and living because brought there ; " holy '* 
 with a true consecration because it is a sacrifice, and, 
 wonderful to think, "acceptable unto €k)d, which ii 
 
A LIVING SACRIFICE. 317 
 
 onr reasonable service." Now the main leading idea 
 there is, as I said, the gathering together of all 
 Christian duty into the one mighty word "sacrifice." 
 And what does that mean ? It means, no mere fine meta- 
 phor, but a thought that has a very wide sweep, and a very 
 tight application to our daily lives. 
 
 Sacrifice, to begin with, means giving up everything to 
 God. And how do I give up to God ? When in heart and 
 will, and thought, I am conscious of His presence, and do 
 all the actions of the inner man in depeudeiice on and in 
 obedience to Him. That is the true sacrifice, when I 
 think as in His sight, and will, and love, and act as in 
 obedience to Him. 
 
 And this sacrifice, which consists in the reference of 
 the whole of my being and actions to God, will, as it were, 
 becoming visible in the sacrifice of the body which is the 
 manifestation of the inner man. That word is not to be 
 passed over as if it were only a synonym for " yourselves." 
 My text speaks about what is to be done with the body ; 
 the next verse speaks about what is to be done with the 
 mind. 
 
 " Present your bodies living sacrifices." We are to look 
 upon our corporeal frame with reverence as the gift of 
 God. We are to look upon it and to use it as a wonderful 
 instrument, and to keep it well in hand as a possible 
 enemy and antagonist. The body is the organ of all our 
 activity, that by which we come into communication with 
 the outer world ; and we render it up as a living sacrifice 
 to God when in all common actions we have a supreme 
 and distinct reference to His will, and do, or refuse to do, 
 because of the fear and for the sake of the Lord. As one 
 of the Greek commentators has it upon this verse : — " Let 
 the eye look upon nothing evil, and it becomes a sacrifice ; 
 let the tongue say nothing foul, and it becomes an oflering ; 
 let the hand do nothing unlawful, and it becomes a holo- 
 
81S A LIVmO SAORIFIOB. 
 
 canst.** The body has wants and appetites — food, drink, 
 clothing, shelter, rest, recreation ; you have to see to it 
 that these are supplied with a distinct reference to, and 
 remembrance of, Him, the Creator and Saviour of the 
 body, and so made acts of religious worship. 
 
 The excess which dulls the spirit and makes it all unapt 
 to serve Him, and to walk in the lofty regions of truth, 
 and to cultivate the habit of meditation ; the absorbing 
 care about outward things which checks all the nobility 
 of a man's life ; the mere selfish indulgence and enjoy- 
 ment in them which brings men below the level of the 
 beasts that perish, these are the grosser forms in which 
 the body comes in the way of the soul, and the regulation 
 and suppression of these are the elementary and simplest 
 parts of the offering of our bodies as living sacrifices. 
 We should neither care so much as some of you men do for 
 what you eat and drink, nor so much as some of you women 
 do for the wherewithal you shall be clothed ; but consult 
 for these needs and satisfy them as in the sight of God, 
 and so realise that high and difficult attainment of Christian 
 godliness, to " eat our meat with thankfulness and with 
 singleness of heart, praising God." 
 
 It is not fitting in this place (though I would fain do it 
 for some reasons), to dwell on some of the grosser forma 
 in which this great exhortation is neglected, especially by 
 some of you younger men. Let me but hint at what I 
 cannot do more than hint here. Remember, my young 
 brother, " He that soweth to the flesh shall " — as sure as 
 one and one make two : he shall — " of the flesh reap cor- 
 ruption." Remember your body is the temple of a spirit 
 which may be the temple of a living God, and " live 
 soberly " in this present world of evil. 
 
 There is no need in this generation to preach against 
 asceticism. We are too good Protestants, that is to say, 
 many of lui are too fond of onr own self-indulgence to fall 
 
A LIVING SACRIFICE. 319 
 
 Into any danger of fasting and hair-shirts. All that kind 
 of life was an extreme, unquestionably ; and the kind of 
 life that a great many of you professing Christians live is 
 an extreme the other way, just as unquestionably. And 
 looking at the two, the man that mortified his body in 
 the monk's cell, and the " liberal-minded " professing 
 Christian that never thinks of curbing his animal gratifica- 
 tions, or of eating and drinking as in the fear of God, 
 I for my part would rather, of the two, be the monk. 
 I am quite sure that there never was a generation 
 that wanted this exhortation more than this generation 
 does, when all round about us we see senseless luxury, 
 the making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof 
 in all classes of life, when " plain and high thinking " are 
 no more ; when you cannot look at the hoardings on the 
 walls without having jour eyes offended and your decency 
 insulted ; when poetry, painting and sculj^ture, and the 
 stage, and the newspapers, seem all to vie one with another 
 to feed the flesh, and to proclaim a crnsade against the 
 subjugation of the body for the sake of the spirit ; and 
 when young men and old men, young women and old 
 women, professing Christians and non-Christians, are alike 
 in danger of being tainted by the leprosy. My brother, 
 I bring you the old message. Better John the Baptist's 
 garment of camel's hair and his meat — locusts and wild 
 honey, if, like John the Baptist, I shall see the heavens 
 opened, and the Spirit of God descending on the Son of 
 Man, than this full-fed sensualism which is the curse and 
 the crime of this generation. " I beseech you, brethren, 
 that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." 
 
 Now a word or two about other matters connected with 
 this first thought as to the sum of Christian service. Here 
 we get this truth that such offering makes a man live 
 more nobly and more truly than anything else. 
 
 " A living sacrifice." Of course that refers to the con- 
 
320 A LIVING SACRIFICE. 
 
 trast between the death of the sacrifice, in Jndaism and 
 Heathenism, and the life of the man in the Christian 
 sacrifice. But it carries with it this lesson, too, that, not 
 mutilation but consecration is the true sacrifice ; that we 
 are not calkJ upon to crush our desires, tastes, appetites, 
 or to refrain from actions, but that they are to be con- 
 trolled and done in obedience to God. 
 
 Now and then it may be necessary, it very often is 
 necessary, that a man should offer his body a living sacri- 
 fice in the sense of giving up, and altogether crucifying 
 and contradicting some natural taste and desire. As 
 Christ tells us, circumstances may come in which it is the 
 plain dictate of Christian duty to put your hand down 
 there on the block and take an axe in the other and chop 
 it off. It is the best thing you can do ; better for you to 
 go maimed into life than with all your limbs into hell. 
 But that is second-best ; and if the man had always con- 
 secrated his faculty to God, he would never have had 
 need to cut it off. To harness and tame it, to yoke it to 
 the cart, and make it work, not to shoot the wild beast, is 
 the right thing to do. 
 
