tibxavy of trhe theological gminaxy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 •3@S* 
 
 See 
 38W 
 
SEEMONS 
 
 KEY. E. E. JENKINS, M.A. 
 
<0^ OF PR/IV^ 
 
 JUL 
 
 %OG 
 
 SEW 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE WESLEYAN CHAPEL 
 MADRAS. 
 
 BY 
 
 E. E. JENKINS, M.A 
 
 WESLEYAN MISSIONARY. 
 
 §ctonir (Edition. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HAMILTON. ADAMS, & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
 SOLD ALSO AT 66, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1866. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY HAYMAN BROTHERS, 
 
 GOUGH SQUARE, E.C. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SERMON I. 
 Phil. iii. 13. — TJiis one thing I do 1 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 Isaiah vi. 1 — 4. — In the year that King Uzziah died I saw 
 also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, 
 and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the 
 seraphims : each one had six wings ; with twain he 
 covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and 
 with twain he did fig. And one cried unto another, 
 and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the 
 whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the 
 door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the 
 house was filled with smoke 16 
 
 SERMON III. 
 John v. 17. — My Father worheth hitherto, and I work . 34 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 Hosea ii. 21, 22. — And it shall come to pass in that day, I 
 will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and 
 they shall hear the earth ; and the earth shall hear 
 the com, and the wine, and the oil ; and they shall 
 hear Jezreel 49 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 Ezekiel i. 1. — Now it came to pass in the thirteenth year, 
 in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I 
 was among the captives by the river Cliebar, that the 
 heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God . . 61 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 16—20. — Then the eleven disciples went away 
 into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had ap- 
 pointed them. And when they saw him, they wor- 
 shipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and 
 spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to 
 observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : 
 and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world. Amen 77 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 Acts xvi. 30. — What must I do to be saved? ... 93 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 13. — If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful : 
 
 he cannot deny himself 105 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 Hebrews vii. 25. — Wherefore he is able also to save them to 
 the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he 
 ever liveth to make intercession for them . . . 118 
 
 SERMON, X. 
 
 Zech. ix. 17. — How great is his goodness, and how great is 
 
 his beauty ! 1 32 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 Mal. iv. 2. — Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of 
 
 Righteousness arise with healing in his wings . . 147 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 SEEM ON XII. 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 3. — Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
 
 Christ 1G2 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 1 Peter iii. 8. — Be courteous 177 
 
 SEEM ON XIV. 
 Matt. xv. 8. — Their heart is far from me . . . .190 
 
 SEEM ON XV. 
 
 Eev. iii. 14, 15, 16. — And unto the angel of the church of 
 the Laodieeans write : These things saith the Amen, the 
 faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation 
 of God ; I know thy works that thou art neither cold 
 nor hot : I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because 
 thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I mill spue 
 thee out of my mouth 202 
 
 SEEMON XVI. 
 
 1 Kings xix. 11, 12, 13. — And he said, Go forth, and stand 
 upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord 
 passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mount- 
 ains, and brake in pieces the rochs before the Lord ; but 
 the Lord was not in the wind : and after the wind an 
 earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : 
 and after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not 
 in the fire : and after the fire a still small voice. And 
 it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face 
 in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering 
 inoftJiecave 218 
 
 SEEMON XVII. 
 
 Luke x. 42. — But one thing is needful : and Mary hath chosen 
 
 that good part, which shall not be taken away from her . 235 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 Gen. v. 24. — And Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; 
 
 for God took him 249 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 
 Gen. v. 24. — And Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; 
 
 for God took him . 266 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 Isaiah lxi. 3. — Beauty for ashes 281 
 
SEMON I. 
 
 Phil. iii. 13. 
 "This one thing I do" 
 
 This is the lanoniao-e of men who subdue the 
 world, — the motto of all heroes, the secret of 
 all triumph. A study of the sentiment that 
 awakens words like these will enable us to 
 account for those grand achievements in the 
 history of mankind which are flattered into 
 prodigies and miracles of genius. We can 
 hardly imagine anything impossible to the man 
 who says, " This one thing I do." We here 
 observe one of those laws of compensation by 
 which Nature would atone for the inequality 
 of her gifts. All men have not great talents ; 
 but all men may have great industry; and 
 as talents are useless without diligence, one 
 talent improved by honest labour will make a 
 greater man than ten that rust unused. But 
 the cultivation of talents is only a means to an 
 end. The man who educates his mind for 
 great deeds and never attempts them, has 
 about the same claim to distinction as a war- 
 rior who shows his skill on parade, but shuns 
 
 B 
 
Z SERMON I. 
 
 fighting. He is the great man who sets before 
 liimself the attainment of an object worthy 
 his powers, who has counted the cost of sac- 
 rifices, measured the impeding strength of 
 difficulties, and bends his single soul to the 
 task of winning. The mind, under this stimu- 
 lus, is a glorious object : it can be but " a little 
 lower than the angels ;" and is, unquestionably, 
 the image of God. It is a sight worthy to 
 attract a cloud of heavenly witnesses, — a mind 
 sternly, yet serenely resolved to grasp a dis- 
 tant prize ; chilled by no hardship, disconcerted 
 by no failure, exhausted by no delay, that 
 gathers strength in its march like the shining 
 light, makes stepping-stones of obstacles, 
 auxiliaries of adversaries, and places all its 
 inclinations under martial law, until victory 
 be gained. 
 
 Such a mind, such a pursuit, and such a 
 victory, had Paul, whose words we have taken 
 as the basis of our address. It may be said 
 of this eminent person that his entire life was 
 an illustration of the text, This one thing I 
 do. As a lad, he was bent upon scholarship, 
 and won honors at the feet of Gamaliel : as a 
 member of the Jewish church, he aspired to 
 the very highest position that church could 
 offer him ; and by his prodigal ability, his 
 flaming zeal, and a consistency which no public 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 6 
 
 character at that time could rival, tie soon 
 placed himself beyond parallel, and became 
 the hope of a falling state : as a convert to 
 Christianity, he was the same man in single- 
 ness and intensity of purpose; for in his 
 capacity as a Christian, he resolved to scale the 
 highest heaven of revelation and enjoyment 
 permitted to mortals; in his calling as an 
 Apostle he travelled more miles, endured 
 more privations, established more churches, 
 and filled a wider circuit of influence and 
 popularity than all the other Apostles to- 
 gether. You will observe that the mind of 
 this wonderful man dwelt mainly upon the 
 unattained object : until that was within 
 his grasp, he considered nothing gained : he 
 availed himself of every personal help, he di- 
 vested himself of every imaginary hinderance ; 
 his whole life was a fight, a race, a struggle, 
 for the unattained, not for the unattainable : 
 for with all the heat and enthusiasm of his 
 temper, the habit of his mind was as practical 
 and his judgment was as discreet, as that of 
 the coolest utilitarian. " I so run, not uncer- 
 tainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the 
 air.' , Paul was not understood by a selfish 
 world : what great man is ? We are not 
 surprised that he was deemed a madman, 
 the knight-errant of an impossible revolution. 
 
 b 2 
 
4 SEEM0N I. 
 
 "What an admirable reference he makes to this 
 estimate of his character, Whether we be 
 beside ourselves, it is to God : or whether ive 
 be sober, it is for your cause : for the love of 
 Christ constraineth us. 
 
 There is another feature in Paul's char- 
 acter that enforces the most important lesson 
 we can derive from his history, and places him 
 in instructive contrast with other enthusiasts. 
 He arrogates to himself no particular saint- 
 ship, no degree of holiness to which he does 
 not invite others ; his fellow disciples are not 
 left to infer that his path is accessible to no 
 traveller but himself, that they are not called 
 to suffer and labour like him. He preaches 
 to sinners as one who had been the chief 
 of sinners ; he preaches to Christians as 
 a fellow- citizen with them of the house- 
 hold of God ; he mingles with his brethren 
 as one of the least of those who had 
 received grace to preach the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ. His letters abound with re- 
 cognitions and exhortations implying that his 
 converts were in fellowship with him; that 
 the race and the fight were theirs no less than 
 his ; that his life did not stand out in excep- 
 tional proportions of faith, exertion, and 
 fidelity, which the ordinary Christian was not 
 expected to acquire and manifest. In all the 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 5 
 
 egotism for which his character was remark- 
 able he assumed nothing : it was the egotism 
 of leadership, the self-assertion that cheers 
 the depressed follower, and reassures the 
 doubtful : for Paul himself, separate from Ins 
 position, was remarkable for lowliness and 
 modesty of self-estimation. His great indivi- 
 duality was the joint result of simplicity and 
 ardour : he could not have been other than 
 he was — a cedar of God's own rearing, the 
 loftiest growth of Lebanon ! 
 
 Now what was the one thing that Paul 
 did ? He pressed towards the mark for a 
 prize : he designates it, The prize of God's 
 high calling ; the prize which God invites us 
 to contend for, and which the successful can- 
 didate receives at the end of his course : "I 
 have finished my course," said Paul, when in 
 after years he was called to suffer for the 
 truth, " henceforth there is laid up for me a 
 crown of righteousness." To receive that 
 crown from the Lord the righteous Judge, in 
 the day of His appearing, was the single object 
 of Paul's life. It is not my purpose to de- 
 scribe this prize itself, but Paul's manner of 
 winning it. " Forgetting the things that are 
 behind and reaching forth unto those things 
 which are before, I press towards the mark,'' 
 &c. It is impossible to do justice to language 
 
O SERMON I. 
 
 so animated and vigorous as this. You see 
 before you a man agonizing to win a race. 
 He is running with competitors for a prize. 
 Everything that would trammel the motion of 
 his body thrown away, he is simply arrayed in 
 that which girds and braces him up for agility 
 and endurance : he has measured the abilities 
 of his rivals : he has carefully examined the 
 race ground — its inequalities, its distance, and 
 those exciting turns in the course which will 
 strain his powers most, and indicate to spec- 
 tators his chance of winning; he has antici- 
 pated the anguish of the last few steps, and 
 the closing bound that proclaims his triumph 
 or disgrace. His body has been thoroughly 
 trained for the feat by a hard discipline of 
 temperance and exercise. See this man, thus 
 equipped and endowed, running to win the 
 prize ! his temper wrought up to the terrible 
 calmness of a stedfast passion : that passion 
 under the control of a wary discretion, and 
 the whole man animated by a sure and certain 
 hope. He does not waste his energy upon a 
 single false step : he has no eye for a passing 
 object, no recollection of an object passed : 
 he looks straight before him, and as he leaps 
 over the ground, he exults to see the prospect 
 narrow and the goal draw near ; his hope flies 
 before him, claims the prize by anticipation, 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 7 
 
 and like a good angel holds the glittering 
 trophy steadily before his sight, and beckons 
 him on ; he presses toivards the mark, he col- 
 lects himself for the final struggle, the last 
 steps ; every muscle starts at the new strain, 
 every nerve is maddened by a perilous tension ; 
 the entire frame is swayed to and fro under 
 the tumult of its exertions ; another leap, and 
 shouts of crowding witnesses tell him the goal 
 is past ! 
 
 Such is the type by which the Holy Ghost 
 instructed Paul to illustrate the course of the 
 Christian, and this type found its fulfilment in 
 Paul's life. There are always some minor 
 points of difference between a type and its 
 original : in the present instance the likeness 
 between them is very striking, the parallel 
 scarcely deviating all through the comparison. 
 The most important matter for our consider- 
 ation is the nature of Paul's progress — For- 
 getting the things that are behind and reaching 
 forth unto those things which are before. 
 
 What are those things which Paul left 
 behind and forgot ? 
 
 1. He forgot whatever he had given up for 
 Christ; as he says in the context, "What 
 things were gain to me, those I counted loss 
 for Christ.' ' He forgot them in the sense of 
 neglecting them. He had surrendered his 
 
8 SEEMON I. 
 
 beloved Judaism, the pride of his family, the 
 sphere of his personal ambition, the hope of 
 his fortune : he had renounced his pharasaic 
 righteousness — that solemn exactness of cere- 
 monial obedience which was the stronghold of 
 the Jew : he had forsaken his high family 
 connexions, of which circle he had probably 
 been the admiration and the joy : his friend- 
 ships, his fellowships, his beloved rivalries, his 
 schemes of advancement, all had gone; he 
 had exchanged them for Christ and dishonour, 
 Christ and poverty, Christ and the hatred of 
 all, Christ and painful labour, Christ and a 
 chain, a tribunal, and the prospect of a shame- 
 ful death ! and not only never repented these 
 sacrifices, he forgot them, neglected to think 
 of them, except to expose their vanity and 
 worthlessness. I do count them but dung, 
 said he, that I may win Chkist. The Israel- 
 ites fondly recollected the fleshpots of Egypt, 
 and longed to resume their carnal plenty and 
 base captivity. There are Christians also who 
 find it hard to forget what they gave up for 
 Christ, and dispute with themselves, whether 
 in the sensitive jealousy of their first love, 
 they did not make unnecessary sacrifices for 
 then Master. The man who calculates with 
 even a tincture of discontent what he has 
 suffered for Jesus, has never seen the Cross ! 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 9 
 
 It is impossible for those who have derived 
 their ideas of duty from Him who washed us 
 from our sins in His own blood, to refer with 
 selfish misgiving to what they have done or 
 left behind for Christ. 
 
 2. Paul forgot the error sand doubts that 
 marked his first approaches to Christ. 
 
 He never said but once, Who art thou, 
 Lord ? He never said but once, What wilt 
 thou have me to do ? As soon as it pleased 
 the Father to reveal His Son in the soul of 
 Paul, and the feet of the new convert were 
 fixed on the Rock of ages, he disentangled his 
 mind for ever from the elements or rudiments 
 that typified and foreshadowed Christ : having 
 found Christ Himself, he broke away from the 
 shadows, as a man who emerges from the 
 gloom of a dungeon into broad day ; and 
 never returned to those " beggarly elements," 
 as did some of his brethren. Have you never 
 admired the clear and decisive style of Paul's 
 experimental writings ? Christ stands out 
 from them evidently, as the sun in the 
 heavens. Everything else is thrown into 
 the back-ground, types, carnal ordinances, 
 controversies, traditions, and the wisdom and 
 philosophy of the world — their unsubstantial 
 nature is laid bare, their luminous appearance 
 is seen to be borrowed ; the wandering eye is 
 
10 SERMON I. 
 
 directed to Jesus, and looking to Him alone, 
 the doubtful hesitating step of the pilgrim is 
 reassured, and he goes on his way rejoicing. 
 Mark the confidence of Paul's personal feel- 
 ings when he finds occasion to impart them 
 to us, "I know whom I have believed, and 
 am persuaded that he is able to keep that 
 which I have committed unto him. — For me 
 to live is Christ, but to die is gain." This is 
 the language of a man who has laid aside for 
 ever the doubt of his acceptance with God, 
 the doubt of Christ's ability to save to the 
 uttermost, the doubt of his Master's constant 
 presence and guiding spirit. By whatever 
 means Paul had arrived to certainty on these 
 three subjects, he never permitted any reason- 
 ing, or any knowledge subsequently acquired, 
 to shake that certainty. Doubts on other 
 matters arising in the progress of his ministry 
 he would discuss in their proper time, but 
 those which had once been disposed of, were 
 forgotten for ever. 
 
 What a melancholy religion is theirs who 
 are ever contending with old doubts. It is as 
 if they were always asking, " Who art thou, 
 Lord?" For after the Lord has showed 
 them His hands and His side, to assure their 
 hearts that He is the very Sacrifice that has 
 borne their sins ; after they have seen Him 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 11 
 
 with the eye of faith, after they have looked 
 upon, and their hands have handled of the 
 Word of Life, they seem unable to let this 
 matter rest as an established immutable fact : a 
 conversation with an unbeliever, the perusal of 
 a book, the pressure of a besetting sin, disturbs 
 their assurance, and they go over the old 
 ground, "Who art thou Lord? Art thou 
 my very Saviour ? Tell me again my peace 
 is made. Tell me in clearer tones, and with 
 shining evidence that Thou art mine !" And 
 the tones become once more audible, the still 
 small voice of heavenly love — " thou of 
 little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? I 
 have engraved thee on the palms of my hand!" 
 Ah! that was so expressly, so distinctly 
 spoken, they can never doubt again. Oh that 
 they could always feel as they do now ! But, 
 my brethren, it is not given to us to feel at all 
 times alike, so when their feelings change, 
 their doubts recur, and the old conflict begins 
 again. Whereas, having obtained faith in 
 Jesus, the faith that justifies them, and by 
 which they are adopted into the family of 
 God, — a transaction, let me say, that rests 
 upon the oath, the covenant oath, of Him who 
 cannot he, — they ought to give all diligence 
 to add to their faith courage to confess it, to 
 avow it to themselves and to their brethren. 
 
12 SEEMON I. 
 
 A bold utterance of our trust in Jesus is an 
 excellent remedy for unbelieving fears. To 
 this boldness of confessing Christ, they should 
 add knowledge : they should go on to know 
 the Lord. A growing knowledge of Christ 
 will multiply instances of His faithfulness, and 
 make the believer acquainted with the diver- 
 sity of his manifestations to the heart, and 
 with the inherent sweetness and loveliness of 
 His Person. Knowledge will thus fortify both 
 faith and courage. And then, lest knowledge 
 should puff up, there should follow temper- 
 ance, self-discipline, meek endurance under 
 adverse circumstances, and to all these there 
 should be added a habit of fervent piety to 
 God and charity to men. 
 
 Such is the masterly discrimination of the 
 degrees of a Christian's progress given us by 
 St. Peter in his second Epistle. He that 
 lacketh these things, saith this Apostle, that 
 is, he that stops with his first faith, adding 
 nothing to it, is blind, he grows blind, he 
 cannot see afar off into those things that are 
 before, and "hath forgotten that he was 
 purged from his old sins ;" — he fails to realize 
 his forgiveness as a fact ; he dwells upon de- 
 batable ground, is never happy, and some- 
 times draws back unto perdition ! Let us 
 therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 13 
 
 entering into God's rest, any of you should 
 come short of it, by failing to hold the begin- 
 ning of his confidence firm unto the end. 
 
 Thus did Paul forget what he had given 
 up for Christ; thus did he forget also the 
 errors and doubts that marked his first ap- 
 proaches to Christ ; and the rudiments of his 
 Christian experience. 
 
 We have seen what Paul left behind : let 
 us now come up to the front and look into the 
 distance for a glimpse of the things towards 
 which Paul is running, and reaching as he 
 runs. The phrase "reaching forth," is beau- 
 tifully consistent with the image of " a runner 
 whose body is bent forward in his course." 
 What those things were which the Apostle so 
 eagerly and strenuously pursued, may be sum- 
 med up in one expression, a perfect fellotv- 
 ship with Christ — He followed after, that 
 he might lay hold of this, for which he had 
 been laid hold of by Christ himself — " That I 
 may know him," said this passionate admirer 
 of his Lord, " and the power of his resurrec- 
 tion, and the fellowship of his sufferings, 
 being made conformable unto his death, if by 
 any means I might attain unto the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead." 
 
 Perhaps few knew more of Christ than did 
 Paul when he wrote these words ; yet he con- 
 
14 SERMON I. 
 
 sidered his attainments but as the first steps 
 in a path of ever unfolding discovery. Jesus 
 was a mine he had just opened ; and he de- 
 scribes his prospects like a man almost be- 
 wildered by the sudden inheritance of wealth 
 untold. He had always reckoned himself one 
 with his Master ; but this oneness grew upon 
 him, as- if Paul's personality would disappear 
 in the overlaying and absorbing nature of the 
 infinite Christ ; for not only did he feel that 
 the power that raised Christ from the dead 
 was making him like Christ, and that the new 
 spirit that bounded within him was the life of 
 Christ, and that the suffering he endured was 
 the dying of the Lord Jesus, but he was con- 
 scious that these feelings of participation dis- 
 played to his hope a yet deeper fellowship. 
 Every studious thought upon Jesus was fol- 
 lowed by a brighter manifestation of his 
 character; every affliction that befel the 
 Apostle seemed .to bind him by another cord 
 to the heart of the great Sufferer. He longed 
 to master the profound problem of pain : the 
 sin that brought it into the world, the love 
 that adopted it and made it a holy thing, and 
 the glory that lay beyond it. 
 
 The things after which Paul was ever 
 reaching were mysteries of fellowship with 
 Jesus. To win Christ, was not, in Paul's 
 
THIS ONE THING I DO. 15 
 
 sense, to gain His favour simply, but to be 
 conformed to His image ; to go down to His 
 lowliness and rise with His majesty ; to taste 
 pangs of dishonor or physical distress, if such 
 awaited him, that he might the more exqui- 
 sitely sympathize with the agony and bloody 
 siveat, the cross and passion : to enter with 
 his Leader and elder Brother into the dark 
 arena where principalities and powers were 
 to be overcome, to defeat their forces, to level 
 their strongholds to the dust : to be with his 
 Lord in the sublime strife of battle, until with 
 the Ark of his strength the conqueror entered 
 into his rest. Rest ! that was Paul's crown : 
 the rest of perfect fellowship with Him of 
 the many crowns, — one in matchless purity of 
 mind, one in undying love for each other, one 
 in a transfigured body with the man by whom 
 came the resurrection of the dead, one in the 
 administration and honors of that kingdom 
 which is world without end. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 Isaiah vi. 1 — 4. 
 
 " In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the 
 Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, 
 and his train filled the temple. Above it stood 
 the seraphims : each one had six wings ; with 
 twain he covered his face, and with twain he 
 covered his feet, and ivith twain he did fly. And 
 one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, 
 is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of 
 his glory. And the posts of the door moved at 
 the voice of him that cried, and the house ivas 
 filled with smoke.'' 
 
 Obseeye the date of this vision, " In the year 
 that King Uzziah died." Uzziah is supposed 
 by some writers to have been the uncle of the 
 prophet. It is certain that Isaiah was a kins- 
 man of the royal family ; and the death of a 
 relative so illustrious and venerable must have 
 made a deep impression upon the young pro- 
 phet's mind. Uzziah, moreover, had been a 
 great friend to the people of God. For two 
 and fifty years he had striven to preserve 
 Judah from idolatry, while Israel was rent 
 asunder by the wickedness and shameful mis- 
 
THE SERAPHIM. 17 
 
 rule of a succession of the most abandoned 
 monarchs that ever polluted a throne. Isaiah, 
 whom God had early called into his service, 
 could not but regard the death of Uzziah as a 
 heavy misfortune both to Judah and Israel, 
 and he probably apprehended dark days for 
 the people of God. It was at this time that 
 the desponding prophet was favoured with 
 the vision of the seraphim, in which were 
 shadowed forth the future purposes of God. 
 
 The scene of the vision is laid in the 
 temple. We must suppose Isaiah to be 
 standing in the inner court, beside the altar 
 of burnt-offering, at the entrance of the build- 
 ing. The doors are opened, the veil is drawn 
 aside, and the holiest apartment of the taber- 
 nacle is disclosed to the prophet's eye. At 
 the end, where the ark was placed, and above 
 the figures of the cherubim, high and lofty, 
 sat Jehovah, in majesty, surrounded by the 
 angelic host. The temple was filled with His 
 train, the ample and flowing light which, like 
 the skirts of a robe, He drew after him. 
 
 The elevation of the throne, high and 
 lifted up, represents the unrivalled supremacy 
 of God's rule. With regard to all govern- 
 ment He is emphatically the " high and lofty 
 one." All powers and forces that spread 
 themselves abroad over the universe ; those 
 
 c 
 
18 SERMON II. 
 
 silent authorities that keep the stars in their 
 places and extend their ministry to the mi- 
 nutest wants of the creation ; those mighty 
 elements of the human breast, — intelligence, 
 will, valour and ambition, which make and 
 unmake kings, build up and demolish empires; 
 and that diviner control which the good and 
 the gentle have over the wicked' and the un- 
 tamed, — all these agencies, the peaceful and 
 the troublous, the evil and the propitious, the 
 mighty and the feeble, lie far below the foot- 
 stool of the Eternal Throne, and hold their 
 power in phant deference to His will. At so 
 sublime a height, how appropriate is the 
 posture of the King of kings, sitting. " I 
 saw the Lord sitting upon a throne." This 
 implies the composure of Almighty power. 
 To Him who knows all things there can be no 
 surprise ; to Him who governs all things, no 
 disturbance. The influences that fret and 
 fume beneath, in a world that knows no to- 
 morrow ; the boastings of evil men, the quak- 
 ings and sufferings of the good ; vice lording 
 it over virtue, and superstition triumphing over 
 knowledge ; the disastrous tumults of war, the 
 desolations of epidemics, the prosperity of op- 
 pression and knavery, — all phenomena that 
 perplex and confound good men, are only the 
 chafings and lashings of existence on the 
 
THE SERAPHIM. 19 
 
 shores of Time, while the tide is changing, 
 bnt in the eternal deep all is calm. The 
 Psalmist fonnd consolation from the same 
 thought, when he saw the fierce raging and 
 profane plottings of God's enemies, " He that 
 sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord 
 shall have them in derision." 
 