 Thus to consecrate oneself is the way to secure a higher 
 and a nobler life than ever before. Just as when you take 
 a flower out of the woods and put it into a greenhouse, 
 and cultivate, and keep it back, and nip off some of its 
 flower buds, and guide its growth, you will get a broader 
 leaf and a finer flower than when it was wild, so the 
 disciplined, restrained, consecrated man is the man whose 
 life is the richest, fullest, largest, the gladsomest, the 
 noblest in every way. If yon want to go all to rack and 
 ruin live according to your own fancy and taste. If you 
 want to be strong and grow stronger and more and more 
 blessed, put the brake on and keep a tight hand upon 
 yourself, and offer, your whole being upon His altar. 
 
 Then, again, this sacrifice is " your reasonable service." 
 
A LIVING SAORIFIGB. 32] 
 
 Apparently " reasonable " here is not opposed to " un- 
 reasonable '* ; Paul would not have called the Jewish 
 sacrifices unreasonable, nor did it lie in his way here to 
 assert that the Christian sacrifice was in accordance with 
 reason — however true that may be. But the antithesis is 
 with the material sacrifices consisting of the "flesh of 
 bulls" and "blood of goats," and the Revised Version 
 gives the true meaning in its marginal rendering "spirit- 
 ual." It is a service or worship rendered by the inner 
 man, transacted by the mind or reason, and thus, as indicat- 
 ing the part of our nature which performs it, is reasonable. 
 For though the body be the sacrifice, presenting the body 
 as sacrifice is the work of the mind and will, and while 
 the offering is a corporeal, bringing the offering is a spirit- 
 ual service. 
 
 Now there is no need to exaggerate in depreciation of 
 outward forms of oral worship. But still we have all 
 need to be reminded that devout daily living is true wor- 
 ship. All Christians are priests, and all their lives should 
 be worship. Where the common food is eaten with 
 thankfulness and in the consciousness of His presence, it 
 is holy as the Lord's Supper. The same authority that 
 said of the one " This do in remembrance of Me," said by 
 His Apostle of the other " Whether ye eat or drink, do all 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus." Lahorare est orare — to 
 work is to pray, if the work be done from a right motive. 
 The bells that jingle on the horses in the waggoner's team 
 may bear the same inscription as blazed on the High 
 Priest's mitre, " Holiness to the Lord," and the shop-girl 
 behind the counter may be as truly offering sacrifice to 
 God as the priest by the altar. The mere formal worship 
 is abomination without this. " When ye make many pray- 
 ers, I will not hear you ; your hands are full of blood." 
 ** Do you think that you are going to lift them to My 
 Throne with acceptance ? " Is there not every bit as much 
 
 T 
 
322 A LIVING SACRIFICH. 
 
 enperstitioTis dependence on forms and places of external 
 worship amongst us nineteenth-century Nonconformists 
 as ever there was at any time in the world's history ? 
 There are people in this chapel this morning that think 
 they have done a meritorious thing in coming here to thif 
 service, and whose only notion of worship is a wear^ 
 sitting in this place for an hour and a half. Do you think 
 that is of any use ? Your prayers will never go above that 
 roof, and no blessings will ever come down through it to 
 you, unless the worship of the Word be purified and 
 proved by the worship of the Life. The sacrifice of praise 
 is right, " but to do good and to communicate forget not, 
 for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." 
 
 II. — We have not only the sum of Christian service, but 
 we have likewise the great motive of Christian service. 
 " I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God." 
 In the Apostle's mind this is no vague expression for the 
 whole of the diffused blessings with which God floods the 
 world, but he means thereby the definite specific thing, 
 the great scheme of mercy set forth in the previous chap- 
 ters ; that is to say, His great work of saving the world 
 through Jesus Christ. That is, " the mercies " to which 
 he makes his appeal. The diffused and wide-shining 
 mercies, which stream from the Father's heart, are all, as 
 it were, focussed as through a burning-glass into one strong 
 beam, which can kindle the greenest wood and melt the 
 thick-ribbed ice. 
 
 Only on the footing of that sacrifice can we offer ours. 
 He has offered the one sacrifice, of which His death is the 
 essential part, in order that we may offer the sacrifice of 
 which our life is the essential part. He has offered the 
 dying sacrifice which is propitiation, in order that, on the 
 footing of that, we may offer the sacrifice of thankful 
 consecration, the Eucharistic sacrifice of grateful surren- 
 der of ouPMlves to Him. 
 
A LIVING 8AORIFI0H. 828 
 
 The mercies of God, in Jesns Christ, are not only the 
 ground npon which we can ofler our sacrifice, but they 
 are the only motive power that will be strong enouirh to 
 lead to this consecration of ourselves to Him. The fierce 
 wants of the bodily life, the passions, and appetites and 
 lusts that rage and rule in men will be subdued by nothing 
 short of the mighty motive drawn from the great love of 
 God revealed in the dying love of Jesus. There is one 
 magnet strong enough to draw reluctant hearts and 
 reluctant limbs, and that is Jesus lifted up on the Cross. 
 There is one fire powerful enough to bum the bonds of 
 flesh and sense which hold men, and that is the fire which 
 Jesus longed to kindle on earth. Other restraints from 
 propriety, prudence, or even principle will reach their 
 breaking point at a much lower strain than the silken 
 bonds in which Christ's love leads the lion and the bear 
 of our passions and appetites. They are useful and help- 
 ful in their places — but '* Gospel temperance," a self-control 
 based on Christian motives, is the really reliable break- 
 water against storms and passion and self-indulgence. 
 You may try to coerce the corporeal nature by other bonds, 
 they will be like the fetters upon the madman in the 
 tombs. When the paroxysms come he will rend them 
 asunder as Samson did the withes. Oh, if you want to tame 
 the animal that is in you, and lead it in gentle following 
 and docile obedience, here is the one motive that will do 
 it— the mercy of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. That is 
 one great and blessed peculiarity of Christian morals, that 
 Christ is at once our pattern and our power to copy, and 
 our motive. He is, to those who love Him, both example 
 and stimulus. Let us then seek for power to yield our- 
 selves body and spirit to God, in the habitual contempla- 
 tion of that great gift which alone will conquei- seJf, and 
 make all surrender and all self -crucifixion blessed and 
 delightsome. 
 
 TS 
 
324 A LIVIKG SACRIFIOB. 
 
 III. — One other thing here I must jnst touch for a moment, 
 that is the gentle enforcement of this great motive for 
 Christian service, " I beseech you ! " Law commands, the 
 Gosi)el entreats ! Paul's beseeching is only a less tender 
 echo of the Master's entreaty. His word to His servants 
 is never " Go," but it is either " Come," or " Who will go ?'* 
 Thus the harsh imperative of law is softened down by 
 His lips. Instead of '* Thou shalt," His most stringent 
 word is J " If ye love Me, keep My commandments." 
 Instead of a harsh injunction, duty becomes the wish of a 
 Friend, which wish is a delight to do. " His yoke is easy," 
 not because His precepts let dowm the ideal of morality, 
 but because the motive is love, and the manner of com- 
 mand gentle and beseeching. Hence its power ; for hearts, 
 like flowers, which could not be burst open by the crow- 
 bar of law, may be wooed open by the sunshine of love. 
 
 It is a solemn task laid upon us preachers to try to 
 soften our voices that they may not all unworthily repre- 
 sent the gentleness of Christ, and as God's ambassadors, 
 beseech men to be reconciled to God. Through even our 
 lips, dear friends. He " prays you with much entreaty to 
 receive the gift " of Himself, and to render back that gift 
 which it will gladden you to give, and — wonderful conde- 
 scension — will delight Him to receive — the gift of your- 
 selves. Oh, let that pitying, patient gentle love of the 
 Saviour draw you to Him in contrite faith, and love, and 
 service. He invites. He prays you to let II is gracious 
 power enter your heart. From His Cross He called to 
 you and to all the world, " Come unto Me and I will give 
 you rest." Now He si)eaks from Heaven. " Behold I 
 stand at the door and knock " Surely lhe.-e beseeching 
 tones should touch your heart more than all thunders of 
 command. 
 
 Surely as the morning sunrise drew a note from the 
 Btony lips of the statue, which storm and thunder could 
 
A LIVING SACRIFICE. 825 
 
 not awaken, His pleading voice will bring an answer that 
 could not have been won by any commandments, however 
 rigid, or by any threatenings, however severe. " We beseech 
 yon that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.'* "Yield 
 yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead 
 and your members as instruments of righteousness to 
 God," being moved thereto by the mercy of the Cross, 
 and won thereto by the gentle voice of the Saviour of 
 your sooli. 
 
WHAT FAITH MAKES OF DEATH. 
 
8BRM0N XXV. 
 
 WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH .• 
 
 ** Ad entrance ministered abandantly. Shortly I miut pnt off this my tabemAd*. 
 My decease." 2 Peter i. 11, 14, 16. 
 
 We are all mourners here this morning. A life of 
 practical godliness, of bright Christian service, and, latterly, 
 of wonderfully brave endurance, has come at last to the 
 end to which we slowly learned to know it must come. 
 The loving wife, who was a helper and a counsellor as 
 well, the staunch loyal friend, the diligent worker, with 
 her open hand, her frank cordiality, her clear insight, her 
 resolute will, has passed from our sight, but never from 
 our love nor our memory. The empty place in the home 
 can only be filled by Him that has made it empty, and we 
 all pray that He may be near. Every member of this con- 
 gregation must feel that a strong stay has gone. A wider 
 circle, for whom I may presume to speak, mourns the loss 
 of a dear friend ; a far wider one, covering the whole 
 country, offers through my lips this morning affectionate 
 and earnest sympathy to the stricken hearts here to-day. 
 
 • DeliTered At MyrtlA-itreet Ohspel, LlTarpool, (on oooMlon of the daath of Mrt, 
 Btowell Brown.) 
 
330 WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH. 
 
 Butj dear brethren, the pulpit is not the place for 
 personal eulogium, and I think I shall best discharge my 
 duty if I try to turn our common sorrow to account by 
 setting before you some general considerations drawn 
 from these three fragments, which I have ventured to 
 isolate from their connection because they have a certain 
 unity as being all euphemisms for one thing. The Bible 
 very seldom speaks of death by its own ugly name. It 
 rather chooses to use expressions which veil its pain and 
 its terror ; and so does common speech. But the reason in 
 the two cases is exactly opposite. The Bible will not call 
 death " death " because it is not a bit afraid of it ; the 
 world will not call death " death " because it is so mnoh 
 afraid of it. 
 
 The Christian view has robbed it of all its pain and its 
 terror. It has limited its power to the mere outside of the 
 man, and the conviction that death can no more touch me 
 than a sword can hack a sunbeam, reduces it to insignifi- 
 cance. These thoughts are brought out in these fragment- 
 ary words which I ask you to consider now. I think you 
 will see that they lend us some very valuable and 
 gladdening thoughts as to the aspect in which Christian 
 faith should regard the act of death. 
 
 I have ventured to alter their order for the sake of bring- 
 ing together the two which are most closely connected. 
 
 I. — I ask you, then, to look with me first, at that repre- 
 sentation of death as putting off the tabernacle. 
 
 " Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle* 
 even as our Lord Christ hath showed." There is, of course 
 a reference here to the warning which the Apostle received 
 from his Lord, •* signifying what death he should die." 
 He had learned that in his old age he should be seized and 
 bound, and led " whither he would not." In all prob- 
 ability the language of our verse would be more accurately 
 represented if we read for " shortly " suddenly ; — the 
 
WHAT FAITH MAKBS OJ DEATH. 881 
 
 ApoBtle's anticipation not being somnch that his dissolution 
 was impending as that his death when it came would b« 
 sndden, — that is to say — violent. And therefore he seeks 
 to warn and prepare his brethren beforehand. 
 
 The expressions seem to blend the two figures, that of a 
 tabernacle — or tent — and that of a vesture. As the Apostle 
 Paul, in like manner, blends the same two ideas when he 
 talks of being " clothed upon with our house which is 
 from heaven," and unclothed from " our earthly house of 
 this tabernacle." 
 
 To such small dimensions has Christian faith dwindled 
 down the ugly thing, death. It has come to be nothing 
 more than a change of vesture, a change of dwelling. 
 
 Now what lies in that metaphor ? Three things that I 
 touch upon for a moment. First of all the rigid limitation 
 of the region within which death has any power at all. It 
 affects a man's vesture, his dwelling-place, something 
 that belongs to him, something that wraps him, but nothing 
 that is himself. This enemy may seem to come in and 
 capture the whole fortress, but it is only the outworks 
 that are thrown down; the citadel stands. The organ is one 
 thing, the player on it is another ; and whatever befalls 
 that has nothing to do with what touches him. Instead of 
 an all-mastering conqueror, then, as sense tells us that 
 death is, and as a great deal of modern science is telling us 
 that death is, it is only a powder that touches the fringe and 
 circumference, the wrappage and investiture of my being, 
 and has nothing to do with that being itself. The " foolish 
 senses " may declare that death is lord because they " see 
 no motion in the dead." But in spite of sense and anatomist's 
 scalpels, ori^anisation is not life. Mind and conscience, 
 will and love, are something more than functions of the 
 brain ; and no scalpel can ever cut into self. I live, and 
 may live — and blessed be God I I can say — shall live, 
 apart altogether from this bodily organisation. Whatever 
 
332 WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH. 
 
 befals it is only like changing a dress or removing into 
 another house. The man is untouched. 
 