 Notice the description of the seraphim, 
 His attendants. " Above it," above Him, 
 " stood the seraphims ; each one had six 
 wings ; and with twain he covered his face, 
 and with twain he covered his feet, and with 
 twain he did fly." It is unnecessary for me 
 to prove that the existence of good and evil 
 angels is a doctrine of the Bible, but it may 
 be useful, before approaching the details of 
 Isaiah's vision, to gather from the divine Word 
 some account of those pure and elevated 
 beings that stand in the presence or execute 
 the will of God. 
 
 Referring to their number, Daniel de- 
 scribes thousand thousands ministering unto 
 the Ancient of days, and ten thousand times 
 ten thousand standing before him. Paul 
 speaks of " an innumerable company of 
 angels ; " and similar testimonies will be 
 found in the Psalms. As regards their office, 
 we learn that they accompany the Divine 
 Majesty and the Saviour, and take part in 
 
 c 2 
 
20 sermon n. 
 
 all critical displays of judgment and mercy. 
 God spake through His angels when the law 
 was delivered on burning Sinai. Angels fol- 
 lowed the Saviour when He destroyed Jeru- 
 salem ; and their bright and gorgeous ranks 
 will be summoned to heighten the pomp of 
 the judgment. We learn, moreover, that 
 angels are the guardians of individuals and 
 of nations. They heralded the birth of Christ, 
 were present on the great occasions of His life, 
 ministered to His wants, strengthened him in 
 His conflicts, watched over His tomb, an- 
 nounced His triumphant resurrection, and 
 returned with Him to glory. They hover 
 round families, ministering to the saints, and 
 holding the special guardianship of little chil- 
 dren, " whose angels do always behold the 
 face of our heavenly Father." So of nations. 
 In Daniel the angel Michael is styled the 
 prince of the Jews, the great prince who 
 standeth for the people of God. An angel 
 is represented in this book as struggling 
 with the ^Prince of Persia for the liberation 
 of the Jews. Michael appears again in 
 Zechariah, rebuking Satan for his malignant 
 intentions towards Joshua the High Priest. 
 Even the elements seem to be placed under 
 the superintendence of angels. John, in the 
 Revelation, saw four of these spirits holding 
 
THE SERAPHIM. 21 
 
 the four winds of the earth. There is men- 
 tion also of an angel who presided over 
 the fire, and another is designated the 
 angel of the waters. The Jews had a 
 vivid impression of the doctrine of angelic 
 existences, and their writings abound in 
 minute and familiar descriptions of these 
 heavenly ministers. 
 
 Returning to the seraphim of the vision, 
 let us notice some particulars in Isaiah's sub- 
 lime description. Their mysterious figures 
 were seen standing above, or on either side 
 of the Divine Majesty. Each one had six 
 wings. We presume that their form was that 
 of a man, for naturally we can connect the 
 intellect with no other image. The wings 
 must indicate additional powers. What these 
 attributes are, it is not easy to find. Wings 
 are emblematical of fleetness and obedience. 
 The two that shaded the face appear to have 
 branched from the head, as symbolic of great 
 swiftness of thought : an intelligence that 
 does not arrive at a conclusion by the tedi- 
 ous process of inductive experiment, but 
 alights upon it as from above; an under- 
 standing at once prompt, rapid, and luminous. 
 Active and hard thinking wears out a man ; 
 but activity is the natural posture of an 
 angel's mind ; and knowledge, deep, high 
 
22 SERMON II. 
 
 and various, is its exhilarating aliment. The 
 most acute and fortunate inquirers among us, 
 are generally men who bend their attention 
 to one subject, and any success they may reap 
 is the hard fruit of a life's study. But the 
 strong and nimble wing of an angelic intelli- 
 gence can range from subject to subject, and 
 cover, as it were, a whole system of truth at 
 once. The Psalmist says that God maketh 
 his angels a flame of fire, or lightning ; allud- 
 ing, probably, to the quick flashing of thought 
 and suddenly comprehensive knowledge here 
 indicated by the wings that grew from the 
 head of the seraphim. But these head- wings 
 were folded in the presence of the Divine 
 Majesty. " With twain he covered his face." 
 There is something peculiarly expressive and 
 touching in a seraph shading his face before 
 his Maker — the swift and mighty intellect 
 drew back before the piercing and awe-inspir- 
 ing eye of the Eternal, as if it feared to meet 
 the blaze of that countenance which illumines 
 heaven ! The lofty seraph feels that he is a 
 poor creature in the presence of God; a 
 mere insect, flitting in the sunshine of Deity. 
 Holy and profound as he is, he folds his 
 wings over his mind, as if there were 
 nothing there worthy to attract or interest 
 his Creator, 
 
THE SERAPHIM. 23 
 
 With twain he covered his feet. Wings 
 spreading from the feet are intended to illus- 
 trate sendee that is rapid in execution and 
 complete in performance. The seraphim were 
 waiting before God to receive His messages 
 and to fulfil His commands ; but while they 
 stood before Him, they covered their feet to 
 show how deeply unworthy they felt to be 
 admitted into the Divine counsels, and how 
 tardy and imperfect the obedience which even 
 their feet rendered to the high and lofty One, 
 "in whose sight the heavens are not clean, 
 and who charges his angels with folly." The 
 image teaches us that their conceptions of 
 perfection far surpass their actual experience. 
 The habitual contemplation of the absolutely 
 perfect, makes them sensible of the dimi- 
 nished lustre of their best performances. Be- 
 hold these glorious spirits standing in the 
 presence of the Highest with their faces and 
 their feet veiled, incapable of sin and yet 
 abashed ; holy, 1 •• yet ashamed ! Behold them 
 ye, who in the same presence are yet un- 
 humbled ; who, without reverence or sincerity, 
 enter the divine sanctuary, and all guilty as 
 you are, pronounce the name of God ! who 
 kneel before the King of kings and offer Him 
 a posture instead of a prayer ! 
 
 And with twain he did fly. Angels are 
 
24 SERMON II. 
 
 ever passing from element to element, from 
 world to world, with a swiftness which may 
 exceed even our ideas of electric dispatch. 
 A deep reverence folded the head-wings and 
 the foot- wings, but there was no shame to 
 gather up the wings of obedience ; these 
 were ever spread for service. The spirit of 
 the seraphim shrank from the scrutinising 
 light that emanated from the throne, and a 
 knowledge of their imperfections admonished 
 them not to vaunt those active powers which 
 they employed for the fulfilling of the divine 
 commands; but their zeal was ever display- 
 ing itself. The wings that were free and 
 restless, and which their deeply loving na- 
 ture prompted them to wave before their 
 Sovereign, indicated the ardour and delight 
 of their obedience. Their manner was not 
 that of a servant who awaits the call of his 
 master, and must be awakened to attention. 
 With twain they did fly, or rather did hover 
 about the throne before the command was 
 issued. Their attitude showed that they had 
 begun to obey; they had finished the pre- 
 liminaries of flight before they received a 
 command, that not a thought might elapse 
 between law and obedience. These Princes 
 of Heaven, gifted and mighty, seemed to 
 remember only that they were subjects and 
 
THE SEEAPHIM. 25 
 
 servants. How significant the prayer, "Let 
 thy will be done in earth, as it is done in 
 heaven." The very Lord before whom these 
 angels stood, taught us to pray thus ! Let 
 us make this prayer our study that it may 
 be answered in our obedience. What poverty 
 of love, what coldness of zeal, what weakness 
 of decision in the service we render to God. 
 Far from being on the wing to fly for God 
 when His cause demands it, we are either 
 sleeping, or serving ourselves ; perhaps walk- 
 ing in a forbidden path, or pressing after a 
 forbidden object. Angels wait before God; 
 but we must be called, entreated, urged, 
 chastised, before we can obey. And after all, 
 there is so much murmuring and reluctance, 
 so much half-heartedness, that the Holy Ghost 
 fitly compares our works to filthy rags. How 
 amazing the patience of the pure and lofty 
 One, that He can bear with us at all; that even 
 His patience is not exhausted by our indolence 
 and unfaithfulness ! 
 
 Let us now consider the anthem of the 
 seraphim, " And one cried unto another and 
 said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of 
 Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory." 
 Bearing in mind the subject of the vision, the 
 Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted 
 up, with His glorious train filling the temple, 
 
26 SERMON II, 
 
 and His princes and nobles attending Him, you 
 will observe that Jehovah was about to per- 
 form a great work, and that the song of the 
 seraphim was its consecrating hymn. The 
 work in contemplation was the enlargment of 
 His Church. He had been wont to dwell in 
 the Jewish temple ; he now proposed to fill 
 the world with His glory. To give the pro- 
 phet a type of this manifestation was the pur- 
 port of the vision. Returning to the anthem, 
 it seems to have been sung after the manner 
 of Jewish choristry. The singers of the tem- 
 ple were divided into choirs ; each served a 
 week in succession, and on grand occasions 
 they were united and sang in alternate re- 
 sponse. The seraphim are represented as 
 singing in three choirs. " They cried one to 
 another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord 
 of hosts." The word " Holy " might have 
 been chanted by each choir separately, and 
 the last words, " the whole earth is full of 
 His glory/' by the three choirs united. It 
 has been supposed, and with great probability, 
 that the division of the song, and especially 
 the trinal repetition of " Holy," reveals the 
 doctrine of the Trinity. The same remark- 
 able emphasis upon three is found in other 
 divine songs, as, for instance, the anthem of 
 the four living creatures, in the Revelation, 
 
THE SEEAPHIM. 27 
 
 who rest not day nor night, saying, "Holy, 
 holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, 
 and is, and is to come." The theme of this 
 grand strain harmonizes exquisitely with the 
 other parts of the scene. The Lord was 
 sitting on a throne high and lifted up ; within 
 His hand was every rein of power ; He could 
 fix, He could change; He could create, He 
 could destroy; then how vastly important 
 to learn the nature of a Being by whom 
 all things subsist, and what confidence is 
 inspired, when it is announced that He is 
 Holt : for it implies that no sinful or wicked 
 inclination can be found in the Almighty. As 
 St. James affirms, " God cannot be tempted 
 with evil ;" and St. John with great solemnity 
 gives it to the Church as a message which he 
 had heard from Christ, that " God is light, 
 and in him is no darkness at all." Holiness 
 implies, moreover, that God never chooses a 
 false way. David testifies that " as for God, 
 his way is perfect." Some of His paths are 
 a great deep ; His measures are inexplicable, 
 but we must conclude them just ; for the 
 nature, the internal disposition from which 
 they spring, is holy. God not only appears 
 just when he is understood, but he is just 
 when he is not understood. 
 
 It is remarkable that while in the songs of 
 
28 SERMON II. 
 
 the Redeemed the love of God is celebrated, 
 the holiness and equity of God inspire the 
 hymns of angels ; for these are ever employed 
 in conducting or reporting the judgments and 
 mercies of the divine government. They are 
 constant witnesses of the benevolence, vera- 
 city, and justice of God ; and are ever light- 
 ing upon some new aspect of the divine 
 holiness. We may sympathize with the awful 
 reverence of the seraphim, and though at a 
 great distance, and in the dust, join them 
 in praising God at the remembrance of His 
 holiness. 
 
 The rapt and astonished prophet, as he 
 listened to the seraphic notes, filling the^high 
 arches of the temple with strange echoes, and 
 every echo repeating " Holy, holy, holy," must 
 have justified God in his heart, in all the 
 severities He had brought upon Israel; the 
 judgments which had so often laid waste their 
 lands, scattered their families, and multiplied 
 their slain : and as .his eye sought the future, 
 and beheld greater afflictions in store for 
 them, the warlike Babylonian, and the spoiler 
 from Ohaldea desolating his country, and 
 tearing asunder the fellowships and hearts of 
 his people, carrying their tribes away, away — 
 into the land of the stranger ; even before 
 this gloomy vision he could hardly have for- 
 
THE SEEAPHIM. 29 
 
 borne to repeat after the choir, Holy, holy is 
 the Lord of Hosts ! But when behind the 
 cloud of the captivity, and yet further on 
 in the perspective of the vision, arose the 
 glad days of the Messiah; that Redeemer 
 who would open the gates of Paradise to 
 the Gentiles, and make them a people, who 
 were not a people, and call them beloved 
 who were not beloved ; that illustrious Light 
 and Desire of nations, whose doctrines would 
 shine upon the remotest lands and bless the 
 habitations of all who sit in the region of 
 the shadow of death ; — gazing upon the 
 splendours of this prophecy with a power of 
 realization that made every promise an accom- 
 plishment, we can imagine the rapture with 
 which this favoured Seer would join the chorus 
 of the anthem, The whole earth is full of His 
 glory ! So when the Christian is astonished 
 at some menacing cloud, which with stern and 
 irresistible current is sailing towards him, and 
 he feels that, ere long, he will be enveloped in 
 afflictions, let him not stagger ! Even over 
 that cloud angels have sung, Holy, holy, holy ! 
 and if he look beyond, piercing its dense 
 vapour by a ray of faith, he will see the light 
 of salvation coming after, and the promise of 
 an abundant entrance into glory; and as he 
 listens, the chorus of the song will break in 
 
30 SERMON II. 
 
 rapturous notes upon his ear, "The whole 
 earth is full of his glory." So the mission- 
 ary, whose days and nights are consumed in 
 the toil of preaching and teaching; when he 
 sees no fruit of his wasted strength, when 
 neither the books he circulates, nor the ad- 
 dresses he delivers, nor the schools he super- 
 intends, nor the examples he holds up, make 
 any impression upon the benighted ones for 
 whom he has vowed to live and die, he knows 
 that over that cloud angels have sung, Holy 
 is the Lord of Hosts. He knows that if he 
 look behind that portentous darkness, he shall 
 greet a coming dawn ! yes, for India : a dawn 
 for the Bramin, for the Mahomedan, for the 
 Pariah, when these who now sit in darkness 
 shall see a great light, and the powers, the 
 tremendous powers of idolatry shall be shaken ; 
 when Bel shall bow down, and JSTebo shall stoop, 
 and Puranums and Shasters shall follow them 
 to the dust ; and as he listens, the chorus of 
 the seraphic anthem shall resound from floor 
 to roof, and from pillar to pillar, through 
 arches and aisles of the great temple of God's 
 universal church, The whole earth is full of 
 His glory ! 
 
 But the vision does not end here. " The 
 posts of the door moved at the voice of him 
 that cried, and the house was filled with 
 
THE SEEAPHIM. 31 
 
 smoke." Here was afforded to the prophet a 
 type of the Divine work which the angelic 
 hymn had consecrated. The chanting of 
 superhuman voices produced a concussion 
 within the building, and the firm and massive 
 supports of the temple entrance shook; to 
 intimate that God was about to break up 
 the fixtures of the Jewish economy ; that 
 their priesthood and institutes were doomed. 
 Temples and establishments are too con- 
 tracted for the catholic chorus of the sera- 
 phim ; " The whole earth is full of his glory." 
 It seemed as if the triumphant music was im- 
 patient within walls. The great temple of 
 Jerusalem, the idol of Jewish architecture, the 
 grandest pile that genius ever raised, trembled 
 like a leaf in the blast! trembled under 
 what? not under heaven's storms, but hea- 
 ven's melody ! So rocked the Jewish state 
 when the mighty Spirit put a new song into 
 the mouths of three thousand on the day of 
 Pentecost : the music of souls redeemed burst 
 the enclosures of caste and language ; the joy- 
 ous notes forced themselves into the world 
 without, and winged their heavenly ways to 
 the uttermost parts of the earth and of the 
 sea, 
 
 " The dwellers in the rales and on the rocks 
 Shout to each other ; and the mountain tops 
 
32 SERMON II. 
 
 From distant mountains catch the flying joy : 
 Till nation after nation taught the strain, 
 Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round." 
 
 The prophet's dream darkens. He heard 
 the anthem, he felt the concussion of the 
 structure, he looked for an explanation of so 
 uncommon a result of music : but the house 
 is filled with smoke. " It is the glory of God 
 to conceal a thing." While He is filling the 
 earth with the light and beauty of His truth, 
 and has made His angels spirits, and His min- 
 isters a flame of fire, that they may run to and 
 fro to impress the bias and the vigour of His 
 will upon the events that happen around us, 
 this great temple service, its glory, its anthem, 
 its ministries, its influences, is hidden from 
 the sense of the unbelieving world ; the several 
 divisions of it succeed each other and advance 
 to the closing solemnity ; but " Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered 
 into the heart of man, the things which God 
 hath prepared for them that love him." Men 
 themselves, like the keys of an instrument, 
 are unconscious of the touch of the Master 
 and the progress of the performance, and deny 
 the existence of what they mechanically help 
 forward. " Where is the promise of his com- 
 ing," is the sceptical taunt of those who are 
 laboriously, but blindly, hastening that event ; 
 
THE SEEAPHIM. 33 
 
 like the unfortunate craftsmen employed by 
 Noah to "work out a salvation" for the 
 people of God, who when they had completed 
 their task perished with their own work float- 
 ing in triumph above their heads ! " The secret 
 of the Lord is with them that fear him." 
 
SEKMON III. 
 
 John y. 17. 
 " My Father worketh hitherto, and I tvork" 
 
 The Jews had accused Jesus of breaking the 
 Sabbath : He had performed on that holy day 
 a deed of mercy ; and judging Him by the 
 technical restraints of their own law, which, 
 as narrowly interpreted by themselves, made 
 inaction to be the essence of Sabbath-keeping, 
 they proceeded to enforce upon Him the usual 
 penalty of transgressing the fourth command- 
 ment. His answer is the text, "My Father 
 worketh hitherto, and I work." The Jews un- 
 derstood Him to mean that He was not under 
 their law, but was Himself the author of law, 
 and co-equal with the Father; and they un- 
 derstood Him correctly, as His subsequent 
 words clearly show ; for He proceeds, in clear 
 and positive terms, to assert His equality with 
 God. He kept the Sabbath by ceaseless acti- 
 vity which, with the Author of all things, is 
 compatible with the profoundest rest. 
 
 The first truth suggested by the passage, 
 is the universal presence of the Father at 
 
MY FATHER W0RKETH HITHERTO. 35 
 
 work. " My Father worketh hitherto." " He 
 upholds with an energy that knows no pause 
 the work of His creation, from hour to hour, 
 and from moment to moment." This is a 
 doctrine very imperfectly apprehended by the 
 world. Men do not imagine God to be near 
 to them in actual presence. They acknow- 
 ledge Him to be the Creator, but chiefly 
 because it relieves them of the greater diffi- 
 culty of otherwise accounting for the existence 
 of things. And when they speak of His works, 
 they do not refer to Him in person, except by 
 approved philosophical designations that teach 
 those who adopt them that the personal exist- 
 ence of God is little more than a speculation. 
 Have you remarked that when we talk of the 
 operations of nature, we rarely mention God ? 
 We speak of laws, of causes and effects; a 
 mode of precise expression necessary and ad- 
 mirable when science teaches us the relations 
 and manner of any particular existence : but 
 surely in our ordinary references to Divine 
 operations we ought not to shut out the name 
 of our Father, who is through all and in us all. 
 In addition to this scientific concealment of 
 God, a habit now become popular with those 
 who have no science, there is, if I may so call 
 it, a figurative disguise of the Divine presence. 
 By a fiction of the imagination which began 
 
 d 2 
 
36 SERMON III. 
 
 with our childhood and cleaves to us through 
 life, we make natural objects self-acting ; for 
 the absence of a visible agent makes them 
 appear so to a child's eye: and that which 
 was our creed once is our phraseology now. 
 The grand creations we invest with personality, 
 such as the sun and the planets; the spaces 
 and the elements we people with airy shapes 
 of poetry and romance. These imaginations 
 not only embellish literature, they affect our 
 modes of thought, and where there is no posi- 
 tive religious sentiment they become an ele- 
 gant substitute for it ; they serve for the Divine 
 Being Himself. Those who introduce Him 
 into their conversation without shading their 
 allusion by a figure or comment, are liable to 
 the charge of affectation, bad taste, or some- 
 thing worse. I do not commend the habit of 
 mentioning the name of God on all occasions, 
 but I state the fact to show how sparingly and 
 ceremoniously the recognition of our Father 
 finds expression among us. What an impres- 
 sive and touching symptom of our universal 
 ungodliness ! Here is an exact description of 
 men as we naturally find them, " God is not in 
 all their thoughts, there is none that under- 
 standeth, there is none that seeketh after God." 
 But while philosophy is studying its pro- 
 blems of cause and effect, evading, even in its 
 
MY FATHER WOEKETH HITHERTO. 37 
 
 most ultimate questions, the conclusion and 
 acknowledgement of a God ; while the popular 
 language or rhetoric of life hides our Divine 
 Maker behind the personal attributes with 
 which childhood invests natural objects, let 
 us, without being enemies either to science or 
 to imagination, open our Bible, and look upon 
 the works of God holding this light to our 
 feet. We let a ray of it fall upon a flower, 
 upon the structure of an animal, upon the 
 strata of a rock, and we perceive not only 
 that our Father has been there, but that He is 
 there, and we exclaim, The work of Thy 
 fingers ! " My Father worketh hitherto." If 
 you ask us about genera and species and 
 the laws of variation, you confound us; we 
 leave these matters to the observation and 
 analysis of scientific men, whose labours en- 
 title them to respect and gratitude, but whose 
 discoveries shall not seduce us from the faith 
 that gives us a truer, a more subtle sight than 
 theirs. We cannot detect half so many quali- 
 ties in an object as they can, but we see our 
 Father at work; not in the sense of being 
 the first cause simply, but in the present 
 action of His power. If you tell me that the 
 instinct of the bird leads it to jDick up the 
 grain which an accident has scattered upon 
 the ground, is it less true that our heavenly 
 
38 SERMON III. 
 
 Father feedeth it? You may explain the 
 visible phenomena of the whole bird-history, 
 and trace by accurate induction all the pro- 
 cesses of its formation ; what have you done, 
 but described the ways in which the Father 
 displays His goodness and skill ? He brings 
 forth the bird, cherishes it, teaches it flight, 
 feeds and guards it, until it drops on the 
 ground, which a sparrow cannot do without 
 His notice. .David was no mean naturalist; 
 yet when he speaks of the sustentation of 
 animals, their natural dissolution, and the 
 renewal of their generations he passes over 
 the laws of these changes, and only sees the 
 Father at work. " These, wait all upon thee : 
 that thou givest them they gather : thou 
 openest thine hand, they are filled with good : 
 thou hidest thy face, they are troubled : thou 
 takest away their breath, they die, and return 
 to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, 
 they are created, and thou renewest the face 
 of the earth." This is not mere poetry : it is 
 written in the largest spirit of science. But 
 a higher authority than David, who wrote no 
 poetry, and who, though He sometimes taught 
 by parable, and did not explain all He taught, 
 never permitted His hearers to mistake for a 
 parable an explicit truth, in whom dwelt all 
 the treasures of wisdom and knoivledge, when 
 
MY FATHER WORKETH HITHERTO. 39 
 
 referring to the beauty of a flower, affirms 
 that the Father clothes it ; and when bidding 
 His disciples imitate the trustful and uncareful 
 birds, He adds, Your heavenly Father feedeth 
 them. 
 
 There is another truth, consequent upon 
 that we have been discussing, too obvious to 
 detain us with arguments and examples, too 
 important to be passed over. If the Father 
 is working around us, with His hand upon 
 everything, following the watchfulness of His 
 unsleeping eye, sustaining the life and con- 
 sulting for the happiness of all His creatures, 
 what a security tve enjoy, what an assurance 
 that everything must go well ! Each one of 
 us may claim for himself the application of 
 the text, " My Father worketh for me." He 
 bestows on me an attention as direct and per- 
 sonal as if I were His sole creation. Though 
 I frequently forget Him, I am never out of 
 His thoughts ; though I often reason absurdly, 
 and conclude falsely, and speak ungratefully, 
 concerning the events that daily happen to 
 me, He is all the more tender and solicitous, 
 like a mother humouring a pettish child, for- 
 giving, soothing, and putting me right again. 
 " When I consider the heavens, the moon and 
 the stars which he has ordained," the infinity 
 that arches over me, studded with points of 
 
40 SERMON III. 
 
 light, each of which Astronomy informs me is 
 a world, with inconceivable spaces between 
 them ; when I think that they may have popu- 
 lations that look as we do upon a sun and 
 moon, that myriads of thinking beings throng 
 the universe, I say, Can it be true, that I 
 have a separate and particular place in the 
 Father's heart? Do not these worlds and 
 their vast interests drive me out of His 
 mind? What does He now whisper to my 
 half-sceptical heart ? " The very hairs of 
 your head are all numbered I " It is some- 
 times hard for me to realize the truth and 
 substance of this wonderful revelation ; for in 
 spite of it I am often depressed by a sense, a 
 sickening sense, of loneliness, and even, for 
 some moments, of abandonment ; then I hear 
 the expostulation of One who knoweth my 
 frame and remembereth that I am dust. 
 " Why sayest thou, Jacob, and speakest, O 
 Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my 
 judgment is passed over from my God ? Hast 
 thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the 
 everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the 
 ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is 
 weary ? There is no searching of his under- 
 standing." Thus giveth He poiver to the 
 faint, and to them who have might He in- 
 creaseth strength. Let us appropriate these 
 
MY FATHER WOEKETH HITHERTO. 41 
 
 words of our elder Brother, and keep them 
 locked up in our hearts as a charm to exorcise 
 the foul spirit of unbelief, — I am not alone 
 for the Father is with me. 
 
 The third truth contained in the passage 
 is rather implied than expressed. The Father 
 worketh, not because an intelligent being is 
 necessarily active, but for some great design 
 which the Triune God is advancing and must 
 complete. This work, extending over many 
 ages, may be called a second Genesis. The 
 Jews considered that when the heavens and 
 the earth were finished, and all the host of 
 them, God had nothing more to do. So they 
 interpreted the words, " On the seventh day 
 God ended the work which he had made, and 
 he rested from all his work." It is true that 
 the first Genesis concluded the plan of the 
 creation, and initiated the ancestral organi- 
 zation of things ; but God did not then enter 
 into the gross Sabbath of inaction. When 
 the Creator had fixed the limits of the material 
 universe, accomplished the number of original 
 organisms, and diffused the elements neces- 
 sary to sustain them, His primal work was 
 done : but He rested only from the creation 
 of matter : the Sabbath into which He entered 
 was as full of work as the six days of the 
 Genesis ; but work of another kind, of a 
 
42 SERMON III. 
 
 nobler and more enduring kind. The Spirit 
 that moved upon formless matter must now 
 move upon mind. Evil had come into being, 
 and evil is to mind what chaos is to matter : 
 angels had lost their first estate, and the fallen 
 spirits would carry their rebellion to Paradise : 
 the serpent would creep into that fairest re- 
 treat of innocence and bliss, and leave the 
 venom of death in the heart of its happy in- 
 mates. Sinful and degenerate, they would 
 beget children in their likeness : woe and 
 death would multiply with advancing and 
 scattered families : heaven would recede from 
 earth, and hell would draw nearer; until 
 the entire race of men would be in league with 
 the powers of darkness, and God their Father 
 would be resisted and defied, from the rising 
 to the setting of the sun; and manifold dis- 
 orders, following the apostacy, would extend 
 to other parts of the creation. The blessed 
 God foreknew all this when He entered upon 
 His first Sabbath, and He graciously purposed 
 to spend that Sabbath in winning back to 
 Himself a lost world; in making a new hea- 
 ven and a new earth, not of matter but of 
 mind. Histories have been written to describe 
 the fortunes of races, and the rise and fall of 
 kingdoms. Who shall write the history of 
 God's Sabbath- work for man ? The Bible is 
 
MY FATHEE WORKETH HITHEETO. 43 
 
 but a chapter of it ; the record will run on in 
 the ages to come, and eternity will unroll the 
 volume. But following the memorials of scrip- 
 ture from the earliest annals, how evident is a 
 progressive design of love — the Father work- 
 ing in counsel ; the Son in personal revelation ; 
 the Spirit in influence; and looking more 
 closely, we observe, that the Divine Son is the 
 centre of this second and more glorious 
 Genesis. There is, in the words of Paul, " a 
 gathering together in one of all things in 
 Christ, both which are in heaven and which 
 are on earth." From Adam to Moses, from 
 Moses to John the Baptist, all revelations 
 pointed to Christ ; all historic events worked 
 in the direction of the cross ; all institutions 
 were like rest-houses on a highway, they de- 
 tained travellers for a while, but only to 
 refresh them for their journey to Christ : and 
 when the Lamb of God was lifted up, He did 
 as He foretold, He drew all men unto Him. 
 As all matter tends to the centre of the earth 
 and must find it when intervening resistance 
 is taken out of the way, so all spirit draws 
 near to Christ ; it may be hindered on its path, 
 but it cannot rest until it be united to Him. 
 Sinner ! the Father is drawing thee to Christ : 
 the Spirit is convincing thee of thy misery out 
 of Christ : there is no rest, no happiness, no 
 
44 SERMON III. 
 
 safety for thee, severed from Him : thou art 
 a stone flung away from the building, a limb 
 cut off from the body, a chord broken from 
 the harp : as thou art, there is neither use, 
 life, nor harmony in thee : thou art a fragment, 
 a mere piece of the general wreck : but blessed 
 be His Name, " My Father worketh " to gather 
 all ruined souls together in Christ. He stoops 
 to pick thee up, thou rejected stone ; to shape, 
 polish, and set thee in the building of God. 
 Shall He stoop in vain ? shall He draw to be 
 yet resisted ? yield to the finger of God ! 
 He will lead thee to Jesus. In Him thou wilt 
 lose thy sins, in Him thou wilt be strong 
 to trample under feet the temptations that 
 oppress thee, and to suffer the trials that befall 
 thee : in Him thou wilt find a brother, and 
 a friend that sticketh closer than a brother ; 
 and the Father will join Himself with thee by 
 one Spirit. Listen to these marvellous words, 
 Christ is addressing the Father, and referring 
 to His people, " I in them and thou in me, 
 that we may be made perfect in one." But 
 suppose the sinner will not be drawn ? There 
 is no supposition in it, he must be drawn to 
 Christ. His very resistance is progress to 
 Christ. He must kneel and confess that Jesus 
 is Lord. It is simply a question of time as to 
 the event of his submission ; but not as to the 
 
MY FATHER. WORKETH HITHERTO. 45 
 
 character of that submission. If he kneel not 
 now for pardon, he must kneel on the day 
 of judgment for acknowledgement. Every 
 tongue will there confess Him. It will be 
 one of His many crowns — the prostration and 
 public recantation of all His enemies : a re- 
 cantation that will serve Him only, not them. 
 All men are thus proceeding Christward. 
 Consciously and unconsciously, the Father is 
 drawing all the races and kingdoms of the 
 earth to Christ. The sin of one half of the 
 world has taken the shape of hatred and dis- 
 honor to Christ : the miseries of the other 
 half are the fruit of an ignorance of Christ : 
 it is the glory of the Father to work hatred 
 into love; or where this fails, to rebuke it into 
 submission and confession. He will take no 
 honor to Himself but that which is given 
 through the Son : and although He hath not 
 cast off His people, the Jews, which He fore- 
 knew, He will come to no terms with them 
 while they refuse to acknowledge Christ : in 
 spite of their synagogues and their Sabbaths, 
 their readings of Moses and their offerings, 
 the veil is still upon their hearts, and the old 
 curse of dispersion is still upon their families, 
 verifying the ominous words of Christ to their 
 ancestors, "He that hateth me, hateth my 
 Father also." No, the Jew shall yet look 
 
46 sermon m. 
 
 upon Him whom lie hath pierced, and mourn 
 for Him as one mourneth for an only son : for 
 our Father worketh to bring them to the 
 cross, to graft them again into the root of 
 Jesse, and to bind up the impenitent like an in- 
 curable branch, and consume them in the wrath 
 of the Lamb. The Mahommedan race will 
 find no mercy, notwithstanding their zeal for 
 the unity of the Father, and the services they 
 have rendered as instruments of Divine judg- 
 ment upon idolatrous lands, while they look 
 with scorn upon the Son of Mary ! But the 
 Father is working among them, and never so 
 conspicuously as at this moment. He is tak- 
 ing away their place from among the nations : 
 the acknowledgment of Christ is the salt of 
 kingdoms : and the Mahommedan Empire 
 within the last six years has been crumbling 
 from the fragility of mere rottenness, without 
 the possibility of another coherence. 'Tis a 
 frightful calamity, either for a nation or a man 
 to be without Christ ; to have the confession 
 of Him extorted at last by the Father's judg- 
 ments. The Papal power, professedly Chris- 
 tian though it be, is built upon the rejection 
 of Christ, and stand it cannot ! The Father 
 is even now gathering it up to lay it at the 
 feet of His Son. He has already made it a 
 by- word in the mouths of its own children. 
 
MY FATHER WORKETH HITHERTO. 47 
 
 By a bitter irony He is making it to taste, in 
 a sense it never desired to know, the proper 
 position of a Church, " My kingdom is not of 
 this world." The papal territory is slipping 
 from the paralysed hand of the Apostate 
 Church, the actors of which are concluding 
 the last scene of the most direful tragedy ever 
 performed on the world's stage ! The reason 
 may not be known even to those who are 
 hastening the end of the Papacy ; but it is 
 evident to such as read their Bibles. Christ 
 is not honored in Rome ; therefore the Father 
 hath not planted her, and He is plucking her 
 up. So will you find the worm of decay at 
 the root of every religious institution or body 
 that does not honor Christ even as it honors 
 the Father. But while the Father is bringing 
 to the triumphant Redeemer the wreck of all 
 that is Christless, and gathering into one act 
 of compulsory homage everything that has 
 denied or resisted the Godhead of His Son, He 
 is collecting for the honor of the cross other 
 trophies, the achievements of His grace ; He 
 is gathering His elect from the four winds : 
 He is working in the assemblies of His saints, 
 pouring upon them His own love for souls, 
 His own sympathy for Jesus, and a wonderful 
 spirit of missionary zeal, to devise methods by 
 which the salvation of the gospel can be 
 
48 SERMON III. 
 
 conveyed to the hearts and homes of men. 
 Thousands are spending their days and nights 
 in co-operating with the Father's work, both 
 at home and abroad. Vitality, energy, and 
 productiveness, seem to distinguish every 
 church that honors Jesus ! Glory be to God ! 
 The Father working with us, the Redeemer 
 shall have His own ! "He shall have do- 
 minion from sea to sea, and from the river 
 unto the ends of the earth. His name shall 
 endure for ever, his name shall be continued 
 as long as the sun : and men shall be blessed 
 in him : all nations shall call him blessed. 
 Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, 
 who only doeth wondrous things, and blessed 
 be his glorious name for ever, and let the 
 whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, 
 and Amen." 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 Hosea ii. 21, 22. 
 
 And it shall come to pass in that day, I ivill hear, 
 saith the Lord, I ivill hear the heavens, and they 
 shall hear the earth ; and the earth shall hear 
 the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they 
 shall hear Jezreel. 
 
 We have in this passage a highly poetical de- 
 scription of the order in which the different 
 parts of the creation are connected, and of 
 the accumulation of their several results for 
 the benefit of man's race, called in the text 
 Jezreel, a word signifying the seed of God. 
 Nature is here represented in a series of sym- 
 pathetic and reciprocal powers, waiting upon 
 each other, addressing and answering each 
 other. The first power is the source and con- 
 troller of the rest. God creates the first form, 
 inspires the first life, and communicates the 
 first motion. These powers acting upon each 
 other, are extended and diversified by the laws 
 of mutual dependence. So intimate is the con- 
 nexion of one thing with another, that you can 
 touch no object without moving a thousand ; 
 
 E 
 
50 SERMON IV. 
 
 the impulse glides along the chain until the 
 most distant link feels the vibration; and 
 hence things which are very dissimilar, and are 
 apparently incompatible with each other, have 
 the closest affinity. The Bible is not a scien- 
 tific book, but it sometimes, as in the text, 
 affords a divine glimpse into the profounder 
 harmonies of nature. We have hints, instead 
 of treatises ; seeds of truth that need the skill 
 and diligent patience of the husbandman, in- 
 stead of fields already white unto the harvest. 
 In describing the action of certain powers 
 upon each other, the text gives us the order 
 in which they transmit their impression ; — 
 God, the heavens, the earth, the corn and 
 wine, and Jezreel, or man. Of these powers, 
 the first and last only are intelligent — God 
 with whom the influence begins, and man 
 with whom it ends. The intermediate agents 
 are inanimate and subordinate. Man is the 
 being for whom heaven and earth are moved : 
 " I will hear the heavens," saith the Lord. 
 But what has moved the heavens to cry out ? 
 The shouting of the earth. But what has 
 awakened the voice of the earth ? The strug- 
 gling and impatient growth of the corn, the 
 oil, and the wine. And who awaits the har- 
 vest and the vintage ? Man. The ploughing, 
 the manuring, the sowing, the planting are 
 
I WILL HEAR THE HEAVENS. 51 
 
 finished. Man has done his part : but the 
 growth is tardy, the prospect of the reaper is 
 overcast; then cry out the wants of man. 
 The dealer augments his price, the buyer 
 abridges his meal — bread ! bread ! is the cry, 
 from one end of the land to the other. The 
 needy fields are appealed to : that appeal is 
 heard by the parched and suffocated grain : 
 but what can the grain do ? The earth gives 
 it no moisture ; but what can the earth do ? 
 The heavens hold back their showers ; but 
 what can the heavens do, until God command 
 them to unlock their stores ? Thus man be- 
 seeches the grain, and the grain prays to the 
 soil, and the soil supplicates the heavens, and 
 the heavens cry unto God — a chain of prayer ; 
 the answer to which is another chain, corre- 
 sponding to it, link with link : I will answer 
 the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, 
 and the earth shall answer the corn and wine, 
 and they shall answer Jezreel. The prayer 
 went up by stages, climbing the different steps 
 of the creative process until it gained the 
 uncreated One. The wants of Jezreel cried 
 out instinctively for the corn and wine, the 
 corn and wine pined for the fatness of the 
 ground, the sole supporter of their growth, 
 and the ground thirsted for the blessing of the 
 clouds : and as the praver ascended, so does 
 
 e 2 
 
52 SEBMON IV. 
 
 the answer return, halting at certain inter- 
 mediate causes, and assuming at every stage 
 a new form. The prayer, though uttered by 
 several voices and in several seasons, was one ; 
 it was for corn and wine and oil : and the 
 answer is one ; though on its way down it puts 
 on various shapes. When God commands 
 the heavens to collect their vapours, the corn 
 and wine are given in the shape of rain ; when 
 the falling shower revives the earth, the corn 
 and wine are enclosed in the moist virtue of 
 the ground ; when this virtue penetrates the 
 plant, and " maketh increase " of the grain 
 and the olive, the blessings approach that 
 development for which Jezreel has been wait- 
 ing, and in which only he can understand the 
 answer to his prayer : the answer had been 
 long on its way to him, though he considered 
 the prayer unanswered until the corn and wine 
 were placed before him. 
 
 This is an epitome of the laws of Provi- 
 dence : and the divine scheme appears to 
 reserve its latest and best results for the 
 human family. It does appear an arrogant 
 assumption that the material creation was 
 made for us ; that an infinite series of cause 
 and effect should start from the will of Grod, 
 like so many lines for the conveyance of bless- 
 ing, to converge upon man. But let it be 
 
I WILL HEAE THE HEAVENS. 53 
 
 remembered that man is the only rational 
 being on earth ; and, however inferior to what 
 he might have been, there is no animal with 
 which we are acquainted, equal to the very 
 worst specimen of the race. He is the image 
 of God in many grand features ; he is lord of 
 the creation ; an unworthy potentate, it is 
 true, but still of royal birth : his immortality 
 invests him with a grandeur that throws the 
 heavens into the shade : one rational thought, 
 one spiritual feeling, is, perhaps, a mightier 
 effect of creative power than a galaxy of stars. 
 Suppose that, beside God Himself, there was 
 only one being who could think — but one, — 
 and he a solitary man ; his intellectual recog- 
 nition of God, and mental appreciation of the 
 Divine character, would lend dignity to the 
 universe, and reflect a glory upon its Creator 
 far exceeding the display of all his other won- 
 ders. But how is this illustration t)f man's 
 greatness surpassed by the fact of his redemp- 
 tion through the Son of God ! What must 
 be the value of that spirit, to save which, 
 God humbled Himself, and became obedient 
 unto death. In this light it is not too much 
 to think that man is the chief object of God's 
 providential government. His wants are con- 
 sulted first, and the requirements of other 
 creatures are ordained with reference to him. 
 
54 SEEMON IV. 
 
 The laws of production and decay, the occult 
 forces which sustain the harmony of the crea- 
 tion, the laws which bring the phenomena of 
 the external world into converse with the 
 mind, not only unite to provide for the hap- 
 piness of man, but are, with a wider or nar- 
 rower licence, placed under his power, and 
 yet so placed as to correct every abuse to 
 which his privilege may tempt him. How 
 remarkable those words, They shall hear Jez- 
 reel, the seed of God. Man speaks with a 
 voice that the elements themselves listen to 
 and obey. He calls to the lightning, and the 
 obsequious fire descends to place itself at his 
 disposal ; it carries his messages from one end 
 of the earth to the other. He commands the 
 steam ; and it hastens to lay its mighty re- 
 sources at his feet ; he yokes it as a steed to 
 his conveyances, and makes it traverse the 
 ocean with his ships ; it toils in his mines 
 and in his manufactories like a slave, and 
 decorates his palaces like an artist. They 
 shall hear Jezreel ; light and air, and metals 
 and gases, with their countless followers, they 
 flock to the sound of his voice, from above, 
 from beneath, from afar, and shape themselves 
 at his bidding, and run off in a thousand 
 forms to do his pleasure ; and the ministry of 
 everything contributes insensibly to the main- 
 
I WILL HEAR THE HEAVENS. 55 
 
 tenance, and terminates in the dignity and 
 happiness of man. 
 
 But while man is the main object of Pro- 
 vidence, God is its efficient and all pervading 
 cause. I will perform my part upon the 
 heavens, and they shall perform their part 
 upon the earth, and the earth shall perform 
 her part upon the corn and the loine, and 
 they shall perform their part for Jezreel. 
 Observe that though in these several spheres 
 of agency, the part of God appears to be limi- 
 ted to the heavens, He pervades the series : 
 His command runs through them — the hea- 
 vens and the earth shall perform their part 
 upon each other; clearly showing that the 
 laws of their mutual action were ordained by 
 Himself, and that His watchful eye follows 
 up their latest results. The corn, the wine, 
 and the oil shall perform their part for Jez- 
 reel. It is not that He establishes great 
 laws of life and organization, and leaves their 
 minuter applications to chance. He will 
 superintend all their processes, — through the 
 vapour, the shower, the vigour of the moist 
 earth, the bursting grain in blade, ear, and 
 full corn, the sprouting vine in tendril, leaf, 
 and ruddy grape : He will follow all until He 
 arrive at the rejoicing of harvest and of 
 vintage. The eye of God is upon Jezreel — 
 
56 SERMON IV. 
 
 upon us. When He sets in motion a blessing 
 for us, it has to travel perhaps a long way, to 
 pass through various processes, to wear a 
 hundred disguises : now it sinks out of sight 
 and seems for a while to be forgotten or 
 abandoned ; then it reappears in a new form, 
 and bending its way in another course, as 
 if Providence had altered its destination ; but 
 after rejoicing those who needed it earlier 
 than we, it returns in the direction of our- 
 selves ; and as it draws nearer it grows every 
 moment more adapted to our wants, until the 
 fulness of time brings it into our happy pos- 
 session. Now, during its wide, and, as we 
 should call it, eccentric course, God never 
 loses sight of it, and never loses sight of us. 
 Whatever be its apparent path, it is always on 
 its way to us ; whatever be its apparent form, 
 it is always shaping itself for us. It is -not 
 correct to call the interval of our tarrying for 
 it a delay; there is no delay in the divine 
 operation ; a blessing is never waiting for us, 
 it is coming to us ; and in all its stages and 
 through all its way, it is doing good to some 
 object, and lending itself under some form to 
 the happiness of the universe. 
 
 The order observable in the physical world 
 is not more immutable in its ordinance, more 
 minute in its applications, than are the laws 
 
I WILL HEAR THE HEAVENS. 57 
 
 of the spiritual world. If these do not appear 
 to be so strictly conditioned, it is only because 
 we know less about them. The philosopher 
 who finds it impossible to conceive of a single 
 event in nature detached from established law, 
 and concludes that no amount of testimony 
 can make a miracle credible, may affirm with 
 equal reason that no moral event can be unique, 
 or stand unrelated to a system. It is as hard 
 to imagine a suspension of order in the one 
 case as in the other. And yet the miracle 
 ought not to be a stone of stumbling to any 
 man who believes in a God. To suppose it to 
 be impossible, or equivalent to a contradiction 
 of our natural sense, that God should stop the 
 application of a law, to answer a special end, 
 is to suppose it to be impossible that there 
 should be a God at all. The only consistent 
 idea of a Supreme Being is the old-fashioned 
 scriptural notion that with God nothing is 
 impossible ; a doctrine which the simplest 
 reader will know how to guard from those 
 absurd consequences which modern philoso- 
 phers assure us are involved in it. But to 
 return to the order of the spiritual world. 
 The remarks suggested by the text on the 
 mode, government, and direction of provi- 
 dential operations will equally apply to the 
 economy of grace. The human race is the 
 
58 SERMON IV. 
 
 seed of God. The nations that know Him 
 not have some interest in the promise, " I will 
 be a father unto you." But this relation He 
 sustains with peculiar tenderness toward those 
 who are the spiritual Jezreel, the children of 
 His grace through the new and nobler genera- 
 tion of His Spirit. He is the common parent 
 of all ; but to those who believe in His Son 
 He is the reconciled Father, and the ministry 
 of His providence is to them the ministry of 
 His love. The just and the unjust share in 
 the corn and the wine and the oil ; He walks 
 through all lands, and His paths drop fatness ; 
 but those only who love Him are permitted to 
 return with Him into His sanctuary and enjoy 
 the easy and confiding intercourse of children. 
 Of such it may be said that not only the bles- 
 sings of the atmosphere, the soil, the ocean, 
 and the mine are theirs, but theirs also are the 
 riches, the forces, and the servants of the 
 invisible world. They shall hear Jezreel, not 
 material agents only, to unite in producing 
 for him a material blessing. The chain that 
 runs from the vapour to the corn is for the 
 life that now is. There is another chain, 
 descending to us through spiritual influences 
 and revelations. The first link is hidden in 
 the love of God ; the last is the glorious sal- 
 vation of man's race. It is as if God should 
 
I WILL HEAR THE HEAVENS. 59 
 
 say of these sublimer powers also, I will hear, 
 I will hear the law, and the law shall hear the 
 atonement of Christ, and the atonement of 
 Christ shall hear faith, and faith shall hear 
 Jezreel, the sinner. Through these stages, 
 pardon has come down to me. When it first 
 came forth from God, it was in the form of 
 law. I did not see forgiveness in law, but 
 there it was. To me it was a cloud of thun- 
 derings, and voices, and hailstones ; but the 
 blessing I wanted was locked up in it, and 
 when it reappeared in the great atonement, 
 faith discerned it and cried out for it ; and it 
 was given to faith, and faith gave it to me. 
 God has let down this ladder to earth : we 
 can only see the steps that are nearest us, the 
 higher gradations are lost in intermediate 
 clouds — lost, but not broken ; they go up with 
 an entire connexion, and lean upon the throne, 
 and the angels of God are ascending and de- 
 scending upon Jezreel, the seed of God. The 
 sinner cries for pardon, and pardon demands 
 faith, and faith asks for an atonement, and the 
 atonement pleads for the approbation of law, 
 and law is the sanction and authority of God. 
 When we touch the link of prayer, faith is 
 moved ; and when faith is moved, the atone- 
 ment is moved ; and when the atonement is 
 moved, God is moved, and the blessings glide 
 
60 SERMON IV. 
 
 down : they come at the bidding of Jezreel, — 
 ' ' they shall hear Jezreel. " The Spirit hears and 
 comes down, and places His mighty resources 
 at our disposal. We say to Him, Go and 
 enlighten and save that man, and He goeth ; 
 come and renovate our dying church, and He 
 cometh, and our sanctuaries are filled with the 
 luminous energy of His presence. Distant 
 nations are lying hopelessly in the shadow of 
 death ; give them Thy light and Thy truth : 
 and He takes the wings of the morning and 
 flies to the uttermost parts of the earth and 
 the sea ; and nations start up from the sleep 
 of ages, and walk in the light, as we are in the 
 light. "They shall hear Jezreel;" Paul and 
 Apollos and Cephas — the ministry are ours ; 
 their talents, gifts, and graces come at our 
 call and minister to our salvation : the world 
 is ours — its habitation, bounty, and lessons, as 
 long as we shall need them : life is ours — its 
 far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory : death is ours to lead us to that glory : 
 things present and things to come, they all 
 hear Jezreel; for he is Christ's, and Christ is 
 God's. 
 