 Another thing implied in this figure, and, indeed, in 
 all three metaphors of our text — is that life runs on un- 
 broken and the same through and after death. 
 
 If the Apostle be right in his conviction that the change 
 only affects the circumference, then of course that follows 
 naturally. Unbroken and the same I The gulf looks deep 
 and black to us on this side, but, depend upon it, it looks 
 a mere chink which a step can cross, when seen from the 
 other. Like some of those rivers that disappear in a sub- 
 terranean tunnel, and then emerge into the light again, 
 the life that sinks out of sight in the dark valley of the 
 shadow of death will come up into a brighter sunshine be- 
 yond the mountains, and it will be running in the same 
 direction that it followed when it was lost to mortal eye. 
 For just as the dying Stephen knew his Master again, 
 when he saw Him standing in the glory, we should know 
 our dear ones after they had passed through this change, 
 for all the sweetness and all the love would be there still, 
 and nothing would be gone but the weakness that encom- 
 passed them, and the imperfection that sometimes masked 
 their true beauty. 
 
 The same in direction, the same in essence, uninterrup- 
 ted through the midst of the darkness, the life goes on. A 
 man is the same whatever dress he wears. Though we 
 know that much will be changed, and that new powers 
 may come, and old wants and weaknesses fall away with 
 new environment, still the essential self will be unchanged, 
 and the life will run on without a break, and with scarcely 
 a deflection. There is no magic in the act of death which 
 changes the set of a character, or the tendencies and desires 
 of a nature. As you die so you live, and you live in your 
 death and after your death the same man and woman thai 
 you were when the blow f elL 
 
WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH. 333 
 
 So, my brother if yoa need it, take the warning that lies 
 in this truth, and see to it that the right character is begun 
 to be formed here, for if it be not, there is no power in 
 death to change its direction. 
 
 The last idea that is here in this first of onr metaphors 
 is that of a step in advance. " I must put off this my tab- 
 ernacle." Yes 1 in order that instead of the nomad tent — 
 the ragged canvas — I may put on the building, the 
 permanent house ; in order that, instead of the " vesture 
 of decay," I may put on the fine linen, clean and white. 
 which is the righteousness of saints, and the body which 
 is a fit organ for the perfected spirit. 
 
 True I that does not come at once, but still the stripping 
 off of the one is the preparation for the investiture with 
 the other ; and there is advance in the change. Death is 
 as truly a step forward in a life's history as birth is. 
 Though the full " redemption " of the body be not yet 
 received by them who sleep in Jesus, they wait in peace. 
 They are blessed, conscious, lapped in the rest of God, 
 and surely taaght by Him Who knows all things, all 
 that it would gladden or help them to know of us whom 
 they surely love still. They dwell out of the body, but 
 they dwell in the Lord — and He will be to them their 
 means of communication with the outer universe, eyes to 
 the blind and hearing to the deaf. 
 
 Of course the process of divesting goes on at different 
 rates. Elijah had his chariot of fire, Elisha is not less 
 favoured when he falls sick of the lingering sickness 
 wherewith he should die. The one has larger means of 
 ministering than the other, and up to the last moment 
 may teach lessons and give impulses. Some have the 
 privilege given them like our dear friend of putting off 
 the garments slowly, and teaching, as she did, lessons of 
 brave patience, and of how to bear pain and weariness 
 with undimnied sr)irit and unflagging interest in others, 
 
iSM WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH. 
 
 which those who learned them will keep as precious 
 memories. But however the end comes, whether the 
 wind rises and beats upon the house, and it falls in one 
 sudden ruin, or whether it is slowly unroofed and dis- 
 mantled until it is no longer habitable, let us thank God 
 that we know for our dear ones and for ourselves, that 
 whatever becomes of the clay hovel the tenant is safe, 
 and has gone to live in a fair house in a " distant City 
 glorious.'* 
 
 II. — And now we may turn to the remaining two meta- 
 phors here, which have a more close connection with 
 each other, and yet are capable of being dealt with separ- 
 ately. Death is further spoken of as a departure. 
 
 " I will endeavour," says the Apostle, " that ye may be 
 able after my decease." The word for "decease" here 
 is a very unusual one, as, no doubt, many of you know. 
 It is employed with reference to death only twice in the 
 New Testament, once in the text and once in the account 
 of our Lord's Transfiguration, where Moses and Ellas are 
 represented as speaking with Him " of the decease that 
 He should accomplish at Jerusalem." You may observe 
 that immediately after the last of my texts, the Apostle 
 begins to speak about that Transfiguration, and makes 
 definite reference to what he had heard there ; so that it 
 is at all events possible that he selects the unusual word 
 with some reference to, or some remembrance of, its use 
 upon that occasion in the narrative of one of the Evange- 
 lists. Again, it is the word which has been transferred 
 into English as Exodus, and may possibly be here 
 employed with some allusion to the departure of the 
 children of Israel from the land of bondage. Now, look- 
 ing at these three points, the literal meaning of this word, 
 its employment in reference to the deliverance from 
 Egypt, and its employment in reference to the death of 
 Christ, we gather from them valuable consideration!. 
 
WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEATH. 835 
 
 This aspect of death shows it to us as seen from this 
 ■ide. Like the former, it minimiees its imjjortance by 
 making it merely a change of place — another stage in a 
 journey. We have had many changes already ; only this 
 is the last stage, the last day*s march, and it takes us home. 
 But yet the sad thoughts of separation and withdrawal are 
 here. These show us the saddest aspect of death, which 
 no reflection and no consolations of religion will ever 
 make less sad. Death, the separator, is, and must always 
 be, an unwelcome messenger. He comes and lays his 
 bony hand upon us, and unties the closest embraces, and 
 draws us away from all the habitudes and associations of 
 our lives, and bans us into a lonely land. 
 
 But even in this aspect there is alleviation if we will 
 think about this departure in connection with the two 
 uses of the word which I have mentioned. 
 