SERMON V, 
 
 EZEKIEL i. 1. 
 
 Noiv it came to pass in the thirteenth year, in the fourth 
 month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was 
 among the captives by the river of Chebar, that 
 the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of 
 God. 
 
 A first glance at this chapter may well dis- 
 courage any attempt to make it intelligible; 
 and perhaps no amount of pains bestowed 
 upon the various symbols in which its mean- 
 ing resides would enable us to explain them 
 without error ; but the meaning itself shines 
 out with sufficient clearness to give us both 
 knowledge and comfort. 
 
 In the first place, it is certain that the 
 visions herein described are intended to teach 
 us the nature, the manner, and the purport of 
 God's providence. The appearances which 
 the prophet saw were four — the cherubim, the 
 wheels, the crystal firmament, and the throne 
 of God. An attentive observation of these 
 will, I think, show that they compose one 
 picture ; that the four cherubim are yoked 
 
62 SERMON V. 
 
 to a crystal chariot of four wheels, and that 
 on the chariot is placed the throne of God, 
 who directs its path and reins its velocity. 
 The Psalmist illustrates this thought, exalting 
 it to a wonderful height of poetry, " He rode 
 upon a cherub and did fly : yea, he did fly 
 upon the wings of the wind." The omni- 
 present Deity is represented as moving, to 
 give us a vivid idea of the activity of His pre- 
 sence and government. In various parts of 
 the world great events are pending ; that is, 
 waiting for the fitting instrument and the 
 fitting season, — a political crisis, a moral 
 revolution, a scientific discovery. God passes 
 on a cherub from the scene of one occur- 
 rence to that of another, removing impedi- 
 ments, collecting friendly, dispersing adverse, 
 forces; hastening here, delaying there, now 
 opposing, now yielding, but having every 
 man, every animal, every element, under su- 
 preme control, and making all bend to the 
 fulfilment of His purpose. Nothing is too 
 mighty for His grasp, nothing is too mean 
 for His use. 
 
 But thoughtless men, who, in matters that 
 concern themselves, walk and judge by sense, 
 while they are struck with admiration or 
 terror at the power that surrounds them, are 
 disposed to regard it as a blind force, con- 
 
I SAW VISIONS OF GOD. 63 
 
 vulsed, or hushed, as circumstances may ac- 
 cidentally determine the earthquake or the 
 drought, the storm, or the many diseases that 
 fly loosely about, some slaying their thou- 
 sands, others their ten thousands ; and though 
 experience has taught us defence, and science 
 has furnished us with weapons to contend 
 with most evils, yet we cannot get rid of an 
 uneasy sense of weakness and dread, when we 
 happen to be in the neighbourhood of an ex- 
 plosion of some unknown power. If we fall 
 victims to it, it is said we are unfortunate ; if 
 we escape its ravages, we are lucky. And 
 though we seem to attribute much to caution, 
 and the application of means, and to impute 
 calamity to ignorance or recklessness, we al- 
 ways reserve, both for success and failure, a 
 certain persuasion that the contrary might as 
 easily have happened. What I mean is, that 
 men find it difficult to separate from them- 
 selves the idea that the powers that drive 
 them through life obey no master's hand, but 
 plough up their own wild course. 
 
 The chapter before us corrects this im- 
 pression. In fact, all the histories and doc- 
 trines of the holy volume refute the notion of 
 a chance government, and explode also that 
 more rational, but equally untrue, theory of a 
 distant and haughty administration which 
 
64 SERMON V. 
 
 would make the laws of the universe irrespec- 
 tive of the individual, and restricted to the 
 class. The writings of God everywhere in- 
 culcate a particular Providence : they reveal 
 the tender economy of a parent; the Father 
 who feeds, clothes, instructs, and guards his 
 " little ones;" a doctrine full of comfort, 
 though few can taste it. To apply it to 
 another's distress is easy ; to extract from it 
 balm for one's own misery demands a strong 
 effort of faith. It is a lesson to be rehearsed 
 every hour, and practised in every trial. No 
 doctrine is so often required, or so readily for- 
 gotten. Hence it is taught in almost every 
 page of the Bible — in narratives and songs, 
 in expositions and symbols; it is illustrated 
 for the child, reasoned out for the philoso- 
 pher, and exemplified for the saint. 
 
 Ezekiel delivered his prophecies in Baby- 
 lon, and saw his first visions on the banks of 
 the Chebar. He and his countrymen were 
 captive Jews, and the prophet was one of the 
 few who did not hang their harps on the wil- 
 lows. He was commanded to say, in effect, to 
 his fellow prisoners, that Nebuchadnezzar's 
 triumph over them — his insolence, sacrilege, 
 and cruelty — was not an accidental issue of 
 war, but a judgment from heaven for their 
 crimes ; that their conqueror had been execu- 
 
I SAW VISIONS OF GOD. 65 
 
 ting the Divine will ; and that God, who had 
 so strangely reduced them to this humiliation, 
 could as strangely and as unexpectedly rein- 
 state them in a new Jerusalem, and recover 
 the splendour which Babylon had insulted and 
 eclipsed. Ezekiel has embodied these instruc- 
 tions in the imagery of this chapter, in which 
 we are taught the attributes, the methods, 
 and the ends of the divine Providence. 
 
 The attributes of Providence may be gath- 
 ered from the description of the cherubim. 
 The prophet has sketched four figures. They 
 are exactly alike; and an outline of on,e, as 
 clear as I can make it, will serve for the rest. 
 I introduce nothing fanciful, but present to 
 you, as faithfully as a very careful attention 
 may enable me, the image which the Holy 
 G-host has drawn for our learning, and which 
 will be found rich in instruction and comfort- 
 able suggestion to the simplest mind that will 
 devoutly study it. 
 
 Imagine a creature in stature and upright- 
 ness of form like a man; in almost every 
 other respect differing from a man. Instead 
 of a man's head you behold four faces; the 
 face of a man and the face of a lion looking 
 on the right side ; and the face of an ox and 
 the face of an eagle looking on the left side. 
 Bringing our eye downward from the faces, 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 SEEMON V. 
 
 we see four wings : two on one shoulder and 
 two on the other, being so placed as that one 
 might fall below the other ; the higher pair of 
 wings branching off from opposite shoulders 
 are for flight ; the lower wings are probably- 
 intended to lap over each other as a raiment 
 or covering for the body. Between the wings 
 we discern the hands of a man. The over- 
 wrapping wings guide the eye to the feet, and 
 these are very remarkable : the legs are 
 straight and rigid, terminating in a cloven 
 hoof, like the foot of a calf. You must 
 imagine these hoofs, not misshapen and worn 
 by toil, but symmetrical — hard, and polished 
 like brass. 
 
 Look first at the faces of the cherubim. 
 They exhibit the moral character of Provi- 
 dence. God governs us with intelligence and 
 sympathy, for there is a human face. The 
 figure, with its strange and apparently incon- 
 sistent formation, came forth from the whirl- 
 wind the fire and the cloud, appalling the 
 gaze of the prophet ; but when he saw a human 
 face he knew he had nothing to fear. When 
 we are surprised by the suddenness of a visi- 
 tation, and dismayed by what appear to be 
 eccentric and uncertain judgments, revolving 
 around us like the huge wheels of the prophet, 
 and glancing at us from all points, if a man's 
 
I SAW VISIONS OP GOD. 67 
 
 face looks out from amongst them, it charms 
 away the terror ; it seems to say, " It is I be 
 not afraid;" as if we had a brother there in 
 the midst of those dread elements ; if there be 
 a face, there is a heart somewhere. This is 
 the Deity of the vision, the God-man who 
 seems to say, "When thou passest through 
 the waters, I will be with thee; when thou 
 walkest through the fire, thou shall not be 
 burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon 
 thee." Thank God for the human heart that 
 lies within the divinity of His providence ! His 
 steps are in the deep, His councils are hidden 
 in a cloud, and His judgments smite and 
 scatter like the lightning ; but there is sym- 
 pathy for man in all; the familiar face of a 
 brother gladdens the storm like a rainbow. It 
 is the welcome sign of the covenant that God 
 will not always chide, neither keep His anger 
 for ever. 
 
 As to the other faces, they prefigure quali- 
 ties in which man is defective. The vision 
 has reference to our impression of man. The 
 human countenance cheers us with the recog- 
 nition of brotherhood; but experience has 
 warned us that in seasons of danger man's 
 arm is impotent to save ; that in the carrying 
 out of large and difficult measures, he lacks 
 perseverance ; that in particular crises, where 
 
 f2 
 
68 SEEMON V. 
 
 everything depends on accurate judgment 
 or daring action, he lacks penetration and 
 promptitude. Now, in the cherubim, the 
 faces of the lion, ox, and eagle are joined to 
 that of man, and signify that, while love and 
 sympathy are the reigning attributes of Provi- 
 dence, there is power to destroy and to deliver, 
 typified in the face of the lion ; there is con- 
 stancy and firmness suggested by the hard and 
 sober face of the ox; there is unerring fore- 
 sight and swiftness of perception depicted in 
 the emblem of the eagle. Here then, are 
 firmness, foreknowledge, power, and love ; and 
 love is the inspiration of all ! And as the 
 prophet saw four cherubim, whose faces and 
 wings all answer to the description we have 
 given, it is implied that the attributes pre- 
 figured by one of them are infinite, being 
 illustrated by four : four, in symbolic language, 
 is a perfect number ; so that firmness, typified 
 in one of the faces of each of the four figures, 
 is firmness in every direction — that is, im- 
 mutability; so foresight in every direction is 
 omniscience ; power in every direction is om- 
 nipotence ; and love in every direction is the 
 love of God ! 
 
 Two other particulars must now engage our 
 attention. There are wings for the highest 
 heaven, there are feet to touch the earth. 
 
I SAW VISIONS OF GOD. 69 
 
 The laws and blessings of Providence cannot 
 be dispensed with in the angelic world ; and 
 they stoop even to us ; not simply to touch 
 us, to make a faint impression on us, but to 
 dwell with us, doing the meanest offices for 
 us ; disdaining no attention and shrinking 
 from no task that our condition requires. 
 This condescension has a remarkable type in 
 the cherubim's feet, which were like the feet 
 of a calf, cloven and shaped to sink into the 
 earth, to plod and toil under burdens over 
 many a weary way. The idea is, that Provi- 
 dence is with us in our homestead : the foot 
 of a calf is a domestic image; the divine 
 government embraces within its care the in- 
 terests, and lifts upon its back the burdens 
 and sorrows of life. But we do not press too 
 heavily on Providence; neither does Provi- 
 dence, by treading so deeply in earth, con- 
 tract any of its defilement. The prophet says 
 that the hoofs of the cherubim sparkled like 
 the color of burnished brass. No impurity 
 could cleave to them, no labour could mis- 
 shape them. God causes a divinity to sparkle 
 even from the foot of His administration. 
 Those natures that seem most distant from 
 Him, those concerns that appear to be too 
 trivial for His regard, are permitted to mani- 
 fest His glory. 
 
70 SERMON V. 
 
 The other circumstance to be noticed is the 
 motion of the cherubim. "And they went 
 every one straight forward : whither the Spirit 
 was to go, they went ; and they turned 
 not as they went." Two things are re- 
 markable : — First : One spirit animated them 
 all — faces, wings, feet — all the intelligence, 
 feeling, and power which they imply, were 
 governed by one impulse, and, of course, 
 acted together in perfect harmony. The na- 
 tures being naturally antagonistic, we should 
 expect the man to look contemptuously on the 
 foot of the calf, and say, I have no need of 
 thee ; the lion to disdain a union with the ox ; 
 and the eagle to be impatient of a yoke that 
 kept him from his native skies; and again, 
 the man to proudly disown a fellowship with 
 cattle and birds. Moreover, when we look at 
 one of these figures, so unnaturally made up 
 of faces, wings, hands, and feet, our taste is 
 shocked. Why four faces, when one would 
 be sufficient^? And if there be wings to fly, 
 why the hoofs of a beast of burden ? There 
 is no keeping, no fitness in the disposition of 
 the figure. It is a mass of contradiction ! 
 Such, according to our maxims of drawing 
 and taste, is the impression of the beholder 
 when he first looks upon the cherubim. But 
 the prophet bids us examine further ; and we 
 
I SAW VISIONS OF GOD. 71 
 
 see that these opposite natures and disposi- 
 tions, the low and the high, the sluggish and 
 the swift, cleave together with the concord 
 of mutual dependence and under the inspira- 
 tion of one motive. Providence is an ad- 
 ministration whose outward features may be 
 apparently inimical or opposed to each other ; 
 and short-sighted man has felt himself at 
 liberty to complain of strange contradictions 
 in the Divine government. For example: 
 one intimation to Herod would have averted 
 the Bethlehem massacre. Is this consistent 
 with "Suffer little children to come unto 
 me?" Again: how can the Divine benevo- 
 lence agree with the permission of so long a 
 reign of error and wickedness ? If God really 
 loves men, and the gospel is His regenerating 
 instrument, why does He not place it beyond 
 the doubt of the sceptic, the false faith of the 
 idolator, and the powerful enmity of "high 
 places?" Why should the isles wait so long 
 for salvation, and the ends of the earth lie 
 many ages under the thraldom of superstition? 
 Why should the gospel plod on like the ox, 
 when it has wings to fly like the eagle? 
 Again: if Providence be the affectionate 
 economy of a father, why does He, without 
 an apparent reason, descend like a terror into 
 the families of His people, withering the fair- 
 
72 SERMON V. 
 
 est flowers of their house, and disturbing or 
 plucking up the deepest roots of their attach- 
 ment ? : Why should the eye and fangs of the 
 lion flash upon us and devour us in the path 
 of goodness and mercy ? 
 
 These arrangements of the Divine govern- 
 ment do not accord with man's wisdom. He 
 would have constructed a system in which 
 virtue would be of easier attainment, and 
 better guarded : in which the triumph of just 
 principles would not be delayed, and the de- 
 feat and ruin of the kingdom of sin would be 
 summary. But, as in the many-shaped che- 
 rubim of the prophet, so in God's many- 
 featured government, mercy and truth meet 
 together, righteousness and peace kiss each 
 other. One spirit animates and reconciles 
 them all ; it is the spirit of omniscient love : 
 this element penetrates every pore of the 
 Divine administration ; it balances all in- 
 equalities, expounds all severities, sheds a 
 grateful and guiding light upon the most in- 
 tricate passages of life, making its very deserts 
 blossom, transmuting its basest materials into 
 gold, and winning from its harshest and most 
 discordant notes an anthem of praise to God ! 
 
 Secondly: the Spirit that animated the 
 cherubim impelled them straight forward, 
 neither turning back nor halting; and the 
 
I SAW VISIONS OF GOD. 73 
 
 wheels followed them, planted with eyes for 
 every direction of vision. So does Omniscient 
 love move directly to its object ; we cannot 
 see its line; the snbtle thread elndes an angel's 
 eye ; but let us be sure that the track is unerr- 
 ingly preserved ; its course may lead through 
 floods and deaths, but these cannot change it, 
 it is love still, — love in the martyr's flame, 
 love in the racking disease, in the desolating 
 bereavement, in the closing agonies of disso- 
 lution ! Brethren, we have nothing to dread 
 from the conduct of Providence. Those oc- 
 currences which happen independently of us 
 are under the wise and gentle authority of our 
 Father in heaven. We must not call them 
 visitations of God, as if He descended upon 
 us to punish and affright us, and then left 
 us in precarious repose until our sins or His 
 pleasure should prompt Him to resume His 
 judgments. He does not visit us, He is 
 always with us. I will never leave you. And 
 if the doubt recurs to us, as it naturally 
 may, whether an infinite and spiritual Being 
 can make His universal eye to rest with keen 
 and sympathetic attention on us ; whether 
 the Hand that rounded and lit up the heavens 
 can perform little ministries for us, like those 
 of the mother and the nurse — for us, who in 
 His presence are as the drop of a bucket; 
 
74 SERMON V. 
 
 whether it is possible for me to reckon Him 
 who inhabiteth eternity as an inmate of my 
 house; as presiding, unseen, at my table; 
 as looking with even more tenderness and 
 solicitude than I, upon the members of my 
 family, contriving little changes and incidents, 
 in seasons and ways unknown to me, to 
 make me and mine happy; as never at any 
 time absent from us, and especially near in 
 seasons of trial, to do for us more than we can 
 ash or think : if, I say, we are tempted to 
 doubt whether God had so intimate a know- 
 ledge of us, so affectionate and pervading a 
 government over us, let it be remembered that 
 He who reigns over us has become one of us. 
 We have been describing the cherubim, the 
 wheels, and the crystal firmament resting on 
 them and borne on by them ; but whom did 
 the prophet see sitting on the top, the ruling 
 Majesty of all ? He affirms that he saw the 
 appearance of a man enthroned, and that the 
 glory around Him was like the appearance of 
 the bow in the cloud in the day of rain. This 
 is the exalted Redeemer, whom John after- 
 wards beheld in the Apocalypse, whose eyes 
 were like a flaming fire, whose feet were like 
 unto burning brass, whose voice was as the 
 sound of many waters. 
 
 Let the afflicted soul look up, and discern 
 
I SAW VISIONS OF GOD. 75 
 
 through the terrible majesty of the throne the 
 human heart of Christ, taking part with the 
 infirmities, temptations, and sorrows of His 
 people. That inner wheel of events which 
 men so much dread, should have no terror for 
 them that are His, whose touch impresses its 
 revolutions, whose gentle wisdom determines 
 its course. It executes designs of love ; for 
 it begins with love — the sacrifice of Himself 
 for sinners : and it ends with love — the re- 
 covery of a lost world to God ; and all the 
 intermediate events, personal and collective, 
 are pressed into the service of love. The pur- 
 pose of God reigns in every incident ; as these 
 occur in order, they silently communicate to 
 each other the impulse of the Divine will; 
 there is not a chance or disorderly circum- 
 stance amongst them. Human nature, in its 
 absolute ignorance of results, and in its im- 
 patience under suffering, may find it hard 
 to repress the murmur, " These things are 
 against me;" but after the struggle is over, 
 murmuring is changed into thankfulness, — 
 I will glory in tribulations also. — Before I 
 was afflicted I tvent astray, but now I have 
 kept thy ivord. We sometimes think God is 
 dealing heavily with us; one trial follows 
 another, with no space to breathe between; 
 there seems to be a union of afflicting circum- 
 
76 SERMON V. 
 
 stances, all concurring to distress and weigh 
 us down. Whichever way we turn, some 
 weapon is pointed against us. We are ready, 
 like Job, to curse the day of our birth. We 
 are tempted, like the hunted prophet, to be- 
 seech God to take us away. But let me re- 
 mind you of the Man of Sorrows. Can you 
 imagine a blacker desolation than that which 
 hung over the Saviour when He lay prostrate 
 and alone in the garden of Gethsemane ? Was 
 the countenance of His Father changed to- 
 wards Him in that saddest hour? Was it 
 because the purpose of love hesitated, that the 
 Son of God was abandoned to murderers, and, 
 as it were, to the torments of the lost ? Nay, 
 even these harsh and revolting instruments 
 were obeying the counsels of love. The 
 triumphs of Pentecost were sown in the 
 humiliations of Calvary. He that goeth forth 
 and weejoeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubt- 
 less come again ivith rejoicing, bringing his 
 sheaves with him. 
 
SEEMON VI. 
 
 Matthew xxviii. 16 — 20. 
 
 " Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, 
 into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 
 And when they saw him, they worshipped him : 
 but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake 
 unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach 
 all nations, baptizing them in the name of ilie 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; 
 Teaching them to observe all things ivhatsoever I 
 have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you 
 alivay, even unto the end of the world. Amen!' 
 
 Theee must certainly have been present more 
 than the eleven apostles on this mountain in 
 Galilee where Jesus had appointed to show 
 Himself to His followers. It is not unlikely 
 that this was the occasion when above five 
 hundred brethren* assembled to satisfy them- 
 selves of the reality of His resurrection, and 
 to receive some memorable token of it before 
 His departure. It must have been a sublime 
 spectacle, — five hundred on the top of a moun- 
 tain, and Jesus in their midst, radiant with 
 
 1 Cor. xv. 6. 
 
78 SERMON VI. 
 
 victory over sin, death, and hell, and, in the 
 presence of the surrounding company, taking 
 possession of all things ! Above was the 
 heaven ; and He laid His hand upon its light 
 and upon its space, and the infinite secrets 
 locked up in it ; below lay the earth and the 
 fulness thereof, all the kingdoms of the world 
 and the glory of them, which Satan, whom He 
 was now dragging at His chariot wheels, once 
 offered Him ; He gathered them all up within 
 the deed of His right and the capacity of His 
 hand, all their mind and matter; and as He 
 thus stood, "far above all principality and 
 power, and might, and dominion, and every 
 name that is named," He announced His posi- 
 tion, " All power is given unto me in heaven 
 and in earth. Gro ye therefore, and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost; and lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world." 
 
 Observe the authority which this com- 
 mand receives from the position of Christ. 
 All power is given unto me ; go therefore, 
 and convert the world. Think of power ac- 
 cording to the impressions we have received 
 of it, and then think of Jesus possessing all 
 power. We have but a very indefinite idea 
 of power. The forces of nature come but 
 
ALL POWER GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 79 
 
 partially and reluctantly within the range of 
 our knowledge, and give dreadful hints of 
 what remain behind. We have now and then 
 a glimpse of power, as it moves on its way to 
 do the bidding of the Omnipotent ; but from 
 an imperfect glance of its course, we cannot 
 conjecture its errand. The particular effect 
 we may happen to see is not final, and may 
 not be analogous to that which is final. The 
 thunderbolt that blasts the Indian's hut is to 
 him final. He cannot look beyond his loss ; 
 and he sees an angry god in the clouds, or 
 hears him in the wind. The man of science 
 greets the storm, and sees a benign providence 
 in atmospheric convulsions ; for, looking be- 
 yond himself into the broad field of result, he 
 discovers that they are not sent to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save them. But the 
 philosopher becomes in his turn untutored : 
 the power in the storm leaves him with 
 the knowledge of a good issue, and holds 
 on its trackless way to distant and unknown 
 regions of effect. We cannot doubt that 
 all things in nature work together for good ; 
 but we cannot by any one event learn in 
 what manner or in what degree that good has 
 been promoted. 
 
 When by any means we can bring power 
 near to us in the form of steam, electricity, or 
 
80 SERMON VI. 
 
 heat, so as to compare it with our own tiny 
 arm, how wonderfully sublime its presence 
 and image ! like its original, fearful in our 
 praises, doing wonders. Stand in the engine- 
 room of a manufactory, and let the wheels and 
 pistons of the great power move, and you col- 
 lect the strength of an army of men. By 
 mastering the conditions upon which some 
 great element can be reproduced and governed, 
 man multiplies his own power indefinitely, as 
 you may see in the marvels of modern ma- 
 chinery. Follow the operations of steam, in 
 agriculture, manufacture and transit; pursue 
 its countless ramifications into the remote ne- 
 cessities of life, and think upon the fact, that 
 we are only beginning to know its capacity 
 and to learn its management. And so of elec- 
 tricity, which we have married to thought, 
 and thus endowed with an intellectual power. 
 Speech travels with light, and distance is for- 
 gotten : man holds daily converse with man 
 over continents, through the depths of seas, 
 and the bowels of the earth. Deliberations, 
 instructions, compacts, messages, and tidings, 
 are flying over the world ; and nations of 
 different skies, languages, and religions, are 
 exchanging counsels with each other with 
 the facility of men consulting in a personal 
 interview. 
 
ALL POWER GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 81 
 
 I mention steam and electricity, because 
 they have become as it were a part of our- 
 selves. They are an incalculable augmentation 
 of power; they have impressed their genius 
 upon war, upon commerce, upon literature, 
 and upon intercourse ; they are beginning to 
 decide the relative eminence of nations ; they 
 are giving their own vast scale to every move- 
 ment; and perhaps they are destined to be 
 the chief of the material instruments that 
 shall hasten the closing revolutions of the 
 world. Mighty as they are in themselves, 
 when they are mated with invention and pas- 
 sion, their power becomes appalling ! Let us 
 follow them as they become the allies of 
 thrones and dominions, the confederates of 
 letters and religion. Let us go from the 
 engine-room of the manufactory into the 
 cabinet of the sovereign, upon whose single 
 will the peace of the world depends ; at whose 
 bidding armies go forth to change the fate of 
 countries, and the condition of millions. Life 
 and death, liberty and slavery, fortune and 
 ruin, appear to the outward eye as the mes- 
 sengers of his court ; as if he could say to 
 one, Go, and to another, Come, and they would 
 obey. No lover of the race can behold power 
 like this, vast in its range and apparently 
 resistless in its course, without uneasiness ; 
 
 G 
 
82 SERMON VI. 
 
 and no disciple of the gospel can think of 
 such a capacity for good or evil without the 
 profoundest concern. 
 
 But there is a power transcending the 
 sway of monarchs. Yisit the great presses 
 of the world, the fountains of knowledge, in- 
 spiration, and action ; and from the head- 
 waters of publication, follow the countless 
 streams of literature as they spread them- 
 selves over and permeate the masses, poison- 
 ing or healing, raising or depressing, soothing 
 or agitating, blessing or cursing, millions of 
 souls. Here is power which has no assign- 
 able limit. It knows neither interruption 
 nor abatement. It governs men through 
 their will and passions, it rules their convic- 
 tions and prejudices, it determines their* path 
 and their end, it is able to kill the soul as 
 well as the body, and to send both into hell ! 
 
 Now all the power represented by the one 
 or two examples we have adduced, is in the 
 hand of Christ; has been so from the time 
 when He uttered the text on the Galilean 
 Mount. He does not share the use of it with 
 man. He is the head and source of it, the 
 depositary and distributor; promoting, re- 
 straining, shaping, and absolutely controlling 
 every species of power which we can con- 
 ceive to exist in commerce, in government, in 
 
ALL POWER GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 83 
 
 literature, in good and in evil. He is master 
 of evil; the guilt of its malignity and un- 
 cleanness He reserves for the head of its 
 inventors and agents ; the power it possesses 
 He appropriates and turns to his own account. 
 He allows no kind of force to escape Him. 
 For the humiliation of those who intend it as 
 a weapon against Himself, He makes it an 
 instrument to promote His own victory. The 
 power of error, the power of scepticism, the 
 power of superstition, the power of iniquity, 
 do not run over the world lawless ; they have, 
 with the energy of everything that has activity, 
 been given unto Jesus. We only see them 
 corrupting, subverting, and destroying : we 
 see the truth struggling against them, with a 
 few followers, limited means, and disadvan- 
 tageous ground. The kings of the earth still 
 set themselves, and the rulers take counsel 
 together; money, talent, wit, and rank, are 
 still against us. Judas is still bartering his 
 Master for silver ; Simon Magus is still offering- 
 silver for ecclesiastical preferment; Ananias 
 and Sapphira are still corrupting their dedi- 
 cation with a lie ; and Demas is about to 
 lose Christ and his soul for the love of the 
 world. Looking at the amount and endless 
 variety of adverse power in the world and in 
 the church, we might well be depressed if 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SEBM0N VI. 
 
 we saw with no other eyes than our own ; 
 but watching with the eyes which God has 
 planted within us, the spiritual sight reverses 
 every testimony of the outward sense. We 
 see all power acting for Christ. We see 
 Him the sovereign of every cabinet, making 
 peace and permitting war : kings may ad- 
 minister, but He reigns ; princes may issue 
 edicts, but He decrees justice : we see His 
 purpose underlying the ambition of the great, 
 the craftiness of the wise, and the resistance 
 of the hostile; we see that all agents and events 
 perform an office for heaven ; every movement 
 among men has a double application ; it has 
 its natural result answering to the experience 
 of men, and at the same time it invisibly 
 ministers to a higher end, executing the be- 
 hests of God. Laying hold of this principle, 
 we can look upon the struggling faith of 
 Christianity with calmness ; we see a friend 
 in every foe, a help in every obstacle, a virtual 
 co-operation in every assault ; for all the power 
 of that which is directed against us, is given 
 to Christ, and He devotes it to the service of 
 His people. 
 
 The same observations will apply to power 
 not perceptible by us, but which affects us as 
 closely as more tangible influences. All power 
 "in heaven" is given unto Me. The powers 
 
ALL POWER* GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 85 
 
 of the invisible world whether they be thrones 
 or dominions, whether they be instruments or 
 occurrences, "these all wait upon him." It 
 must be a source of great comfort and triumph 
 to the people of God to learn that the in- 
 visible world which they know so imperfectly 
 and dread so much, is as absolutely at the feet 
 of their Lord as their own habitation. As 
 an invisible Hand once fashioned and peopled 
 this earth, so invisible hands have been en- 
 gaged upon it ever since. To some of these 
 we must attribute all the sorrow and misery 
 our race has ever known. They have worked 
 us from the beginning nothing but woe ; and 
 they are as busy and as malicious as ever. 
 The power of wicked spirits can be imagined 
 when it is known that they assume deceptive 
 shapes, contrive deceptive circumstances, and 
 whisper deceptive words, with an infinite di- 
 versity of imposture. No wonder that man 
 is led captive by the devil at Ms will. The 
 Prince and Power of the air exercises an ap- 
 parent sway over the largest portions of our 
 race. He is the incarnation of every false 
 religion, the instigator of every wicked design, 
 the author of every evil work ; the first, the 
 mightiest, and the last enemy of man; but 
 Jesus came into the world to destroy his 
 works, to translate souls from his power, and 
 
86 SERMON VI. 
 
 to bring his reign to an end. And this boast- 
 ful King of darkness, this earliest apostate, 
 usurper, and liar, has been compelled to sur- 
 render his realm to Christ : he is giving up 
 his captives, retreating from his strongholds, 
 and his own weapons are turned against 
 himself. 
 
 But if we have enemies in the invisible 
 world, we have friends also. If there are 
 hands that do us wrong, there are hands 
 diligently and lovingly engaged in ministering 
 good to us. If there are spirits who rejoice 
 in iniquity, there are more who rejoice over 
 one sinner that rejjenteth ; an innumerable 
 company of angels, whose friendly legions are 
 consecrated to the service and salvation of our 
 race. All power is thus given unto Jesus, 
 material, intellectual, circumstantial, angelical, 
 infernal ; He has received it for the benefit of 
 His people and for the triumph of His cause. 
 The Father hath given Him to be head over 
 all things to the church which is His body. 
 Daniel saw the august ceremony of the coro- 
 nation, when the Father set His kingly offspring 
 upon the holy hill: "I saw in the night 
 visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man 
 came with the clouds of heaven, and came to 
 the Ancient of days, and they brought him 
 near before him. And there was given him 
 
ALL POWER GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 87 
 
 dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all 
 people, nations, and languages should serve 
 him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion 
 which shall not pass away, and his kingdom 
 that which shall not be destroyed." 
 
 We have here " the glorification of the Son 
 by the Father." All power is given unto Me : 
 " given by the Father in the fulfilment of the 
 eternal covenant, in the Unity of the Holy 
 Spirit."* The Father covenanted to open the 
 kingdom of heaven to the human race upon 
 the completion of the sufferings and sacrifice 
 of the Divine Person who gave Himself to be 
 a ransom for us. In His essential nature as 
 the second person of the ever-blessed Trinity, 
 all power was His from the beginning. But 
 when He undertook to save man, not by pre- 
 rogative, but in accordance with the judicial 
 claims of His government, He assumed a posi- 
 tion in which He was divested, as it were, of 
 His omnipotence, His glory and His sove- 
 reignty ; He became a man, to whom these 
 attributes do not belong ; He had the reputa- 
 tion of guilt, to which nothing belongs but the 
 inheritance of pain and the infamy of execu- 
 tion. He had to win back by labour and expi- 
 ration what we had lost. The cost at which it 
 was possible for us to regain heaven was the 
 
 * Vide Alford's note on the text. 
 
88 SERMON VI. 
 
 loss of His reputation ; for He was numbered 
 amons: transgressors and He bore the sin and 
 shame of many : then followed the enforce- 
 ment of suffering, the shedding of blood, and 
 the awful violence and stroke of death. He 
 had to endure all this ; not as a man for his 
 own sin, suffering the loss of an eye for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth; but as a world's 
 victim. The sins of all ages and all races, the 
 aggregate of the iniquity of all hearts, the 
 crimes of all lives that ever did or ever shall 
 deprave the nature of man were laid upon His 
 soul. He answered for all, bled and expired 
 for all, and the incense of the sacrifice went 
 up, and God smelled a sweet savour, received 
 His anointed back from the dead, and made 
 Him the federal Head of a new race ; placed 
 the second Adam in a second paradise, and 
 began for Him the creation of a new heaven 
 and a new earth. Christ therefore received all 
 power, as the second Father of our race, to 
 bring His sons to glory. Having obtained the 
 kingdom, He was invested with power to take 
 possession of it, to draw all men unto Himself, 
 to separate them from their errors, to pardon 
 and wash them from their sins, to put His own 
 glory upon their nature, and to deliver them 
 absolutely from all their enemies. 
 
 This is the sphere and mission of His 
 
ALL POWER GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 89 
 
 power ; and the gospel is its appointed instru- 
 ment, being the power of God unto salvation 
 unto every one that beiieveth, and the savour 
 of death to every one that opposeth it. • All 
 power is given unto Me to convert the world, 
 Go ye therefore, and make Christians of all 
 nations : lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world. This, brethren, is the 
 authority with which we go forth against the 
 idolatries and the profoundly hostile mind of 
 India ; and this authority is the pledge of our 
 success. We have on our side all power in 
 heaven and in earth. We have felt it in our 
 own conversion; we have seen its displays 
 in our assemblies, bending the strong will, 
 breaking the hard heart, arresting the torrent 
 of passion, expelling a very legion-power of 
 satanic influence, and making the fiercest ad- 
 versary sit at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and 
 in his right mind : we have seen it move on 
 the individual spirit and on the collected mass ; 
 and sinners have fallen before it as grass is 
 levelled by the mower's scythe. Need I revert 
 to the examples that distant churches are wit- 
 nessing of the power of Jesus ? Perhaps in 
 no former revival did the work of God ever 
 assume such an aspect of power. It was pre- 
 ceded by no extraordinary means. No provi- 
 dential catastrophe, no ministerial eloquence, 
 
90 SERMON VI. 
 
 no officious but well-meant contrivances to 
 awaken excitement ; to none of these can be 
 attributed that wonderful religious commotion 
 which is now doing marvels in America and in 
 Ireland. The power as it listeth has crept 
 quietly on ; men have not known whence it 
 cometh or whither it goeth : from congre- 
 gation to congregation, through the most un- 
 likely neighbourhoods, where pride has been 
 haughtiest, where vice has been boldest, where 
 education, manners, and morals have been un- 
 known, — the haunts of scepticism, the dens of 
 crime, the shameful hiding places of poverty 
 and misery, — the power has been passing like 
 the breath of God when it renews the face of 
 the earth. Men at first tried to arrest it; 
 they doubted its origin, they circulated per- 
 verted reports of its operations, they specu- 
 lated upon it in a spirit of philosophic banter, 
 and many predicted the gravest mischiefs to 
 society from its diffusion. But the power of 
 Christ has held on its way, until its results 
 have become too conspicuous for doubt, too 
 serious for trifling, too active for indifference. 
 The accession of multitudes to the church, 
 the striking reduction of crime and social dis- 
 turbance in those localities where the revival 
 had prevailed, the marked diminution of public 
 interest in sinful amusements, and the best 
 
ALL POWER GIVEN UNTO CHRIST. 91 
 
 symptoms of a healthy morality, have changed 
 the public voice, and few will now venture to 
 doubt the finger of God ; men at least observe 
 a respectful silence at what they do not under- 
 stand, and they wait until God shall be His 
 own interpreter. 
 
 Brethren, wdth these personal experiences, 
 and with these facts ever multiplying, can we 
 doubt that this country, too, shall fall before 
 the advancing power of Jesus ? I know the 
 obstacles are mountainous. To change the 
 convictions, the prejudices, and the habits of 
 ages ; to unbind races, that pride, interest, 
 and a false faith, have united and consolidated ; 
 to bring them to the acceptance and open ac- 
 knowledgment of the truth, and to make them 
 bow the knee to Jesus, is not a work suitable 
 to our capacity, and probably transcends the 
 power of angels. We are not sent to attempt 
 a work we cannot perform. He has com- 
 manded us to go and preach His gospel, and 
 beseech men to be reconciled to Him; but 
 when He adds, Lo, I am with you, He gives 
 us the necessary condition of our success; 
 for we do not regard this promise simply as 
 a word of encouragement and good cheer. 
 The presence of Christ is a part of our system. 
 As the fact of His vicarious death is the foun- 
 dation upon which we make the offer of 
 
92 SERMON VI. 
 
 forgiveness to men, so the power of His ac- 
 companying Spirit is the indispensable inspi- 
 ration by which men are induced to accept 
 that offer. Christ does not send ns forth, and 
 promise to help ns in emergencies as if His 
 power were reserved for seasons when our 
 own power fails us. The work is His; the 
 efficiency of all its operations is simply the 
 result of a Divine power. Christ has con- 
 descended to employ -us, and has promised 
 that we shall share in the glory and spoils 
 of victory : but the battle is the Lord's ; His 
 arm drives back the foe, and His banner waves 
 over the surrendered citadel. Without me, 
 said our Leader, ye can do nothing. Of some 
 of our predecessors in this work and conflict, 
 it is said, They went forth and preached every- 
 where, the Lord working with them, and con- 
 firming the word, with signs following. Who 
 then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers 
 by whom others believe, even as the Lord gives 
 to every man. Therefore, my brethren, let us 
 be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in 
 the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know 
 that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 Acts xvi. 30. 
 " What must I do to be saved ? " 
 
 I shall consider this text not as the cry of 
 one startled by the light of truth, but as the 
 question of a thoughtful person in some doubt 
 as to the precise state of mind in which it 
 would be safe to die. We are all drawing 
 near death. Some are probably very near : 
 and I shall take it for granted that all of us 
 believe that the instant we cease to exist on 
 earth we dwell in heaven or in hell. We 
 may not be able vividly to conceive the fact ; 
 but it is nevertheless as true as anything we 
 believe, that were all of us to die this moment, 
 each one would be rejoicing or wailing the 
 next; and our fate, whichever it might be, 
 would not follow from any name we had assu- 
 med, from any rank we had held, from any pro- 
 fession we had made, but from the particular 
 condition of our mind at the moment of death. 
 We have no reason to suppose that any former 
 experience will avail us in our last hour, sup- 
 posing the safe state exist not then. Neither 
 
94 SERMON VII. 
 
 have we ground for thinking that we can be 
 in a state between danger and safety, which 
 God will hasten to the required crisis at the 
 last moment. If God will hasten such a crisis, 
 then is this state safe at any time. We are 
 sure of heaven or sure of hell at any moment; 
 that is, if the Bible be true ; and if it be not 
 true with respect to this doctrine, how can we 
 accept any of its revelations ? If then we are 
 not conscious of preparation for heaven, our 
 eternal state rests upon a perhaps ; and a per- 
 haps so doubtful, that in worldly matters we 
 should hesitate to entrust to it the value of a 
 shilling ! To commit to a mere peradventure 
 the issue of an eternal condition is madness : 
 it is not so called because the world cannot see 
 the egregious delusion implied in the risk. 
 
 But now let us enquire, in the fear of God 
 and with profound reverence for truth, what 
 is that state in which it is just safe to die ? 
 To be just safe is to be saved, using this 
 word in its lowest sense ; for gospel salvation 
 comprehends with merely negative deliverance 
 from hell, all the glorious experiences and 
 capacities of the heavenly state. What shall 
 I do to be just safe from the punishment of 
 the wicked when I die ? Consider Paul's 
 reply, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved. Consider also another 
 
THE SAFE STATE. 95 
 
 passage which affirms that unless a man thus 
 believe he shall not be saved, He that be- 
 Ueveth not the Son shall not see life, but the 
 wrath of God abideth on him. Whatever 
 believing on Christ means, you must allow 
 that unless our mind be in this state of 
 believing we are not, I will not say justified 
 and made holy, but safe. Take another 
 verse, some of our Saviour's last words, He 
 that believeth not shall be damned. We may 
 differ on the nature of believing, on degrees 
 of believing, on the results of believing, 
 whether they are remote or immediate ; but 
 if we accept the plainest declarations of 
 scripture, we shall not question the absolute 
 necessity of faith in Christ in order to be just 
 safe. 
 
 But we can make our ground narrower 
 still, without meeting a single objection or 
 explaining any theological term. Believing 
 in Christ must express more than the hearing 
 about Christ; to listen to a sermon on the 
 Lord Jesus, to be familiar with the facts of 
 the gospel narrative, to understand generally 
 the nature of the Christian sacraments, may 
 really mean no more than the listless reception 
 of indifferent truth. I need not spend a mo- 
 ment to convince you that to be thus a hearer 
 of the word, and to receive historical informa- 
 
96 SERMON VII. 
 
 tion about the Saviour, do not necessarily 
 include believing on Him; and even though 
 this knowledge remain with you for many 
 years, and be expanded and refreshed from 
 time to time by stated church-services, it does 
 not therefore become mixed with faith. If 
 any one of us were to die having gone no 
 further than this, he would inevitably be 
 damned : I say inevitably, because He who is 
 the truth has clearly and repeatedly affirmed 
 it. What that dread word means I know 
 not ; but to imagine it to be a light word, or 
 a politic word inserted to frighten us — to sup- 
 pose it to be any other than a word of terrible 
 import, would be a levity which the most care- 
 less would hesitate to indulge. And yet if 
 one of you were near death, and I knew that 
 the amount of his preparation for eternity did 
 not exceed the knowledge above described; 
 in short, that he did not believe in Christ, 
 and I were to see him die in that state, I 
 could not so brave the restraints of courtesy 
 as to declare that that soul was lost. I should 
 be marked as a man without charity, without 
 common Christian feeling : nay, I should not 
 myself quickly believe that he who had so 
 departed was in misery. My doctrine would 
 avow it : but my ignorant and too sensuous 
 nature would hope against it; while the ha- 
 
THE SAFE STATE. 97 
 
 bitual opinions of society, and the Christian 
 ritual of interment, would deny it. These and 
 other circumstances unite to disarm the fear 
 of hell. Nevertheless, while we are trying to 
 persuade ourselves that, in one of those tre- 
 mendous last moments, God snatched that 
 soul from the burning, it is, without doubt, 
 perishing in the fire that will never be 
 quenched; for he that believeth not shall be 
 damned. Christian courtesy deals cruelly 
 with souls, when it makes the punishment 
 of the wicked a myth — the idle legend of a 
 credulous age ! 
 
 Hitherto we have asserted what no believer 
 in the Bible can safely contradict. Let us yet 
 narrow the ground a little : we have shewn 
 that the hearing of Christ and the knowledge 
 we may gather from sermons and books do 
 not necessarily imply faith ; a man may expe- 
 rience them without believing. It is, I think, 
 also clear that to have faith in Christ means 
 much more than to think favourably of Him. 
 You would hardly substitute, He that ad- 
 mireth, for, He that believeth. If you study 
 the events of Christ's life, you must admire. 
 If innocence and humanity, self-sacrificing 
 devotion to the happiness of others, and the 
 largest and most fruitful philanthropy, can 
 command reverence, it is impossible to read 
 
 H 
 
98 SEBMON VII. 
 
 tlie gospels and not adore. It is also difficult 
 for an intelligent person to look at the Chris- 
 tian church — to examine her aims, to compute 
 her results upon the world, the impressive 
 helps and sanctions she lends to truth and 
 goodness, and the restraints she imposes upon 
 the ungodly, without the deepest admiration. 
 Here is applause for Christ and for the church; 
 but will a man dying in this state of mind be 
 safe ? He approves of Christianity, he praises 
 Christian institutions ; he knows the more 
 popular doctrines of religion, highly com- 
 mends the language in which they are stated, 
 and the grand ideas they display ; and, in the 
 sense of having no objection to any of them, 
 he admits them all. This is going a con- 
 siderable way, even to positive approbation. 
 A person so impressed would be attracted to 
 religious assemblies ; the habit of attending 
 them would insensibly grow into a sort of iden- 
 tity with those who had really believed ; and, 
 without closely examining his mind, he might 
 suppose that this mental, this tasteful accept- 
 ance of Christianity is the same in kind with 
 that personal belief in Christ which we insist on 
 as the sole condition of safety. He would hence 
 regard himself as one of the lowest class of 
 believers, and presume that, if he continued 
 his attentions to religion, attentions gradu- 
 
THE SAFE STATE. 99 
 
 ally advancing him to a fellowship with the 
 church, a pitiful and long-suffering God would 
 not, in the last moment, quench the smoking 
 flax. That which would assist this inference 
 into a kind of hope would be the fact that the 
 language in which he expressed his opinions 
 would much resemble the style in which true 
 believers recite their experience ; confession 
 of sin, the conflicts of unbelief, the assaults of 
 temptation, anxious doubts of forgiveness, and 
 similar marks and descriptions of the new life, 
 would seem to accord with his state in com- 
 mon with that of the safe Christian,, 
 
 But in all this we have seen no belief in 
 Christ at all. To say nothing of degrees of 
 faith and assurance, faith has not begun ! 
 This is no mere notion, but' a fact which all 
 who credit the scriptures must admit. A 
 man may go to the length of hearing about 
 Christ, approving of Christian doctrine, min- 
 gling with Christian believers, speaking a 
 Christian language, and supporting a Chris- 
 tian cause, without attaining the lowest de- 
 gree of safety : if a man go no further, and 
 die within the limit of these associations, die 
 though he may in the bosom of the visible 
 church, esteemed by the minister, beloved by 
 God's people, and admired by all for his con- 
 sistency and sincerity, he will, in spite of all, 
 
 h2 
 
100 SERMON VII. 
 
 be cast into outer darkness, where there is 
 weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
 He may be a preacher of the gospel, or a 
 member of a Christian family : no position 
 will save him. You may have a difficulty in 
 realizing this ; there may be a social impro- 
 priety in your speaking on this issue with 
 confidence of any particular individual; but 
 oh ! doubt it not ! for the safety of your im- 
 mortal souls, doubt it not ! How many at this 
 moment are lifting up their eyes in personal 
 torment, whose remains we interred under 
 the formula of "a sure and certain hope!" 
 We think of them without disturbance, be- 
 cause memory parted with them at the grave's 
 mouth. It is unnatural to entertain hard 
 thoughts of the dead ; but let the living fear. 
 Let us be severe and exact to ourselves, if 
 we are charitable to others. It is a harrowing 
 meditation, to imagine that some of those 
 whom we once esteemed or loved for their 
 wisdom, affection, and integrity, should now 
 be writhing under the anguish of the curse of 
 God ! There are some who will whisper, 
 " This is a hard saying, who can hear it ?" 
 Be not hasty to take offence, before you have 
 seen the ground upon which the doctrine 
 rests. 
 