 A change of place, yes ! an Exod us from bondage, as true 
 a deliverance from captivity as that old Exodus was. Life 
 has its chains and limitations, which are largely due to the 
 bodily life hemming in and shackling the spirit. It is a 
 prison house, though it be full of God's goodness. We 
 cannot but feel that, even in health and much more in 
 sickness, the bondage of flesh and sense, of habits rooted 
 in the body, and of wants which it feels, weighs heavily 
 upon us. By one swift stroke of Death's hammer the fet- 
 ters are struck off. Death is a Liberator, in the profoundest 
 sense ; the Moses that leads the bondmen into a desert it 
 may be, but to liberty and towards their own land, to their 
 rest. It is the angel who comes in the night to God's 
 prisoned servant, striking the fetters from his limbs, and 
 leading him through the iron gate into the city. And so we 
 do not need to shiver and fear for ourselves or to mourn for 
 our dear ones, if they have passed out of the bondage of " cor- 
 ruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." 
 Death is a departm-e which is an emancipation. 
 
336 WHAT FAITH MAKES OF DEATH. 
 
 Again, it is a departure which is conformed to ChrlBt's 
 •• decease," and is guided and companioned by Him. 
 
 Ah ! There you touch the deepest source of all comfort 
 and all strength. 
 
 " We can go through no darker roomi 
 Than He has gone before." 
 
 And the memory of His presence is comfort and light. 
 What would it be, for instance, to a man stumbling in the 
 polar regions, amidst eternal ice and trackless wastes, to 
 come across the footprints of a man ? What would it be if 
 he found out that they were the footprints of his own 
 brother ? And you and I have a Brother's steps to tread 
 in when we take that last weary journey from which flesh 
 and sense shrink and fail. 
 
 Nor have we only the memory of a past companionship, 
 but, blessed be God ! the reality of a present Friend. 
 When all other ties snap, that holds. There is an awful 
 solitude in death into which no human affection can find its 
 way. It comes and wraps a man in a cloud, through which 
 love and sympathy cannot pass, but its thickest and misti- 
 est folds are not too dense for Christ to enter. We may fear 
 when we enter into the cloud ; and when our dear ones go 
 into it we may wring our hands in sorrow that our help 
 avails so little, but be sure they have found, and shall find, 
 Christ in the heart of it, and He will say to us, " When thou 
 passest through the waters I will be with thee ; and through 
 the floods, they shall not overwhelm thee." The departure 
 is not all pain if we travel in the company of Jesus Christ. 
 
 III. — The last aspect of these metaphors is that one con- 
 tained in the words of our first text, " An entrance minis- 
 tered abundantly." The going out is a going in ; the 
 journey has two ends, only the two ends are so very near 
 each other that the same act is described by the two terms. 
 Looked at from this side it is a going out ; looked at from 
 the other side it is a coming in. 
 
WHAT FAITH MAKES OP DEIATH. 3o7 
 
 •* There is but a step betwixt me and /»/<?." One moment, 
 whilst we are saying, " Is he gone ? " is enough to lead the 
 dying into the presence chamber of the Kins?. To awake 
 is the work of a moment. We bnt open our eyes, and the 
 realm of dreams falls to pieces and we see realities. One 
 step crosses the frontier. 
 
 If I had time I might dwell npon the thought which is 
 plainly taught us in this last of our texts, of the close con- 
 nection and entire correspondence between the abundance 
 of the entrance and the character of the life. " So an entrance 
 says my text, " shall be ministered," and that " so " carries you 
 back to the forcible exhortations in the early part of the chap- 
 ter. The connection between keeping them and the abun- 
 dance of " the entrance " is still more emphasised when we 
 know that the same word in a different form occurs in the pre- 
 cept — ^'Add to your faith " and in the promise " An entrance 
 shall be ministered.'' Which is to say, in other words, if we 
 take care to provide that our faith is enriched and increased 
 with these graces and excellencies of Christian character, 
 then, and then only, shall the abundant entrance be ours. 
 
 No question whatever, then, but that there is distinctly 
 laid down here the principle that it is not all the same 
 what sort of a Christian a Christian man or woman may 
 be, but that the kind of Christian they are will tell in the 
 kind of entrance they have in the Heaven above. 
 
 The smallest faith that unites a man's heart with Jesus 
 Christ makes him capable of receiving so much of sal- 
 vation as is contained in the bare entrance into the 
 Kingdom ; but every degree of faith's increase, and every 
 degree of faith's enrichment makes him more capable of 
 receiving more of God in Christ, and he will get all he can 
 hold. So every deed here on earth of Christian conduct, 
 and evpry grace here on earth of Christian character, has 
 its issue and its representative in a new influx of the glory 
 and a more intimate possession of the bliss, and a more 
 abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom. 
 
 S 
 
338 WHAT FAITH MAKES OF DEATH. 
 
 "We all enter at the same gate, but we are set at the 
 banqueting table in due order. We all pass into the same 
 Kingdom, but some of us may at once advance further into 
 the land. Be sure, then, of this, that as our faith is en- 
 riched by conduct and character, so our Heaven will be 
 enlarged with raptures and brilliancies. 
 
 So, when we see a life of which Christian faith has 
 been the underlying motive, and in which many graces of 
 the Christian character have been plainly manifested, 
 passing from amongst us, let not our love look only at the 
 empty place on eai-th, but let our faith rise to the thought 
 of the filled place in Heaven. Let us not look down to 
 grave, but up to the skies. Let us not dwell on the de^ 
 parture, but on the abundant entrance. Let us not only 
 remember, but also hope. And as love and faith, memory 
 and hope, follow our friend as she passes " within the 
 Teil," let U8 thank God that we are sure — 
 
 **8he, when the bridegroom Avith his feastfol friendi 
 PssseB to bliss, at the mid hour of night 
 Has gained her entrance." 
 
 My friends I This day's services speak to each of you. Can- 
 not you hear the " great Voice saying. Come up hither 1 *' 
 Is your life rooted in Jesus Christ ? Have you given your 
 life's service to Him ? Is this world a fleeting show to you 
 because He is the reality that you love and trust ? Is it so ? 
 
 If it is, you may be always confident, i^ife will be full 
 of power for work and gladness. A present Christ will 
 comfort you concerning your dear ones gone ; and when 
 it comes to your turn to go, all the grim features of Death 
 will be softened down into solemn beauty, and he, as God's 
 messenger, will lead you for a moment into the wilder- 
 ness, and there speak to your heart, and " so an entrance 
 shall be ministered abundantly unto you into the everlast- 
 ing Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 May it be so with us all ! Amen 1 
 
HOW THE LITTLE MAY BE USED TO GET 
 THE GREAT. 
 
SERMON XXVL 
 
 HOW THE LITTLH MAT BE USED TO GET THE GREAT. 
 
 " He that iB faithful In tliat which is least is faithful also in much, and he that in 
 uuJuHi in the least is unjust also in much. If, therefore, ye have not been faiilif'.ii in 
 the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches ? And if ye 
 have not been faithful in that wliich is auotlier man's, who shall gite yoa that which 
 is your OWQ ?" Luke rvi. 10-12, 
 
 These are very revolutionary worda in more than one 
 respect. There are two things remarkable about them. 
 One is the contrast which is run in all three verses between 
 what our Lord calls " mammon " (that is, simply outward 
 good) and the inward riches of a heart devoted to, and 
 filled with, God and Christ. The former, the material 
 good, " is that which is least," " unrighteous," " another 
 man*s," or leaving out the word " man's," as conveying 
 a false idea— " another's." The inward good is "that 
 which is much," " the true riches," " your own." Christ 
 upsets the world's standard of value as one might do who 
 went among savages whose only medium of cuirency 
 was cowrie-shells, and putting these aside, let them see 
 gold and silver in the stones that were kicked about by 
 their feet. All that is least in tlieir eyes is greatest, all 
 that is greatest in their eyes is trash. 
 
 But another striking thing about the words is the broad, 
 
342 HOW THH LITTLE MAT BE USED 
 
 bold statement that a man's use of the lower goods deter- 
 mines, or is at least an element in determining, his 
 possession of the highest. That is a thing that Protestant 
 Christians are shy of saying ; they seem to think th?t 
 somehow or other it militates against the plain teaching 
 of Scripture that faith is the condition of salvation. But 
 it is distinctly a part of our Lord's teaching here, and th« 
 sooner we make room for it in our creeds the better for 
 our practice and for ourselvet. 
 
 I. — First, then, I desire to consider briefly that strange, 
 new standard of value which is set up here. On the one 
 side is placed the whole glittering heap of all material good 
 that man can touch or handle, all that wealth can buy of 
 this perishable world ; and on the other hand there are 
 the modest and unseen riches of pure thoughts and high 
 desii'es, of a noble heart, of a life assimilated to Jesus 
 Christ. The two are compared in three points, as to their 
 intrinsic magnitude, as to their quality, as to our owner- 
 ship of them. 
 
 Of the great glittering heap our Lord says : ** It is no- 
 thing, at its greatest it is small ;" and of the other our Lord 
 says: "At its smallest it is great." Just a word or two 
 about these antitheses. " Small " and " great " of course 
 are relative terms ; they imply a comparison with each 
 other, and imply also a reference of both to a common 
 standard of value. They not only assert that earth's good 
 is small by the side of, and in comparison with, the other 
 class of good, but they refer both the one and the other 
 class of good to a standard. 
 
 And what is the standard ? If you have enough of a 
 thing to fill the vessel which is meant to contain it, 
 you will call that quantity great ; if not, it will be estima- 
 ted as little. What are these two classes of good 
 measured by, but their respective power of filling the 
 heart ? Outward good at its greatest is amall if 
 
TO GET THE GREAT. 343 
 
 ■o measured ; inward good at its smallest is great. 
 The smallest soul towers above the biggest fortune. 
 Dives' riches are all too small to satisfy Lazarus. All the 
 wealth of all the Rothschilds is too little to fill the soul of 
 the poorest beggar that stands by their carriage door with 
 hungry eyes. The least degree of truth, of love, of good- 
 ness, is bigger in its power to fill the heart than all the 
 externals that human avarice can gather about it. 
 
 Now do we believe that ? Do we order our lives as if 
 we did believe it ? Do we regulate our desires and wishes 
 as if it were an axiom with us that the least of God is 
 more than the most of the world ? Can we thus enter into 
 the understanding of Christ's scale and standard, and think 
 of all the external as " That which is least," and of all the 
 inward as "that which is much" ? 
 
 The world looks at worldly wealth through a microscope 
 which magnifies the infinitesmally small, and then it 
 looks at " the land that is very far off " through a telescope 
 turned the wrong way, which diminishes all that is great. 
 But if we can get up by the side of Jesus Christ and see 
 things with His eyes and from His station, it will be as 
 when a man climbs a mountain, and the little black line, 
 as it seemed to him when looked at from the plain, has 
 risen up into a giant cliff ; and all the big things down 
 below, as they seemed when he was among them, have 
 dwindled. That white speck is a palace ; that bit of a 
 green patch there, over which the skylark flies in a minute. 
 is a great lord's estate. Oh, dear brethren, we do not need 
 to wait to get to Heaven to learn Heaven's tables of weights 
 and measures ! One grain of true love to God is greater in 
 its power to enrich than a California of gold. Manchester 
 men and women, who are tempted to the opposite hereby I 
 do yon fix it in your mind that all this visible is trivial, and 
 all the unseen ip iie great 1 
 
 Take, again, the second antithesis, th« "onrighteooA 
 
M4 HOW THE LITTLB MAY BE USED 
 
 mammon" and "the tme riches." That word, "nn- 
 righteous " in its application to material good is somewhat 
 difficult. I do not think that it means only a certain class 
 of outward good, namely, that which is unjustly gotten, 
 but that it is the designation of the whole. If we keep 
 strictly to the antithesis, "unrighteous" must be the 
 opposite of " true." The word would then come to mean 
 very nearly the same as deceitful, that which betrays. 
 One can see that these two ideas are closely related, and 
 that the meaning of " unrighteous " may easily slide in to 
 that of " deceptive " ; and probably it is best to take that 
 as the meaning of the word here. If any one were to 
 contend, however, that the expression pointed to the fact 
 that all material wealth has evil so mixed up with it that 
 though not in itself bad, it leads to all sorts of unrighte- 
 ousness, 80 that it may be called in a somewhat popular 
 way of speaking, "the unrighteous mammon," I should 
 not dispute it, though preferring the other sense which 
 makes the word the exact contrast of the tnw riches. 
 
 And so we have presented to us the old familiar thought 
 that external good of all sorts looks to be a great deal bet- 
 ter than it is. It promises a great many things that it 
 never fulfils, tempting us as a fish is tempted to the hook 
 by a bait which hides the hook. It is " a juggling fiend " 
 that " keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to 
 our hope." No man ever found in any outward good, 
 when he got it, that which he fancied was in it when 
 he was chasing after it. It has always been and ever 
 will be a delusion and a lie to the man that trusts it. 
 But the inward riches of faith, true holiness, lofty aspira- 
 tions, Christ-directed purposes, all these are true. They 
 promise no more than they perform. They bring more than 
 they said they would. No man ever goes to that well an^ lets 
 down his bucket and brings it up empty. No man ever 
 leans upon that sta£^ and it breaks beneath his wr^lii 
 
TO GET THE GREAT. 345 
 
 No man ev^r said : — " I have tasted Thy love, and lo I it 
 does not satisfy me ! I have realised Thy help, and lo ! it 
 has not been enough ! " What we have to say is : — " Tlie 
 little I have tasted rebukes me that I have not longed for 
 and possessed more, for it is sweet beyond all other sweet- 
 nesses, and strong" beyond all other strengths ! " The 
 riches within are " tt^e riches." The outward are like 
 the fairy gold in the old legends that is given into a man's 
 palm, and when the morning comes it is a handful of 
 withered beech leaves. You get it and you are not 
 happier than you were before you got it. That is the ex- 
 perience of every man that makes the world his confidence. 
 On one hand is the " unrighteous mammon " that does not 
 keep its promises, that does not deal fairly with the people 
 who give themselves up to it and trust to it ; and on the 
 other hand the true riches." 
 