 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
 
THE SAFE STATE. 101 
 
 shalt be saved. This is uniformly stated to 
 be the ground of salvation. It is asserted in 
 various ways, but the principal term is the 
 same. I need not remind you that the reason 
 why Jesus is set forth as the object of our 
 belief or trust, is the fact of His having died 
 for our sins. When He expired on the cross 
 He became a propitiation. We sometimes 
 call this an appeasing of the Father, or a 
 reconciling to Him; the meaning is, that 
 Christ averted or turned aside the penalty to 
 which sin had made us liable, by Himself suf- 
 fering it. Now from whom is that punish- 
 ment turned aside ? From those " who have 
 faith in his blood." In other words, that man 
 is safe who believes that in suffering death, 
 Jesus was his effectual substitute, annulling 
 the requirement of his own death. Does not 
 this plan commend itself to your sense of 
 what is becoming and just ? Is it unfair that 
 God should restrict salvation to those who 
 accept the Saviour ? But you will ask, — Did 
 not the individual whom you just now left 
 without hope so accept the Saviour when he 
 admired Him, approved His doctrines, and 
 joined His people ? Not so : for if sin be 
 personal, that is, if each be accountable for 
 his own sins, the belief that gives us a claim 
 to the propitiation must be personal too. If 
 
102 SEEMON VII. 
 
 every one of us must render an account of 
 himself to God, it follows that the death of 
 Christ has not procured an amnesty or general 
 pardon for all the guilty; but for those only 
 who accept that death as an atonement. Now, 
 it is not possible for you to perform this act 
 of faith without making the death of Jesus an 
 object of particular attention. There must be 
 a strong feeling of its necessity; a motive to 
 urge the mind to cleave to it as a refuge. 
 There must be a coming out from cloudy ge- 
 neralities, as, that the character of Christ is 
 lovely, that Christ died for sinners, that the 
 Christian cause is worth supporting, and that 
 everything in the Bible is true. Two facts 
 must hold the attention : first — I am a sinner 
 deserving everlasting misery, in myself with- 
 out help and without hope; if I die in this 
 state I shall be lost. Secondly — deliverance 
 is offered me; Jesus the Son of God died in 
 my stead : it is affirmed that if I accept Him 
 as an atonement, I shall be saved. Here is a 
 hiding-place for me; is it worthy my trust? 
 Does it appear equal to the security it engages 
 to provide? Is there no other way? If, 
 giving anxious and exclusive attention to 
 Christ, I am led to receive Him as my Saviour, 
 the sacrifice once offered for my sins, then, 
 and not until then, I am safe. 
 
THE SAFE STATE. 103 
 
 If in this discussion I avoid the prescribed 
 phrases of theology, it is to separate from the 
 things they signify the occasionally distract- 
 ing influence of words of technical usage. 
 ~Now, if you are conscious of having thus 
 closed with the gospel offer, of having ac- 
 cepted Jesus for yourself, you may be safe : if 
 you have not thus received Him, then, dying 
 in this state, I will not say the risk, but the 
 certainty of damnation is upon you. I will 
 not ask whether you are conscious of pardon, 
 whether you have the witness of the Spirit, 
 what degree of assurance you have. I will 
 not perplex your examination of this one act 
 of recumbency upon Jesus, by insisting now 
 upon this or that result ; but I inquire, in the 
 fear of God, of every one present, whether in 
 any period of his life that transaction of 
 belief, for his own salvation, in the atoning 
 death of Jesus was ever effected ? I insist 
 not upon accuracy of moment or of place in 
 stating the change, but the act is so im- 
 portant, and is attended in its various efforts 
 by so much anxiety and excitement, that every 
 one who has made it must be conscious that he 
 has made it. This receiving of Christ procures 
 for us the lowest degree of safety : and those 
 who do not believe that this distinct experience 
 was ever their own, are now on the margin of 
 
104 SERMON VII. 
 
 everlasting death. I feel a reluctance in ad- 
 mitting so much, but plain duty bids me declare 
 that such persons may at any time awake in 
 the unquenchable fire. God is no respecter of 
 persons, situations, or gifts : He is not swayed 
 by that local charity, pity, and respect, which 
 bribe our judgment, and which, in religious 
 opinion, are as erroneous as they are amiable. 
 He speaks and acts from the centre of uni- 
 versal harmony : He has exhibited a propiti- 
 ation for sin, and decreed that it shall benefit 
 those only who personally and wholly accept it. 
 My dear hearers, I have delivered what I 
 sincerely believe to be the truth, and I will 
 not apologize for using great plainness of 
 speech. I only wish I could have spoken with 
 the force and earnestness which such a subject 
 ought to inspire. May God impress it upon 
 your hearts ! especially upon the consciences 
 of those who have done everything for Chris- 
 tianity but believe in Christ; who have re- 
 ceived everything from Christianity but a new 
 heart ; who are in the melancholy condition of 
 lacking nothing but the one thing needful ! 
 May His Spirit subdue prejudice, awaken 
 apathy, dispel error, and shed a light upon 
 the danger of those who are not prepared to 
 die, that shall compel them to cry out, " What 
 must I do to be saved ? " 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 13. 
 
 " If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful : he cannot 
 deny himself" 
 
 These words may be understood as relating to 
 something which God has propounded to man, 
 or to something which He has appointed for 
 man. They imply the possibility of God's 
 revelation being discredited, or His decrees 
 resisted, and affirm that no conduct of ours, 
 under any circumstance, can affect His con- 
 stancy. He has revealed His gospel for our 
 acceptance and salvation; He has decreed 
 certain providential arrangements for our con- 
 currence and benefit : if we assent to His 
 proposals, we must take them as they are ; 
 for the terms upon which they have been 
 made are unalterable. If we believe not, yet 
 He abideth faithful There are three classes 
 of persons to whom this passage may be 
 applied. 
 
 1. The sceptic, or he who believes not for 
 want of evidence. The lesson conveyed to 
 him is this, God has not provided against 
 
106 SERMON VIII. 
 
 every doubt. He lias not revealed His will 
 so clearly as to compel conviction. Belief is 
 invited, and even courted; and when ren- 
 dered is vindicated and rewarded : but it is 
 not made necessary by a constitutional bias 
 for religion, or by evidence which it would be 
 absurd to question. And yet this is a kind 
 of testimony which many inquirers demand of 
 the Christian religion. They object that so 
 grave a subject as a revelation from God, a 
 revelation which proposes to lead the soul out 
 of darkness and prepare it for immortality, 
 should admit of suspicion ; they maintain 
 that it ought to be impossible for any mind, 
 however sceptically disposed, to doubt princi- 
 ples, on the admission or rejection of which 
 depend such vast results as eternal happiness 
 and eternal woe. They add, moreover, with 
 much apparent reason, that men's suscepti- 
 bilities of belief are as diverse as their physical 
 varieties. Some assent at once to what is 
 simply announced ; they ask for no chain of 
 evidence, for they have neither the power nor 
 the patience to follow you through separate 
 links of reasoning. Others have minds quick 
 to perceive difficulties and apt to suggest 
 them ; they have been in the habit of grappling 
 with hard questions, and use has made their 
 powers keen in argument and expert in debate. 
 
HE CANNOT DENY HIMSELF. 107 
 
 Many have been unfortunate in their educa- 
 tion. They imbibed sceptical notions before 
 they understood thern ; were taught from their 
 youth to discredit the New Testament ; and 
 they find it impossible to believe. Now, say 
 our objectors, the Christian religion ought to 
 prove itself divine with equal force to every 
 class of understanding. 
 
 Assuming that God is the author of Chris- 
 tianity, is it likely either that the revelation 
 itself, or the terms upon which its benefits are 
 offered, or the manner of making it known, 
 would so agree with our notions as to pre- 
 clude objection ? Unquestionably not : for 
 nature herself has not escaped criticism, and 
 even providence has been arraigned to answer 
 for measures which man's ignorance has pro- 
 nounced erring or unjust. Hence it cannot 
 be supposed that religion, to which men's 
 prejudices are peculiarly hostile, should be 
 accepted without scruple. But did we ever 
 know or hear of a sincere inquirer into the evi- 
 dences of the Christian faith driven back in 
 hopeless scepticism ? Sceptics there are ; 
 some of them are apparently settling into 
 atheism, others are reposing in deism, and 
 many are wandering restless through the 
 chaos of speculation. But these unhappy 
 persons are not the victims of a doubtful 
 
108 SEEMON VIII. 
 
 religion; they stumble over no immoveable 
 obstacles : they simply disdain the terms on 
 which the seeker is promised success. And 
 those terms are not dissimilar to the con- 
 ditions exacted by nearly every province of 
 knowledge. They are honesty, humility, and 
 earnestness. Is it too much that God should 
 expect men to be candid, modest, and anxious, 
 in their search after truth and immortality? 
 The Bible has an argument for every man. 
 God who knows what is in man has deemed it 
 sufficient for conviction. The learned require 
 one kind of proof, the ignorant need another ; 
 and the infinite variety of mind in the human 
 family arising from epoch, race, and educa- 
 tion, must be met by a corresponding versa- 
 tility of treatment. This diversity of proof 
 has been furnished, and so triumphantly does 
 it defend Christianity, that of the thousands 
 who believe not, there are few, very few, who 
 even profess to reject it because its demon- 
 strations are not conclusive. 
 
 God has revealed His will for the faith of 
 man : He has supported it by appropriate and 
 ample evidence ; by prophecy, by miracles, 
 and by that inward consciousness which, if 
 honestly questioned, answers to and corro- 
 borates all testimony. He has overlooked no 
 possible circumstance in which man can be 
 
HE CANNOT DENT HIMSELF. 109 
 
 placed. All His requirements are within the 
 ability of the human mind ; and hence with 
 perfect justice He has affixed the heaviest 
 penalties to scepticism, — " He that believeth 
 not shall be damned." To that word God 
 will be faithful ; it is a law as uniform in its 
 operations as the order of the universe. Were 
 any exception made, or any clause introduced 
 to qualify the edict, God would deny Himself. 
 You may imagine that in your case, at least, 
 the rule may be relaxed, and that pity will be 
 shown to an unbelief so helpless as yours ; but 
 this would be as foolish as to suppose that 
 nature would reverse her laws to save that man 
 from destruction who, without intending it, 
 should fall over a precipice. In both instances 
 man might find an excuse, but God's law would 
 be inexorable. In both instances, He abideth 
 faithful; He cannot deny Himself 
 
 2. The careless unbeliever. We have here 
 to do with a state of mind nearly opposite to 
 scepticism. At first sight the doctrine that 
 God will concede nothing to wilful neglect 
 seems too obvious for exposition. But if we 
 connect it with human nature, we shall see 
 that while men assent readily to a broad prin- 
 ciple of morality, each person is disposed to 
 shun its application to himself. A man will 
 denounce lying, yet justify an equivocation of 
 
110 SERMON VIII. 
 
 his own ; another will condemn gambling ; 
 but being a man of principle, will excuse an 
 occasional game of chance for his own recrea- 
 tion. Every vice w r ill thus find its apologist ; 
 especially those that lie in the more fascina- 
 ting walks of sin, or such as appear to befriend 
 a particular interest or passion. This dis- 
 position to evade the truth is very apparent 
 when we are summoned to hear a message 
 from God. When we tell you that God com- 
 mands you to repent and believe in His Son, 
 you answer that nothing can be more reason- 
 able ; when we add that unless you believe, 
 you will be lost, you rejoin that nothing can 
 be more just ; when we insist that the word 
 of the eternal is unchangeable, that He has 
 said with regard to threatenings and promises, 
 " I the Lord change not," you acknowledge 
 that nothing can be more true ; and yet, while 
 you quickly accept these declarations, each 
 person holds back from the duty they involve. 
 Every one imagines that in Ms case the pre- 
 cept is not urgent, the threatening does not 
 apply; there is something he has done, or that 
 he intends to do, or that it is impossible he 
 should do, that disarms the truth of its force 
 when applied to himself. Perhaps one endea- 
 vours to believe that there never was a case 
 exactly parallel with his own, in which a reli- 
 
HE CANNOT DENY HIMSELF. Ill 
 
 gious life lias met with difficulties absolutely 
 insuperable. On tliis presumption be builds 
 a bope that our heavenly and all-loving Father 
 has left a margin in His gracious plan to meet 
 cases that fall out of the ordinary course of 
 life. Perhaps another defers his duty ; he 
 promises to consider these things more seri- 
 ously hereafter, and to obtain the Redeemer's 
 salvation before he dies ; assuming that no 
 delay is so excusable as his, and no promise 
 more sincerely made or more likely to be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 We may comprehend within this section 
 of unbelievers a very large number who 
 cannot be said to hold any opinion on re- 
 ligion ; they are satisfied with a general know- 
 ledge of the Bible and church ; but they 
 avoid details, and consider it both discreet 
 and meritorious to belong to that class who 
 profess nothing. Thus they save themselves 
 from the common sins of insincerity and 
 hypocrisy; they are neutral, but not false. 
 Multitudes of respectable people agree with 
 them, and they hope it will be well with all 
 such at last. 
 
 From these instances of self- defence 
 against the application of God's truth, it 
 is clear that while nothing is easier to be 
 proved, nothing is harder to enforce than 
 
112 SERMON VIII. 
 
 the proposition that God will accommodate 
 no law to meet what we may choose to 
 call exceptional circumstances. The cha- 
 racter of the Almighty forbids us to imagine 
 that He will yield to the apologies of the 
 sinner. He does not act from fugitive 
 impressions, but from the dictates of His 
 understanding; an understanding that en- 
 compasses all knowledge — a knowledge of 
 possible things, and of real things. This 
 omniscience is the rule of that providence 
 which God exercises over the works of His 
 hand. He who created the universe and pre- 
 serves it, must necessarily and perfectly un- 
 derstand it; as the moral governor of the 
 world and the dispenser of rewards and 
 punishments, He must know the moral cha- 
 racter of His subjects. With this knowledge 
 He framed the gospel. He had the human 
 race before Him, its divisions, its varieties, its 
 successive generations, its unfolding capa- 
 bilities, its possible vicissitudes ; no phase of 
 character, single or collective, escaped Him. 
 Of the countless millions that passed under 
 this omniscient survey, not one individual 
 was lost. You were there, and I, and as we 
 stood before His future-piercing eye, with 
 our peculiarities, our difficulties, and our apo- 
 logies, He wrote down with the deliberation 
 
HE CANNOT DENY HIMSELF. 113 
 
 of eternity, " He that believeth not shall be 
 damned." 
 
 Can I, a poor worm among the millions 
 for whom He then legislated, imagine that 
 that eternal law can be reversed for me ? 
 That the mind that planned and jDresides over 
 all things will bend its mighty decrees to con- 
 ciliate me ? That He will consult my fanciful 
 and unmeaning wishes, and forget the honor 
 of his truth ? That though He has said from 
 eternity, if I believe not in His Son I shall 
 be lost, I shall not be lost even though I do 
 not believe ? That in the government of 
 nature, of providence, and of grace, He will 
 abide faithful to His word, except when that 
 word applies to me ? That for my sake He 
 will vacillate, and equivocate, and deny Him- 
 self? I will not say that the supposition is 
 irrational, — though if it belonged to ordinary 
 questions we might dismiss it with a more 
 contemptuous epithet ; but it is a signal in- 
 stance of the deluding power of the heart 
 which, deceitful above all things, ensnares the 
 most wary and vigilant. Reason, experience, 
 conscience, all become the victims of its ma- 
 gical duplicity. That a man, who, in other 
 respects, is discreet and of a sound judgment, 
 cautious in his ventures and reasonable in his 
 expectations, should, in regard to the salva- 
 
 T 
 
114 SERMON VIII. 
 
 tion of his soul, be cheated by an obvious 
 and silly imposition, an imposition which 
 cannot hide itself from the dullest sense ! 
 brethren, give as much reflection to this 
 matter as you bestow upon your worldly 
 affairs, and you will see that it is as impossible 
 for you who have not forsaken sin and ac- 
 cepted Christ, to go to heaven, as it is for God 
 to lie. Nor is this an arbitrary decree. The 
 law which sends an unbeliever to hell is not 
 at variance with the law which admits the 
 believer to heaven. It is the law of affinities. 
 We contain within ourselves our hereafter, 
 and take our eternal state with us. He who 
 has lived without God in this world, lives on 
 without God in the next. Were God to admit' 
 the unbeliever to heaven there could be no 
 heaven there for him. I appeal to you who 
 are not reconciled to the Father, — who never 
 draw near to the throne of grace, who have 
 no relish for spiritual conversation, who pre- 
 fer worldly people, worldly topics, worldly 
 books, and worldly maxims, to the society 
 and manners of the godly, — I appeal to you 
 whether if God were to open for you the king- 
 dom of heaven, you would find there a society 
 and an employment congenial to your taste ? 
 You would be a stranger in a strange land ! 
 Your sins unpardoned, the remembrance of 
 
HE CANNOT DENY HIMSELF. 115 
 
 having doubted the word of God, and re- 
 jected Christ, and quenched the Spirit, would 
 inflict the sharpest anguish of hell ! In the 
 midst of heaven's beatitudes, of songs in 
 which you could not join, employments 
 with which you could not sympathize, re- 
 velations which you could not appreciate, 
 pleasures which you could not taste, a 
 God whom you could not call Father, a 
 Christ whom you could not call Brother, 
 and angels and saints whom you could 
 not call companions, under the very shadow 
 of the tree of life, you would be a lost soul, 
 uttering the woe of an inseparable doom, 
 
 Me miserable ! Which way shall I fly, 
 Infinite wrath, and infinite despair ? 
 Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell ! 
 
 3. The Christian. In applying the text to 
 the people of God, the words will refer to the 
 terms of a covenant, rather than to the con- 
 ditions of belief. We have believed: faith 
 has brought us into fellowship with Christ, 
 a fellowship maintained by the fulfilment 
 of promises on both sides. Both have en- 
 gaged to be faithful; but whatever becomes 
 of our troth, Christ will never deny His. " If 
 we believe not, He abideth faithful." The 
 words that go before the text convey a very 
 
 i 2 
 
116 SEEMON VIII. 
 
 impressive warning. " If we deny him, He 
 also will deny us." But while they foretell an 
 awful doom for the apostate, they give good 
 cheer to timid and self- distrusting disciples, 
 assuring them that those involuntary moods 
 of feeling in themselves, the depressing in- 
 firmities of piety, to which we often ascribe 
 the importance of more serious changes, 
 affect not the stedfastness of the Divine 
 love. If we tremble in the presence of an 
 adversary, or at the prospect of suffering, 
 if at any time we allow our hope and fear 
 to change with the shifting colors of the 
 outer world, by which we are so often made 
 to rejoice or sorrow at the wrong season, 
 Christ abideth the unchangeable Lord, ru- 
 ling the vicissitudes that alarm or gladden 
 us, and promoting the consummation we 
 long for by the obstacles that discourage 
 us, and by the enemies we fear. Let us 
 remember, moreover, that these miserable 
 weaknesses of faith, so unworthy the love we 
 profess, and so base when contrasted with the 
 unalterable fidelity of Jesus, awaken in Him 
 no displeasure ; they touch the pity of His 
 heart — not simply the pity of the strong for 
 the weak, which has often a species of deri- 
 sion underlying it, but the nearer sympathy of 
 One who is in a certain sense answerable for 
 
HE CANNOT DENY HIMSELF. 117 
 
 what He pities; the profoundly respectful 
 tenderness of the first-bokn for His brethren. 
 Let us cleave to our Brother in love and in 
 trust, and find a Sabbath for our restless 
 spirits in the cleft of a Rock that is higher 
 than we. 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 Hebeews vii. 25. 
 
 " Wherefore He is able also to save ihem to the utter- 
 most that come unto God by Him, seeing He 
 ever liveth to make intercession for them." 
 
 This verse was written to encourage the peni- 
 tent sinner, to revive the faith of the doubtful, 
 and the courage of the timid. I pray that the 
 Holy Spirit may open its meaning to our 
 hearts, that each one of us may be moved 
 to accept it for himself ! 
 
 The text gives us an account of a priest ; 
 of one by whose assistance we approach our 
 holy Creator, and who ever liveth to speak for 
 us before God. A priest is a sacrificer — one 
 who kills a victim. The custom of shedding 
 the blood of animals in connection with the 
 worship of God began, as you are aware, in 
 the earliest ages of the world : priesthood 
 began with it. Some one was appointed to 
 take the life of the animal selected for sacri- 
 fice, to present its blood to God, and to offer 
 for himself and fellow-worshippers an inter- 
 cessory prayer. This man was called the 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST. 119 
 
 sacrifice!*, or priest. You are aware that in 
 patriarchal days, the days that went before 
 the founding of the Jewish nation, there were 
 no religious institutions, no temples, no united 
 congregations ; but every pious family was a 
 little church, and the father of the household 
 was the priest. In the morning and evening 
 he called together his wife, children, ser- 
 vants, and any stranger or neighbour who 
 happened to be within his gates ; and before 
 them all he slew the victim or presented the 
 fruits, and prayed for them all, not forgeting 
 the absent. We learn so much from the his- 
 tory of Noah, Abraham, and Job. We may 
 suppose that the family and domestics of these 
 holy fathers were no less the objects of their 
 solicitude, than the flocks and herds that com- 
 posed their wealth. The patriarchal rule was 
 both wise and necessary ; for the first families 
 of men were, as you might suppose, extremely 
 rude : there were no books, and no employ- 
 ments beyond the simple cares and the unim- 
 portant enterprizes of a shepherd's life : while, 
 on the other hand, the wickedness of these 
 ancient tribes was quite equal to their oppor- 
 tunities. The children and servants of a 
 house received their moral lessons from the 
 father and master, and they laid their religious 
 anxieties upon him : he confessed their sins, 
 
120 SERMON IX. 
 
 made atonement for them, and committed 
 them at all seasons into the hands of God ; he 
 was their ambassador to God, their interces- 
 sor, their mediator. I need scarcely remind 
 you that this state of things was changed 
 when Abraham's family became a nation. 
 Then the priesthood, instead of being repre- 
 sented in every house, was vested in one 
 tribe, and consisted of several orders, such as 
 the high-priest, priests, and Levites : but 
 priesthood, whatever shape it assumes — whe- 
 ther Patriarchal, Levitical, or Christian, is the 
 indispensable law of our intercourse with God. 
 There must be a sacrifice and the shedding of 
 blood ; there must be a person approved and 
 called of God to offer that atonement, and to 
 procure the acceptance of our devotions and 
 religious service. There may be a change in 
 the priesthood, but priesthood itself must con- 
 tinue while God retains His holiness and man 
 his sin. There must be sacrifice to the end 
 of the world, and the interposition of a third 
 party to stand for us in the presence of God. 
 In the text the writer of this epistle speaks 
 of the priest whom God has ordained for us. 
 As the old shepherd-priests were supplanted 
 by the Levitical ministers, so these in their 
 turn were put aside for another order of 
 priesthood, resembling in its simplicity and in 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST. 121 
 
 its freedom from ritual encumbrance, the old 
 form of Abraham and Melchisedec. This is 
 the unchangeable priesthood of Jesus Christ, 
 fore-ordained in the beginning, and of which 
 the earlier forms were types, preliminary insti- 
 tutions, that had no significancy or benedictory 
 virtue, but in so far as they pointed to the last 
 and greater order. When Abraham slew his 
 victim, it was the priesthood of Christ that 
 made that victim acceptable; when Aaron 
 entered the tabernacle made with hands, and 
 sprinkled blood upon the holiest, his memorial 
 went up before God a sweet savour, because 
 his faith discerned the " greater and more 
 perfect tabernacle, not of this building," and 
 rested upon the Lamb that was slain from the 
 foundation of the world. The priesthood of 
 Christ does not so much supplant other orders, 
 as it fulfils them. Now one of the most im- 
 portant subjects which a religious man can 
 inquire into is the priesthood under which he 
 lives. And this is the topic before us. We 
 are not going to discuss an order of things 
 that has passed away, nor are we going to ex- 
 patiate on the merits of any party hierarchy 
 of the present time ; but we shall endeavour 
 to set before you your own priest, to recall the 
 service He has done for you, and the infinite 
 benefits you derive, or may derive, from His 
 
122 SEEMON IX. 
 
 office. Let us comprise these considerations 
 within the two statements of the text, " He 
 ever liveth to make intercession for us," and, 
 by the prerogative of this office, " He is able to 
 save to the uttermost all that come unto Grod 
 by Him." 
 
 " He ever liveth to make intercession for 
 us." He ever liveth to go between the Father 
 and us, to speak, to mediate, between Grod 
 and man. The high priest's office on the 
 great day of expiation will give us a vivid im- 
 pression of the gracious work of Christ. 
 Imagine the people of Israel assembled on 
 that day as near the tabernacle as they dared 
 to approach. They are come to confess a 
 long list of crimes and to entreat for mercy. 
 One of themselves is appointed to plead for 
 them. His first act in this work of interces- 
 sion is to kill, — to take life : " the blood of 
 bulls and of goats" flows copiously; and col- 
 lecting what he has shed into a vessel, the 
 holy man lifts the veil, passes with the blood 
 into the most holy place, and advancing with 
 trembling steps to the mercy-seat, he stands 
 in the glorious presence of Jehovah. Here he 
 represents two things, life forfeited, and life 
 taken, the sinner and the victim. Wilt Thou 
 accept this, for this ? life taken for life for- 
 feited ? And the answer is flashed forth from 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST. 123 
 
 between the cherubim in rays of mercy, light* 
 ino- up the face of the holy man, who returns 
 to his condemned brethren outside, to an- 
 nounce that the blood has prevailed and that 
 the sinner may go free ! So Christ, our High 
 Priest, offered Himself without spot ; submit- 
 ted to be bound and slain as an unblemished 
 lamb reared for the altar ; and having poured 
 out His blood, He has, as it were, taken it 
 into the holy of holies, into the presence of 
 God ; and there He stands interceding for us 
 whom He has left outside, guilty, trembling in 
 the prospect of wrath to come, but awaiting 
 the result of His prayer. "Father! justly 
 art Thou angry with those who have resisted 
 Thy authority, taken arms against Thee, and 
 insulted Thy holiness by a depraved life. 
 Their least crime merits the doom of banish- 
 ment from Thy presence : they have nothing 
 to say in extenuation of their sin, they have 
 nothing to offer as the price of their redemp- 
 tion, they have nothing to promise as an 
 amendment of their condition. Thy law has 
 condemned them to die ; they confess the 
 sentence just, and abide the stroke of Thy 
 vengeance. Father ! I loved them, and went 
 down amongst them; and became poor, and 
 suffering, and miserable, and naked, for their 
 sake ; and when I saw Thy sword pursuing 
 
124 SERMON IX. 
 
 tliem, I cried, sword, awake against Me, the 
 Lord's shepherd, against the man that is the 
 Lord's fellow : smite the shepherd, and let 
 the sheep escape ! And the sword turned and 
 went through Me; it entered My heart, and 
 behold here is the blood which it drew, and 
 here are the wounds which it made : I bring 
 them ; I bring all in the stead of the sinner ; 
 place them against the liabilities of the sinner ; 
 My agony and bloody sweat, My cross and 
 passion, My death, resurrection, and ascen- 
 sion; take them all, and give Me back the 
 pardon of the sinner ! " 
 
 " The Father hears Him pray, 
 His dear anointed one ; 
 He cannot turn away 
 
 The presence of His Son. 
 His Spirit answers to the blood, 
 And man is reconciled to God." 
 
 Christ is thus in the presence of God for 
 us, an appeasing victim, and a supplicating 
 priest ; the victim accepted, and the priest 
 heard. It is not that Christ exhibits His 
 atonement to the Father at stated times : He 
 is ever before God. His own people will al- 
 ways find Him there, faithfully and affection- 
 ately conducting their cause ; leaving nothing 
 undone, nothing unsaid, nothing forgotten, 
 which can in any way help their intercourse 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST. 125 
 
 with God and their journey to glory. The 
 penitent will always find Him there, anxious 
 to promote a meeting between grace and guilt ; 
 helping the first efforts of repentance, direct- 
 ing the earnest yet distrustful prayer of the 
 contrite spirit, and procuring and sending 
 home to the disconsolate breast the message 
 of pardon. The tried spirit will always find 
 Him there, no stranger to trial Himself; and 
 whatever be the temptation that presses ; of 
 the numberless and various evils that make 
 this life a battle, whichever happens to imperil 
 or hurt, He understands it, has Himself en- 
 countered it, and strengthens to bear, or lifts 
 the burden upon His own shoulders; doing 
 all this with a tenderness so mindful, with 
 a love so new and rich in its unfoldings, that 
 some of the very happiest hours of a Chris- 
 tian's life are the hours of affliction : but 
 whatever be their texture, the good man per- 
 ceives that his sufferings unite to improve his 
 temper, establish his faith, correct his mis- 
 takes, purify his desires, and meeten his spirit 
 for heaven. The child of God ever remem- 
 bers a chastisement with thankfulness, It is 
 good for me that I have been afflicted. 
 
 But there is another view in which the 
 intercession of Christ may be regarded. It 
 has an important influence upon our own 
 
126 SERMON IX. 
 
 prayers. Christ brings the " form of God " 
 within the apprehension of the worshipper. 
 We prostrate ourselves in prayer to ask for 
 the Divine mercy, but how helpless we are ! 
 We feel acutely the evil we wish to have 
 removed; but the Being we approach is an 
 infinite Spirit, like nothing which we see, 
 nothing which we have known : we hear of 
 Him by the hearing of the ear — we assemble 
 in our minds every object of thought, every 
 image, that can help our conception of an 
 eternal, omniscient, and immaculate Spirit, 
 " upholding all things by the word of His 
 power;" but this greatness oppresses us: if 
 we are not overawed, we are stupefied, by it. 
 We cannot realize the personal notice of the 
 Infinite ; and then occurs the thought of our 
 own insignificance, — " Can my voice reach the 
 ear of the Eternal ? Can any prayer from my 
 corrupt and infirm soul — so foolish, vain, 
 ignorant, and unclean, attract the regard, or 
 even the notice of the Holy One ? Am I not 
 conscious of a guilty life? Does not the 
 remembrance of a thousand acts of rebellion 
 rush in upon my soul like a flood, and extin- 
 guish prayer ?" But suppose that, while I am 
 thus contending with slavish fear, scepticism, 
 and other powers of darkness, kneeling down, 
 but not humble; uttering words of prayer 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST. 127 
 
 but not praying; now disgusted with myself 
 for being a hypocrite, now angry with revela- 
 tion for not being so clear and straightfor- 
 ward as to make doubt impossible : suppose, 
 I say, that during this struggle, a friend 
 enters my closet. I relate to him what 
 I feel ; describe as nearly as I can the 
 contradictory views and conflicting emotions 
 which agitate me when I attempt to pray. 
 He understands my case, tells me he has 
 passed through the same difficulties ; and 
 as he solves my doubts and anticipates 
 my objections, and disentangles my knotty 
 opinions, I find that he knows more of me 
 than I know of myself: and when he pro- 
 poses that we kneel down together and ap- 
 proach the throne of God's majesty in 
 company, his prayer seems to prepare the 
 way for mine; and the thought of being in 
 such circumstances with another, stronger, 
 holier, and more deeply versed in the con- 
 flicts of mind than I am, restores a confi- 
 dence not unlike that which a sinking man 
 regains, when he leans upon the shoulder 
 of a strong swimmer who has plunged into 
 the tide to save him. 
 
 Now imagine that the friendly visitor who 
 opens your closet door at the hour of prayer 
 is Christ. He enters and finds you bowed 
 
128 SERMON IX. 
 
 down before God, trying to pray, but not 
 able ; He approaches, kneels with you, and 
 whispers with great gentleness, " I am the 
 way, and the truth, and the life; no man 
 cometh unto the Father but by me." And 
 not like an ordinary friend, this comforter 
 and intercessor is as exactly conscious of 
 your state of mind as you are ; and not 
 with wise counsels and soothing words only, 
 but with spiritual influences and revelations 
 does He assist the painful efforts of prayer : 
 and more than all, He who kneels with you, 
 as a fellow- suppliant, not only touches you 
 with His human nature, but touches God 
 with His divine ; and that which one na- 
 ture urges Him to ask, another nature en- 
 ables Him to bestow : He has all the 
 sympathy which man can have for man, 
 and all the power which man can need 
 from God ! Are you perplexed with sus- 
 picions and dark controversies in prayer ? 
 He answers, " My thoughts are not your 
 thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, 
 saith the Lord. Commit your reasonings to 
 me : be of good cheer, only believe." Are 
 you distressed with a fear that one so guilty, 
 so depraved, so penetrated with spiritual 
 leprosy as you are, can never be made clean ? 
 He replies, "My blood cleanseth from all 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTERMOST. 129 
 
 sin. I will sprinkle clean water npon yon, 
 and you shall be clean. If you can believe 
 that I am what I declare Myself to be — 
 the propitiation which Grod has accepted for 
 you, and your all-prevailing advocate and 
 helper in the divine presence, though your 
 sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, 
 though they be red like crimson, they shall 
 be as wool." 
 
 No, blessed be God ! we do not approach 
 Him alone. We come leaning on the arm of 
 our almighty advocate, whose redeeming work 
 and unchangeable office guarantee the success 
 of our prayers, the victory of our conflicts, 
 and the happiest issue of our probation ; for, 
 "He is able to save to the uttermost;" the 
 best sense of which word is, to the utmost 
 of our need, entirely, in the highest degree. 
 We know not into what extremes of danger 
 and distress we may be hurried ; our future is 
 an untried one; but this we know, we shall 
 be saved to the uttermost. We know not the 
 ingredients of the cup our Father is mixing 
 for us ; singular revolutions may be in store 
 for us ; times, places, events, may be ushered 
 into the scene, to blast our earthly hopes, to 
 strip us of our dearest fellowships, to take 
 from under us our fondest supports : an ad- 
 verse wind may be permitted to shake every 
 
 K 
 
130 SERMON IX. 
 
 root and fibre that binds us to the earth, and 
 to beat against each other the boughs and 
 branches of our estate, until not one leaf be 
 left to relieve the desolation ; but let the fig- 
 tree wither in its blossom, and fruit be denied 
 to the vines; let the labor of the olive fail, 
 and the fields yield no meat; let the flock 
 be cut off from the fold, and let there be 
 no herd in the stalls* — we shall be saved to 
 the uttermost. But inward struggles may 
 await us no less than outward changes. We 
 have committed ourselves to Christ for life 
 and for death. We may go on with a che- 
 quered experience like Bunyan's pilgrim; 
 now climbing the hill Difficulty, now stumb- 
 ling in the Valley of Humiliation, now ford- 
 ing the Slough of Despond, now battling 
 with Giant Despair; now taking a view of 
 the city from the Delectable Mountains, and 
 anon groping our dark and perilous way 
 through the Valley and Shadow of Death — 
 until we are startled by the river that has 
 neither bridge nor ferry. We will not think 
 too curiously or anxiously of what may be- 
 fall us there ; whether we shall look wistfully 
 down into its glassy depths and shrink at 
 the cold touch of its margin waves, or 
 whether we shall breast it manfully, like a 
 
 Hab. iii. 17. 
 
SAVED TO THE UTTEKMOST. 131 
 
 ship going into harbour. We will leave the 
 manner, as well as the time of our getting 
 across to the Leader who has brought us with 
 so signal a power through many dangers 
 and will not desert us in the last. Be the 
 passage rough or smooth, we shall make it, 
 and, planting our foot on the opposite side, 
 shout, Saved to the uttermost ! 
 
 k2 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 Zechariah ix. 17. 
 
 " How great is his goodness, and how great is his 
 beauty! " 
 
 Man, though he has lost a natural power to 
 be good, retains the ability to perceive good- 
 ness, and the taste to admire it. These are 
 some of the subordinate instruments of his 
 restoration ; for our conception of excellence, 
 greatly surpassing our endeavours to recover 
 it, is an image of virtue constantly before us, 
 and excites us to efforts after goodness which, 
 but for such a pattern, we should never at- 
 tempt. But the imagination of virtue, though 
 attractive enough to win our applause, is not 
 sufficiently distinct to guide our imitation. 
 He would never become a painter who should 
 draw exclusively from the beau ideal of his 
 fancy. He must spend his days over the 
 canvas of other masters, and chain his obser- 
 vation down to what has been done, before he 
 allows his genuis to muse on what might be 
 done. The works of another performer will 
 teach him the rules of his art, educate his 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 133 
 
 taste, and give a cheerful stimulus to his 
 ambition. So in the study of moral ex- 
 cellence, we must have the model of a real 
 character before us, and be instructed in 
 the laws by which its beautiful proportions 
 have been wrought, and learn how to make 
 those initial efforts by which the imitator 
 approaches it. 
 
 Such a model is Christianity's revelation 
 of God ; and herein it may be contrasted with 
 other religions. The mythologies of Paganism 
 are a variety of embodied ideas, such as justice, 
 might, wisdom, and providence ; worshipped 
 under various types of power, — a hero, a 
 beast, an element, &c. But in Christianity 
 these scattered fragments of excellence are 
 united into one perfect and matchless whole ; 
 they are the attributes of a living God — the 
 Deity of the universe. Our text does not 
 celebrate abstract qualities, but the known 
 character of a Being who is attached to us by 
 every natural and tender bond, and to whom 
 we are indebted for our existence, and all its 
 capacities and pleasures. Let us present Him 
 to our minds in the character celebrated by 
 the prophet, His goodness and His beauty. 
 
 His goodness is a moral attribute. His 
 beauty is the harmonious effect of His whole 
 character. He is beautiful because He is good. 
 
134 SERMON X. 
 
 His goodness is the spring of His own and of 
 all beauty. Whatever be the true theory of 
 beauty, whether we suppose we are made con- 
 scious of it by a distinct faculty, or whether 
 it is a conformity to what is most usual, or 
 whether it depends upon mental associations, 
 He is the author of those pleasurable emotions 
 which we derive from beauty. If we examine 
 the objects that wake up feelings of this kind, 
 we shall find that they have in them some 
 element of goodness. A child is a beautiful 
 object ; but the ruddy colours and graces of 
 childhood would not so sensibly gratify the 
 eye, were they not blended with innocence and 
 simplicity. I have often admired an English 
 landscape, with its sloping hills spotted with 
 cattle, the neat cottages that lie within the 
 valley, the old church that " points with 
 taper spire to heaven," the distant plough, 
 and the brook that sings merrily by. All 
 this, I have exclaimed, is beautiful; but on 
 examining the pleasure that moved me, I have 
 found it to arise, not from the physical features 
 of the scene, but from the associations they 
 suggested. They were images of plenty and 
 contentment, of peace, piety, and simplicity ; 
 and were contrasted with the noise, fever, and 
 guilt of a large city : and more than this, 
 everything I saw, fields, houses, trees, chil- 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 135 
 
 dren, spoke eloquently of God. The excla- 
 mation of the text was taken up and whispered 
 from insect to insect, and from flower to 
 flower, How great is His goodness, and hmv 
 great is His beauty ! 
 
 This thought makes nature altogether 
 lovely. I would rather be a simple peasant 
 who looks upon creation with the exulting 
 thought that his Father made it all, than the 
 philosopher whose investigations have not led 
 him to God. He has learned the structure 
 of nature and can give you the history of a 
 plant, the genus of an animal, the revolution 
 of a star. He can discourse learnedly of skill 
 and fitness, of law and power ; he can open 
 cabinets of nature where wisdom has hidden 
 her most curious relics ; but if he see no good- 
 ness in all this, if there be not the glow of a 
 holy worship in his heart, rising to the fountain 
 of the various and beautiful creations around 
 him, he may call himself a lover of nature, 
 but nature rejects his suit ; he may announce 
 himself a believer in the eternal laws, but 
 those very laws condemn him, and he is, as it 
 were, outlawed from the sympathy and fellow- 
 ship of creation. But the believer in the 
 goodness of God, without science, finds a 
 higher delight in his contemplation of nature 
 than your mere man of problems and cyclo- 
 
136 SERMON X. 
 
 pasdias. He can account for nothing he 
 beholds ; he is no botanist, no natural phi- 
 losopher, no astronomer ; but the pious heart 
 makes amends for the unlettered eye. He 
 has learned the best science; that God has 
 given him all things richly to enjoy ; that 
 light and air, colours and sounds, all that 
 sustains and all that gratifies, are blessings 
 which an infinite goodness has freely and 
 generously bestowed, to lead those who enjoy 
 them to Himself, the crown of all His gifts. 
 
 But when science unites with piety ; when 
 she follows her studies with the humility of an 
 inquirer, instead of the authority of a dictator ; 
 when she submits to follow where she lacks 
 both strength and knowledge to lead, she is a 
 glorious witness for God. Science has been 
 indefatigable in her labours and illustrious in 
 her success. "When she first appeared, atheism 
 claimed her for a companion and an advocate; 
 but she who was hired to curse, began, like 
 Balaam, to bless the God of Israel. She took 
 up a parable against the ignorance and ab- 
 surdities of scepticism, against the heartless 
 and destructive theories of infidelity; she 
 demonstrated not only an original and per- 
 vading mind, that first contrived, and then 
 wrought, and now sustains all things, but she 
 proved by irresistible testimony that that 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 137 
 
 Being* is good to all, that His tender mercy is 
 over all His works. Wherever she detected 
 skill, she found love : in cases where the be- 
 nevolence of God was doubtful, where His 
 doings appeared to manifest sternness, cruelty, 
 or indifference, she explored the secret of the 
 unwelcome phenomenon, and discovered a 
 blessing in it. That which appeared dark, and 
 threatening, was secretly averting an evil 
 or educing a good. She ascended to those 
 glorious stars above us, and found nothing 
 but goodness there ; she dived into the lower 
 deeps, and from their crowded archives fetched 
 up records that tell of nothing but goodness 
 there ; she decomposed the elements, analysed 
 their proportions, and determined their affini- 
 ties, and she found innumerable proofs of 
 goodness there. She pursued the history of 
 the great and the small in creation, from the 
 elephant down to the tiniest races of life, she 
 gathered them together in classes like Noah, 
 and like Adam, she gave them names : she 
 knows their structure, their habits, their wants, 
 and their supplies ; and finds a most tender 
 ministry, and a most perfect government 
 over them all, for He openeth i His hand and 
 satisfieth the desire of every living thing. 
 How great is His goodness, and how great is 
 His beauty ! 
 
138 SERMON X. 
 
 This is the song of creation. Day unto day 
 chants it in all languages, and the still small 
 voices of night melt into the music of the 
 grand hymn which the morning stars com- 
 posed in the beginning, when all the sons of 
 God shouted for joy. 
 
 But the goodness which affects ourselves 
 is the most touching and impressive. We are 
 more qualified to admire its operations at 
 home than its manifestations abroad. The 
 goodness of a benefactor is admirable in the 
 sight of all ; it is peculiarly so to its pen- 
 sioners and dependants. Of all creatures, 
 whether in heaven or earth, man has most 
 reason to say, How great is His goodness. 
 We have proved its resources in a way in 
 which perhaps they were never before proved. 
 Creation was an act of goodness, for the de- 
 sign of our Maker was to multiply separate 
 instances of happiness ; it was a dissemination 
 of His own joy. But when man, in whom 
 was placed an extraordinary spring of happy 
 life, affecting the well-being of the whole ani- 
 mal world, corrupted himself by transgression, 
 and drew, as it were, all nature after him into 
 misery and death, God provided a remedy to 
 heal the world, instead of a new creation to 
 replace it. We shall see that it was a greater 
 act of goodness to raise the fallen world, than to 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 139 
 
 push it aside for a substitute. And not good- 
 ness only, but all the attributes of God seemed 
 to divulge new glories when they took their 
 places in the work of redemption. They were 
 called to evolve new features ; features more 
 sublime than had ever appeared. God dis- 
 closed parts of His ways that had probably 
 never been heard of among the angels them- 
 selves. They had seen Him create a man, but 
 they had never seen Him save a sinner. If 
 there was ever astonishment in heaven, it must 
 have been then, when the method of salvation 
 began to be revealed. Holiness was never 
 clothed in a beauty so luminous and august as 
 when it guarded the reputation of the law 
 which men had transgressed. Justice never 
 shone forth with greater brightness and honor 
 than when it demanded such an expiation for 
 sin as was worthy the Author of that law. 
 Love had never appeared to possess so entire 
 a supremacy in the divine counsels as when, in 
 the form of mercy, she pleaded for the arrest 
 of the sinner's doom : and when at her plead- 
 ings, the sword was stayed, and a way of re- 
 conciliation opened between heaven and earth, 
 it was then that the angels learned by a new 
 and wonderful illustration that God Himself 
 was love. "Wisdom never revealed so amiable 
 and so profound a skill as when she projected 
 
140 SEEMON X. 
 
 a scheme of deliverance in which all the 
 perfections of Deity found a place and an 
 office ; where the claims of each were honored, 
 and all could enter with rejoicing fellowship 
 upon the enterprise of mercy. And when 
 these counsels were known, when the details 
 of redemption began to be unfolded, and the 
 dimensions of the plan expanded into outline 
 and harmony, heaven's universal host sent up 
 a shout of praise, " loud as from numbers 
 without number," Hoiv great is His goodness, 
 and how great is His beauty ! 
 
 Even an intellectual view of the Christian 
 system must extort such an acknowledgment. 
 It is the perfection of goodness and of beauty. 
 But we, my brethren, have more than a pic- 
 torial representation of it. The substance, 
 the reality of it, is ours; and its most im- 
 portant measures have been transacted in 
 our world. We have seen Divine love in 
 strange and singularly affecting circum- 
 stances. There is something saddening and, 
 at first sight, unlovely in the humiliations 
 to which grace descended to accomplish its 
 work; and there are not a few who, though 
 they, consider the gospel a system of great 
 beauty, propose to increase its attraction by 
 removing some peculiarities, which they think 
 distasteful or erroneous. The offensive pas- 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 141 
 
 sages they refer to are the sufferings and 
 death of Christ, regarded as the medium of a 
 sinner's acceptance with God ! * They object 
 to something violent and unnatural in the sac- 
 rificial features of the gospel. But when we 
 taste the grace that flows to us through the 
 dying of the Lord Jesus, His blood, so far 
 from appearing an unnatural or distasteful 
 object, becomes the most precious image of 
 the mind. It is a source of exquisite and un- 
 failing joy. It is the price of our salvation, 
 and an everlasting memorial of what God 
 could do, and what God did for us. Looking 
 upon that, we feel the kindlings of holier dis- 
 positions ; we abhor the sin that made its 
 shedding needful ; we love the heart that did 
 not refuse to give it for us ; we confide in its 
 efficacy as the ground of our reconciliation 
 with God, and are justified in His sight. 
 Through it we ask for blessings, and through 
 it we receive them. It lends to prayer a be- 
 seeching power that overcomes God Himself. 
 It gives to our imperfect thanksgivings so 
 fragrant an incense, that their odours fill the 
 courts of heaven. It imparts so infinite a 
 merit to our services, that, feeble and un- 
 worthy as they are, God accepts and honours 
 them. Precious blood ! it does all this for us, 
 
 * See Note at the end of the Volume. 
 
142 SEEMON X. 
 
 and much more. We are never so impressed 
 with the goodness of God as when we see His 
 Divine Son dying for sinners, nor struck with 
 the beauty of God as when we see sinners 
 believing on His Son. 
 