 And then the last contrast is between " another's " and 
 " your own." Another's ? Well, that may moan God's ; 
 and therefore you are stewards, as the whole parable that 
 precedes the text has been teaching. But I am not sure 
 that that is the only, nor indeed the principal reference 
 of the word here. And I think when our Lord speaks of 
 all outward possessions as being, even whilst mine, 
 another's, He means to point there, not only to the fact of 
 stewardship, but also to the fact of the limitations and 
 defects of all outward possessions of outward good. That 
 is to say, there is no real contact between the outward 
 things that a man has and himself. The only things that 
 you really have, paradox as it sounds, are the things that 
 you are. All the rest you hold by a very slight tie, liko 
 the pearls that are sewn upon some half -barbarous Eastern 
 magnate's jacket, which he shakes off as he walks. So 
 men say, " This is mine I '* and it only means " it is not 
 yours." There is no real possession, even while there ia 
 an apparent one, and just because there is no real contact. 
 
346 HOW THE LITTLE MAY BE USED 
 
 because there is always a gap between the man and his 
 goods, because he has not, as it were, gathered them into 
 himself, therefore the possession is transient as well aa 
 incomplete. It slips away from the hand even whilst you 
 hold it. And just as we may say, " There is no present, 
 but everything is past or future, and what we call the 
 present is only the meeting point of these two times," so 
 we may say, there is no possession, because everything is 
 either coming into my hands or going out of them, and 
 my apparent ownership is only for a moment. I simply 
 transmit : — 
 
 " ' Twas mine, 'tis hia, and has been Blare to thouflandt." 
 
 And BO it passes. 
 
 And then consider the common accidents of life which 
 rob men of their goods, and the waste by the very act of 
 use, which gnaws them away as the sea does the cliffs ; 
 and, last of all, death's separation. What can be taken 
 out of a man's hands by death has no right to be called 
 his. Other men will stand in this pulpit that I call mine, 
 other men will sit in those pews that you call yours. I 
 have got books on my shelves that have dead men's names 
 in them ; what of truth and wisdom they draw from the 
 books is in them to-day wherever they are, and is theirs, 
 but the book that was theirs was never theirs really. It 
 is mine to-day, it will be somebody else's to-morrow. 
 Each, for the moment, says " Mine I ** and Christ says 
 •* No ! no I Another's ! " That which is your own is that 
 which you can gather into your heart and keep there, and 
 "Which death cannot take away from you. 
 
 So let us learn how to compare the worth of these two 
 kinds of riches, and to make our own that from 
 which " neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor any creature shall be able to eep^ate 
 us." 
 
 II. — Notice for a moment the other broad principle that 
 
TO GET THE GREAT. 347 
 
 iB laid down in these three verses, as to the highest use of 
 the lower good. 
 
 Our Lord, as I have said in my introductory remarks, 
 distinctly asserts here, as a principle, that our manner of 
 employing the lesser goods of outward possession is an 
 element in determining the amount of our possession of 
 the highest blessing. And as I said, good people are some- 
 times chary of asserting that with the plain emphasis 
 with which it is here asserted, for fear they should damage 
 the central truth that God's mercy and the gifts of His 
 grace come to men through faith, not through their con- 
 duct. I believe that, of course, as being the fundamental 
 principle on which all other of these statements of Scrip- 
 ture must be explained, with which they must be harmo- 
 nised ; and nothing I have to say, and nothing I am sure 
 that Jesus Christ wished to say, militates in the slightest 
 degree against that truth, that a man receives into his heart 
 "the true riches" simply on condition of his desiring 
 them and of his trusting Jesus Christ to give them. 
 
 If 1 had to speak to a man that had no Christian charac- 
 ter about him and no Christian faith in him, I should not 
 begin by saying to him—" Use your outward goods faith- 
 fully and well, and then you will get the highest good," if 
 for no other reason, yet for this, that I do not suppose he 
 could use them faithfully and well unless he had the 
 highest good, which comes to him by faith. 
 
 But that being understood, to say that a man's conduct 
 may help or hinder him towards the possession and in the 
 exercise of the faith which is the condition of his possess- 
 ing the true riches and highest good, is no contradiction 
 to the central truth of the Gospel. And that is what Jesus 
 Christ says here. Whether you are a Christian man or 
 whether you are not, this is true about you, that the 
 way in which you deal with your outward goods, your 
 ■wealth, your capacity of all sorts, may become a barrier 
 
348 HOW THE LITTLE MAY BE USED 
 
 to your possessing the higher, or it may become a mighty 
 help. 
 
 There are plenty of people, and some of them listening 
 to me now, who are kept from being Christians because 
 they love the world so much. They have no desires after 
 God or goodness, because their desires are engrossed and 
 absorbed in the earthly and visible. They so handle that 
 " which is least " that it has taken from them all the wish 
 for that which is greatest. They have lived upon sweet- 
 meats until their appetite is so entirely vitiated that they 
 do not want bread. Like some sea-anemone that gathers 
 in its tentacles and shuts itself up over its prey, so that 
 you cannot shove a bristle into the lips, your hearts may 
 close over your earthly good in such a fashion, so tight, 
 and desperate, and obstinate, that God's grace and His 
 proffered gifts have no chance of finding their way into 
 your hearts at all. There are some of you of whom that 
 is true to-day. 
 
 And is it not true about many Christians that their too 
 high estimate of, and too great carefulness about, and too 
 niggardly disposal of, the things that perish, the goods of 
 this lower life, are hindering their Christian career ? " Ye 
 did run well, what did hinder you ? " I will tell you 
 ■what is hindering a great many of you — what hindered the 
 runners in that old Grecian legend, when she whom they 
 were pursuing cast down in the path a golden apple, and 
 they turned aside and slackened their pace to catch at that. 
 Old men, who as Christians are almost dead, and who can 
 remember that, as young men, before they had got on in 
 the world, they were full of earnest desires and self-sacri- 
 ficing love to Jesus Christ — are there any of that sort here 
 this morning ? Christian men and women who do not use 
 their wealth for the highest pui'poses and under the high- 
 est responsibilities — are there any of that sort here ? Have 
 you loaded your souls with thick clay, and held the world 
 
TO GET THE GREAT. 349 
 
 po close to yonr eyes, that though it be " that which is 
 least " it is big enongn to shut out that which is most, and 
 which lies beyond ? Oh I my brother 1 It is a very solemn 
 truth, and you had better find room for it in your creed, 
 that agreat many Christians are hindered in their possession 
 of the highest good by their unfaithful use of the lowest. 
 
 The world thinks that the highest use of the highest 
 things is to gain possession of the lowest thereby, and that 
 truth and genius and poetry are given to select spirits and 
 are wasted unless they make money oui of them. Christ's 
 notion of the relationship is exactly the opposite, that all 
 the outward is then lifted to its noblest purpose when it 
 is made rigidly subordinate to the highest ; and that 
 the best thing that any man can do with his money is so to 
 spend it as to "purchase for himself a good degree," 
 *' laying up for himself in store a good foundation that he 
 may lay hold on eternal life." 
 
 III. — And now let me say one last word as to the faith- 
 fulness which thus utilises the lowest as a means of 
 possessing more fully the highest. 
 
 We are not at all left in doubt as to what is the manner 
 of thus employing the lowest gifts. Our text is our Lord's 
 pointing the lesson of the striking parable of the unjust 
 steward. I gather from it, as well as from other general 
 considerations, these three words which I desire to leave 
 with you as being the principles upon which this faithful 
 use of the lowest class of goods is to be carried out. 
 
 You will be "faithful" if, through all your administra- 
 tion of your possessions, there runs, first, the principle of 
 stewardship; you will be " faithful " if through all your 
 administration of your earthly possessions there runs, 
 second, the principle of sacrifice ; you will be " faithful " 
 if through all your administration of your earthly posses- 
 sions there runs, third, the principle of brotherhood. 
 
 Stewardship. — The consciousness of having nothing 
 
350 HOW THE LITTLE MAY BE USED 
 
 that we have not received, of having received nothing for 
 our very own to be used according to our own will, the 
 ever-present sense of obligation to administer our master's 
 goods as he would, and for his purposes, must be clear and 
 active in us if we are to be " faithful." " Of Thine own 
 have we given Thee " is to be always our conviction, for 
 all is God's — His before it was ours, His whilst it seems 
 ours, and His by a new right when we give it back to 
 Him. 
 
 One of the plainest duties of stewardship is that we 
 bring conscience and deliberate consideration to bear upon 
 our administration of this world's goods. We are not 
 faithful stewards if we spend according to our own whim 
 and fancy, and let our " charity " depend, as it so often 
 does, on little better than accident or habit. We are 
 stewards in regard to what we spend on ourselves and our 
 families, as well as in what we spend for purposes beyond 
 ourselves ; our personal and domestic expenditure, our 
 savings and our gifts, and the proportion between them 
 should all equally pass under the inspection of deliberate 
 conscience. If that were once thoroughly understood and 
 practised by us, we should be very different people, and 
 there would be very different results from many an 
 appeal thaj; is made to us. Stewardship means deliberation, 
 and intelligent consideration, and conscientious disposal 
 and administration as of a fund that is not mine, but is put 
 into my hand. 
 
 Sacrifice. — That is the fundamental law of the 
 Christian life, and it must be applied especially in this 
 region of outward possessions, where the opposite law 
 of selfishness works most strongly. How much owest 
 thou unto thy Lord ? All things, and " thine own self 
 besides." So, touched by the mercies of God, we should 
 bring in glad sun-ender ourselves, and our all as thank- 
 offerings to Him by Whose bitter sacrifice we are 
 
TO GET THE GREAT. 351 
 
 reconciled to God, and put in possession of onrselves and 
 of all else. " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive 
 riches." 
 
 Brotherhood. — Christianity is not communism, bnt it 
 will do all that communism tries to do. Property is not 
 theft, but property selfishly administered is theft. We are 
 but distributing agents and we have a right to take a 
 commission and to support ourselves and families, but we 
 have no right to do anything more. What we call our 
 own is in this sense, too, another's, and belongs to our 
 brethren, because it, and they, and we all belong to God. 
 We get everything in order that we may transmit it to 
 others. We are all bound together by such subtle and 
 close ties that each is laid under obligation to share his 
 portion with his neighbour. Whether it be outward 
 goods or faculties of the mind or heart, wisdom, or sym- 
 pathy, or the yet higher gifts of the Gospel that redeems, 
 we receive that we may impart — 
 
 "The least flower with a brimming cup may stand 
 And share its dewdrop with another near." 
 
 These three principles of stewardship, sacrifice and 
 brotherhood, honestly applied, will make us "faithful," 
 and will make us capable of fuller possession of the true 
 riches which God ever gives as largely as we can receive. 
 Here and now we may win a greater possession of the 
 love and likeness of God, and may have our spirits 
 widened to receive more of all that makes us noble and 
 calm, hopeful and strong, by our Christian administration 
 of earthly goods. And on the other hand, we may so mis- 
 spend, mis-love, and mis-administer them as that they 
 shall be a clog to keep us down and a mist to blind our 
 eyes, that we may not rise to behold the " King in His 
 beauty, and the land that is very far off." 
 
 Nor does the effect end with earth. Faithful steward- 
 ship, like all other true conduct based upon the love of 
 
352 HOW THE LITTLE MAY BE USED. 
 
 Jesus Christ, will make us more capable of a larger posses- 
 sion of the life and the glory of Grod hereafter. It may 
 have been some earnest Christian worker, who, like one 
 that some of us mourn to-day, with little of this world's 
 goods to give, has gone into some neglected neighbourhood 
 and there, with sympathy and effort and prayer, has 
 laboured ; and has been laid in his grave amidst the 
 weeping of those he had helped and of the drunkards he 
 had reformed. Or, it may have been a prince, who, like 
 one that all England is mourning to-day, did the duties 
 of his high station, as we have reason to hope, from high 
 motive and under the influence of Christian principle.* 
 It may have been a poor workman who spent his fifteen 
 shillings a week for God's glory, and as a stew^ard' ; or it 
 may have been a millionaire who gave largely out of his 
 abundance to God's cause. But whoever they were, 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest 
 from their labours and their works do follow them." 
 
 " Their works and alms, and all their good endeavour, 
 Stayed not behind nor in the grave were trod, 
 But as Faith pointed with her golden rod, 
 Followed them up to bliss and joy for ever." 
 
 • Dsk« •! Albany (April. 18M^ 
 
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