 Look, first, at the work that is wrought 
 upon the sinner's soul. It is a new creation. 
 The heart is " without form and void," and 
 "darkness is upon the face of its deep." You 
 will say there is neither goodness nor beauty 
 there. But the Spirit of God moveth upon the 
 face of the waters. God says, " Let there be 
 light;" and there is light; and light is the 
 beginning of beauty. The shining of a spi- 
 ritual heaven over the sinner's heart is a more 
 glorious object than the light of the physical 
 firmanent, for it is the radiancy of Deity Him- 
 self ; it is the brightness of intelligence ; not 
 created " for signs, and for seasons, and for 
 days, and years," but ordained to hang ifcs 
 unfading splendours over the ages of eternity. 
 A spirit that has recovered the likeness of 
 God, and is arrayed in that fine linen, clean 
 and white, of which John speaks,* will be 
 one of the most beautiful creations of heaven. 
 But observe, secondly, the way in which the 
 new creature is made. The beauty of a work 
 depends in part on its simplicity. In the 
 
 * Kev. xix. 8. 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 143 
 
 first chapter of Genesis you will perceive that 
 the inexpressible sublimity of the creation 
 arises from the facility with which stupendous 
 existences follow the fiat of God. Land and 
 sea, with their thousand varieties of life, come 
 into being with a word; another word appoints 
 their functions and fixes their habitations. 
 There was no elaborate process of manu- 
 facture ; it was, " Let there be light : and 
 there was light," " Let there be a firmanent 
 of heaven ; and it was so." What a sublime 
 representation of power, and what a beauty 
 does it reflect upon God's works that, glorious 
 and perfect as they are, they were begotten 
 by a simple expression of His will ! It may 
 be remarked of nature's laws, that these are, 
 as far as man has discovered them, ex- 
 ceedingly simple, the mightiest revolutions 
 following the most insignificant means. Ap- 
 plying to the work of grace the principle that 
 simplicity is an essential quality of beauty, 
 where shall we find a law, at once so simple 
 and so mighty as faith. A man with the 
 accumulated sin of many years, with his habits 
 rooted and grounded in iniquity, his passions 
 grown irresistible by frequent indulgence, an 
 enemy to God and to morality, one who has 
 been gradually conformed to the image of 
 Satan, is arrested by the Spirit, and directed 
 
144 SERMON X. 
 
 to look to Jesus. He believes on the Son of 
 G-od, and suddenly becomes a new creature. 
 Go into the street which is called Straight, 
 and inquire in the house of Judas for one 
 who prayeth. Yesterday he was a fierce per- 
 secutor, lofty, proud, remorseless, bloody — 
 but now how changed ! meek, contrite, con- 
 fiding ; adorning the name he had despised, 
 and loving the people he had imprisoned ! 
 And the subsequent life of Paul proves that 
 his conversion, which was effected in a few 
 hours, was one of principle, bringing with it 
 a corresponding change of purpose, affec- 
 tion, and habit ; moulding a character of 
 unrivalled strength and beauty, and project- 
 ing a career of unexampled zeal, fidelity, and 
 usefulness. 
 
 You may object to the instance of Paul, 
 since his conversion was miraculous ; but the 
 biography of the church will furnish you with 
 examples nearly as illustrious as that of the 
 great apostle, in which it will be seen that 
 faith, or the simple belief of the mind in 
 Jesus Christ, has produced an instant and 
 permanent change in the character, a change 
 not only involving reconciliation with God, 
 but a real transformation of life, without 
 either pilgrimages or penances, fastings or 
 mortifications. It has seemed more natural 
 
HIS GOODNESS AND HIS BEAUTY. 145 
 
 to man that virtue should be the fruit of lono* 
 
 o 
 
 endeavow; that a revolution in our habits 
 and tastes should be a work of time. But 
 the law of the Gospel is, "Believe and do;" 
 and on this principle it has worked all its 
 marvels. What a mistaken philanthropy has 
 for many generations been endeavouring to 
 effect, Christianity has often accomplished in 
 a few months. The gospel by its reconciling 
 music has drawn together rude and barbarous 
 tribes, and charmed them into order, peace, 
 and prosperity. Villages have arisen with 
 their churches and schools, spreading a land- 
 scape for the eye of the traveller that compels 
 him to exclaim in praise of its Author, " How 
 great is his goodness, and how great is his 
 beauty ! " 
 
 And when this marvellous gospel shall 
 have finished its design ! A new heart is a 
 beautiful object ; the laws which sanction its 
 pardon and procure its holiness are exquisitelv 
 simple ; and wonderful is the process by which 
 new features of character are introduced, and 
 the inner man grows up God- ward, until the 
 measuring angel can report the full stature of 
 a man in Christ. But when God's good and 
 beautiful Spirit raises the entire race of man to 
 its proper height ; when the members of this 
 once honourable family, now shrunken and 
 
 L 
 
146 SEBMON X. 
 
 dispersed, are brought together by the affini- 
 ties of grace, and the lowest and worst speci- 
 men of man walks erect upon the soil, a son 
 of God ; when the earth shall become one 
 holy mountain, to the top of which every tribe 
 shall be seen ascending to behold the beauty 
 of the Lord and to inquire in His temple, all 
 pressing up the grand steep of truth, — the 
 idolater to stretch out his hands to God, the 
 Mohammedan to transfer his homage and 
 enthusiasm to the once hated Jesus, the 
 Buddhist to wake up from his dream of an- 
 nihilation to a certain and glorious immor- 
 tality, the oppressed and brutalized African 
 to taste the liberty of a man whom the Son 
 makes free, and the long lost Jew, escaping 
 from the ministration of condemnation, writ- 
 ten and engraven in stones, to the ministra- 
 tion of life, — all distinctions broken down, all 
 antipathies dissolved, the serpent creeping 
 back into his own hell never to return, and 
 the curse with him ; the evening and the 
 morning of the last day's labour, the last 
 day's battle and suffering, finished, and God's 
 eternal Sabbath shining over a new creation ; 
 then, and not until then, shall we understand 
 how great is His goodness, and how great is 
 His beauty ! 
 
SERMON XL 
 Mal. iv. 2.* 
 
 : ' Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of 
 righteousness arise with healing in his w\ 
 
 In these words are represented the seasons of 
 night and morning, and the condition of those 
 who watch for the rising of the day, who 
 "walk in darkness," bnt "fear the Lord," and 
 have their faces turned toward the East. All 
 upon whom the Sun of righteousness has not 
 shined may be called the children of the night: 
 but so few have welcomed the dawn of truth 
 and heavenly love that the world may be said 
 to He in the blackness of spiritual night; nation 
 by the side of nation. Upon continents, upon 
 islands, under every sky, in every clime, the 
 human race sleeps. Millions never wake ! 
 They sleep the sleep of death and pass away. 
 Generations slumber out their age, and are 
 then swallowed up by the "outer darkness." 
 
 But breaking the silence of this fatal repose 
 is the stir and murmur of returning conscious- 
 ness. You may hear it on every side if you 
 
 * Preached on behalf of Missions. 
 
 l2 
 
148 SERMON XI. 
 
 listen for it : men standing up stretching their 
 faculties, benumbed by long inaction, and 
 shaking from their spirit the languor that 
 cleaves to a recent awakening. They are still 
 in darkness, for the glory of the Lord has not 
 yet risen upon them; but they are awake. 
 No longer dreamers, they are conscious of the 
 realities about them. Let your eye range over 
 the populations of this vast India ! A few 
 years ago, they lay still as death, and in the 
 gloom of death's shadow. From Cape Comorin 
 to the Himalaya, hardly a throb of moral life 
 could be heard. The Bramin in his refined and 
 haughty pantheism, the Pariah in his grosser 
 paganism, the Mohammedan in his profound 
 fanaticism, and their two hundred million 
 followers, in tribes, castes, orders, and schools, 
 lay stretched upon the plains and in the valleys 
 of Hindustan as one sleeper ! insensible to the 
 truth without, conversing only with the false 
 dream-land within. But look at these races 
 now. There is nearly the same darkness, but 
 not the same torpor. The trance of idolatry 
 is over ; broken by political convulsions and 
 by the moral force of education. Many have 
 awakened to bewilderment, and wish them- 
 selves asleep again. They have increased 
 sorrow in proportion as they have acquired 
 knowledge. They cry to each other in the 
 
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 149 
 
 eagerness of their speculations, " What of the 
 night ! What of the night ! " They seek to 
 find a way by the brief lights of their own 
 kindling ; but the meteors of human theories 
 which are struck out from the darkness, and 
 which throw a momentary flash upon the 
 traveller's path, only serve to make that path 
 more erring. Still anything is better than 
 sleep; and although they may wake up to 
 misery, it is the misery of a man with his senses 
 about him; who brings all his faculties and 
 means into use to obtain relief, and is a ready 
 listener to any hope of deliverance. let us go 
 and tell these night- wanderers that the morn- 
 ing cometh ! You need not go far to seek them; 
 they are to be found among educated Natives 
 and uneducated Europeans. Theirs is a 
 melancholy darkness, for they wait for no 
 day. They know enough of God and of them- 
 selves to make them unhappy. They are dis- 
 satisfied with their own nature. They have 
 tried, it may be, to smile away the Bible 
 doctrines of sin and natural depravity; yet 
 that sin has been attested by a conscience they 
 have never been able to silence, and that 
 depravity has hitherto defeated every effort to 
 subdue it : the significant fact that they are 
 averse to that which would elevate them, 
 and love that which would debase them, per- 
 
150 SERMON XI. 
 
 plexes and disheartens their spirit ; and death 
 with its hereafter looks upon them with no 
 friendly face. They try to reason it all away, 
 but it has its seasons of visitation, and neither 
 sophistry nor vice can master it. This is 
 night: its gloom, its half-consciousness, its 
 spectres, its fears, its wearisome watchings. 
 Is the promise of the text for these ? I am 
 happy to believe it is ; for although they can- 
 not be said to fear the Lord, not having any 
 fixed idea of Him, they are the victims of a 
 spiritual terror, or the subjects of an anxious 
 inquiry after Him whom they know not : and 
 as such, the Holy Spirit cannot be indifferent 
 to them. If their awakening be only a partial 
 consciousness of God, if their agitation be 
 rather intellectual or social than the direct 
 effect of gospel truth, the movement must be 
 traced to the finger that points and rules every 
 effect. The missionary in India rejoices to 
 preach to the Hindu mind when aroused, and 
 tossed to and fro by doubts and apprehensions; 
 it is the idolater asleep that disheartens the 
 preacher : invitation and warning, judgment 
 and mercy, alike fail to disturb the marble 
 repose of a Hindu asleep in his errors and 
 iniquity. If the natives be stirred by any 
 power, the gospel is thereby advanced, and 
 we rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. 
 
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 151 
 
 But let me address myself especially to 
 those who have been awakened by the voice 
 of the Spirit through the herald of the gos- 
 pel ; whose fear of the Lord is an enlightened 
 dread of divine wrath, distinctly announced 
 to be coming upon those who obey not the 
 gospel ; who feel the presence of a judging 
 God, and tremble; who, under the curse of 
 the law, consent to that law that it is good, 
 and that its condemnation of them is just. 
 These are in darkness ; they have acquired 
 divine knowledge and personal virtue — stars, 
 shedding a cold and ineffective light that 
 can never satisfy those who watch for the 
 dawn. There is no warmth, no healing, in 
 the wings of a star. There is no joy in 
 the mere possession of a virtue; a galaxy 
 of them can never make the sky of a man's 
 hopes cheerful ; they may decorate his cha- 
 racter, and fascinate the observer, but they 
 cannot gladden himself; they touch him faintly 
 and distantly, and there are places in his soul 
 they never reach. It is the Sun only that can 
 fill the sphere of a man's life, penetrate the 
 soil of his heart, and quicken into activity and 
 cultivation the retired and interior ground of 
 his nature. Every man is in darkness until 
 he is " light in the Lord." 
 
 There may be in this congregation those 
 
152 SERMON XI. 
 
 who are watching for the greater light that 
 rules the day; whom Grod has awakened by 
 His truth, but not yet comforted by His pre- 
 sence. Tltis then is the message which we have 
 heard of Him, and declare unto you, that unto 
 such as you, the Sun of Righteousness will 
 arise with healing in His wings. Blessed 
 promise ! It is the morning star seen just 
 above the horizon, the harbinger of day. 
 Look upon it, ye that fear the Lord and 
 await His coming ; it glitters on the eastern 
 side of the sky. As you gaze fixedly upon it, 
 are you not conscious of some hope and com- 
 fort, as if that part of the heaven were already 
 lighting up with the gray approaches of morn- 
 ing ? The prince of darkness would spread 
 his sable wings to depress the dawn, to make 
 the day late and tardy ; but it shall come — it 
 cannot tarry. The Bridegroom of heaven is 
 leaving His chamber ; and ere long there will 
 be " nothing hid from the heat thereof." Grief 
 endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the 
 morning. Let me remind you that the rest- 
 lessness and dejection you feel at the absence 
 of the Lord is the Spirit's own work upon 
 your conscience. But for His gracious im- 
 pulse you would have been asleep still. What 
 a mercy to have consciousness, even if you have 
 no peace ! What a mercy, that instead of 
 
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 153 
 
 running about in the wilderness of idolatrous 
 creeds, or losing yourself in the labyrinths of 
 a vain philosophy, you are brought, by gra- 
 cious leadings, to the sure word of prophecy, 
 whereunto you "take heed, as unto a light that 
 shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, 
 and the day star arise in your hearts !" The 
 promise of that star is from the Father of 
 lights, who has put the times and the seasons 
 in His own power, and whose word has no 
 variableness nor shadow of turning. My dear 
 friends in darkness, let me lead you to the 
 place where the Sun rises; and there let us 
 stand together, until His earliest ray glance 
 upon our spirits, and the glory of the Lord be 
 risen upon us. Let us all go, unitedly and 
 confidently ; let the children of the day ac- 
 company us, to obtain a clearer and fuller 
 view of Christ as He rises once more over 
 Calvary; for it is the gazer's privilege to ap- 
 proach nearer and nearer this Star of the East, 
 to look more stedfastly and narrowly upon the 
 transforming light, until he is " changed into 
 the same image from glory to glory, even as 
 by the Spirit of the Lord." 
 
 But there are some who doubt whether 
 they have any ground to expect that the 
 morning will rise upon them. I hear them 
 say that no darkness which I have described 
 
154 SERMON XI. 
 
 is to be matched with the gloom that has 
 settled down upon their spirits ; that having 
 once rejoiced in the happy light of God's 
 favour, theirs is the sevenfold darkness of 
 contrast, and a contrast chargeable upon their 
 own folly and sin. Oh there is no shadow so 
 appalling as the backslider's night ! it is not 
 merely the absence of the sun, but a horrible 
 eclipse ; for the soul that is dark, had once its 
 place in the sphere and firmament of the 
 church. John informs us that he saw a great 
 star fall from heaven, whose name was Worm- 
 wood ; and that the waters into which it fell 
 became wormwood, and those who drank 
 thereof died. So, when a Christian falls from 
 the heaven of God's countenance, he becomes 
 wormwood, and like a blasting planet he infects, 
 poisons, and destroys the souls of other men. 
 St. Jude uses a similar figure when speaking 
 of backsliders, Wandering Stars ; that is, stars 
 that have withdrawn from the central Sun of 
 Righteousness ; to whom, says he, is reserved 
 the blackness of darkness for ever. Is there 
 among my hearers a soul whose name is 
 Wormwood, who is yet falling from God into 
 deeper night ? And is such a spirit looking 
 up with the anguish of a longing heart to the 
 place he once filled with the morning stars 
 and the sons of God ? The attraction of that 
 
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 155 
 
 Sun can arrest a falling orb, and bring back 
 the dark wanderer into the shining paths of 
 the just ; and therefore I must encourage even 
 the backslider to wait with us, and hope for 
 the marvellous light of pardon and love that 
 shines upon all who watch for it. 
 
 Let us now consider the promise more par- 
 ticularly, The Sun of Righteousness shall arise 
 with healing in His wings. 
 
 Sun of Righteousness, is not so much 
 a figurative designation of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, as a name strictly implying His nature 
 and offices. When He stood on this earth, 
 He announced Himself as the light of the 
 world; and as His orb ascended from the 
 obscurity of Judea, and gained the altitude of 
 His mission, as His line went forth into all the 
 earth, and His words unto the end of the 
 world, dividing the light from the darkness, 
 He absorbed within Himself all the lesser 
 lights and gleams of science and virtue, and 
 blazed forth the undisputed sovereign of the 
 moral heaven. He glanced upon the schools 
 of paganism, and learned Gentiles came to 
 His light ; He penetrated and awed the majesty 
 of thrones, and kings hailed the brightness of 
 His rising. Yet the light which He dispensed 
 was not the lustre of intellect, but of right- 
 eousness, of holiness. His doctrines flattered 
 
156 SERMON XI. 
 
 not the vanity of the learned, but assailed 
 that vanity. He did not, like the philoso- 
 phers, preach the greatness of the human 
 mind, and exalt it as a divinity to be wor- 
 shipped ; but His teaching conducted the eye 
 into man's heart, exposing its deceitfulness, its 
 uncleanness, its baseness. It dissected the 
 opinions and institutions of men ; laid bare the 
 folly of their hopes, the treachery of their sup- 
 ports, the unsatisfying nature of their resources. 
 It unsettled many of their maxims, reversed 
 some of their most confident conclusions, 
 showed the extent of their ignorance of hea- 
 venly things, and opened through the mazes of 
 sin, hitherto impenetrable, a pathway to God. 
 
 Herein does Christ vindicate for Himself 
 the glorious title of Sun of Righteousness. He 
 discovered and brought to light the highway 
 to heaven. He provided a righteousness which 
 could give the dying sinner a title to life. 
 Whereas men's terrors drove them to every 
 method of atonement that convicted guilt 
 could devise, Jesus became a propitiation for 
 them all. Men might now cast off their 
 superstitious yokes, throw down their altars, 
 and escape the hard despotism of a slavish 
 fear. He preached liberty without the cap- 
 tive's effort, redemption without a price, and 
 eternal happiness without desert. " By grace 
 
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 157 
 
 are we saved, through faith, and that not 
 of ourselves, it is the gift of God." It was 
 Christ only who could say, and the words were 
 the key-note of His ministry* "Blessed are 
 they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness, for they shall be filled." This was the 
 world's condition when Christ first appeared, 
 it hungered and thirsted for righteousness. 
 No system had as yet been revealed by which 
 man could obtain it. There was everything 
 but righteousness ; but this is the same as if 
 we should say of the physical world, there is 
 everything but light. Let the sun cease to 
 shine upon us, even for a few months, let moon 
 and stars withdraw their light, let this earth 
 revolve through blackness and darkness ; if it 
 were possible for life itself to survive, would 
 life be worth having ? Would it not be all the 
 horrors and hell of death, without its happy 
 insensibility ? The desire of the senses would 
 be gone ; the soul would be a dungeon without 
 windows ; human progress would not merely 
 stop, but society would freeze up into an ice- 
 berg. Its fellowships, its enterprises, its grand 
 organs of intercourse, its skill, benevolence, 
 and potency, would drift away like the snow 
 of an avalanche, cold, scattered and meaning- 
 less. We should still have our gold and silver, 
 
 * Trench. 
 
158 SERMON XI. 
 
 our precious stones, our books, pictures, and 
 instruments of music ; but these are a mock- 
 ery without light. Property has no valuation, 
 music no motive, for who would touch a harp ? 
 books are blotted out, and pictures, the chil- 
 dren of light, are dead — 
 
 Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine ; 
 Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine ! 
 Lo ! thy dread empire, Chaos ! is restored ; 
 Light dies before thy uncreating word ; 
 Thy hand, great Anarch ! lets the curtain fall ; 
 And universal darkness buries all. 
 
 A moral world without Christ, is like a 
 physical world without the sun. That which 
 can draw a human being up to the primary 
 stature of a man, is the transforming light of 
 holy truth; this is the educating light; it 
 shines down in direct rays from heaven ; it is 
 warm, healing, and genial ; man's soul is like 
 a kindred beam, darting forth to meet it; it 
 will blend with no other light. The mind 
 that shines not in the beauty of holiness can 
 never be made beautiful by other accomplish- 
 ments. The proper definition of a man is, an 
 intelligent being created after God in right- 
 eousness and true holiness ; and our unhappy 
 race can never be lifted from its degeneracy, 
 will never display those sublime capacities of 
 thinking, governing, and enjoying, of which 
 
THE SUN OF EIGHTEOUSNESS. 159 
 
 we see but faint indications now, will never 
 explain the meaning of man's creation at all, 
 until minor illuminations be swallowed up in 
 the glory of righteousness ; until this original 
 light resume its sway, and become the pre- 
 vailing medium of man's perceptions, the 
 guide and gladness of man's path. One of 
 the most generally discussed questions of the 
 day relates to the improvement of the masses. 
 I honor the philanthropy that addresses itself 
 to the poor ; abridging their hours of toil, in- 
 creasing their wages, educating their children, 
 cleansing their neighbourhoods, and promo- 
 ting their access to institutions of learning 
 and recreation ; but unless we make the gospel 
 of Christ the foundation of our efforts, we 
 build man's improvement on the sand ; at any 
 moment a revolutionary storm might bring 
 the structure upon our heads. When your 
 missionaries have gone forth to countries 
 where men have been found verging upon the 
 rudeness of the beast, they have not raised 
 them by secular arts first, and grafted right- 
 eousness upon civilization; they have begun 
 their work by bringing them to Christ; and 
 when these rude half-formed spirits drank in 
 the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, they put 
 forth the graces of social life; their unripe 
 and childish ideas expanded into the enter- 
 
160 SERMON XI. 
 
 prises of men; communities were gathered 
 and knit into shape and order ; the school was 
 established ; the plough introduced ; law and 
 protection followed ; and the peaceful hum of 
 village life now greets the stranger where once 
 his footsteps would have been tracked by the 
 scent of blood. Righteousness is at once the 
 foundation and the crown of a nation. "Where 
 Christ shines not, nothing that is truly noble 
 attains maturity. Science, education, and 
 genius, are rather great powers that flourish 
 in the light, than light itself. Of that perfect 
 society which is described as heaven, the celes- 
 tial city into which will be gathered all that is 
 precious in intellect, friendship, and character; 
 all that is venerable for wisdom, admirable for 
 strength, lovely for beauty, it is said, the glory 
 of God enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light 
 thereof. 
 
 This is the Sun of Eighteousness, and the 
 promise is unto you that He will arise with 
 healing in His rays. Let us now look toward 
 that quarter of the heavens, where we expect 
 Him to appear. He rises over the Cross ; 
 that is our East. Draw near, ye timid souls, 
 and await His coming ; tread out the sparks 
 of your own righteousness ; distrust in this 
 path the light of reason — an unsafe guide 
 here. Whatever visions may dance before 
 
THE SUN OP RIGHTEOUSNESS. 161 
 
 your eye, believe that you are in utter dark- 
 ness until Christ shines ; believe not the 
 suggestions of your own heart — believe its 
 necessities and its misery; it may tell you 
 you are too dark to be enlightened ; you have 
 had too long a night ever to hope for morn- 
 ing ; your misery is too complicated and 
 inveterate even for the healing light of the 
 Gospel to remedy : answer all such misgivings 
 by the promise of the text, Unto you that fear 
 My name ; unto you that, after many failures, 
 are convinced at last that you cannot walk by 
 the light of your own understanding, or stand 
 in the strength of your own resolutions ; unto 
 you that, after trying every method to obtain 
 satisfaction and' peace, now find yourselves 
 without a sin conquered, a fear dispelled, a 
 wish realized, a hope accomplished ; mortified, 
 humbled, crushed, shut up to what God can 
 do for you, — unto you shall the Sun of Righte- 
 ousness arise with healing in His wings. 
 Doubt not the word, even though you may not 
 fully comprehend it ; believe it, it will bring 
 its own meaning with it. Jesus will rise upon 
 your souls like a glorious dawn. You want no 
 preparation but a waiting heart. The flower 
 gives nothing to the sun for shining upon it ; 
 and the Lord God will give you grace and 
 glory, without money and without price. 
 
 M 
 
SEBMON XII. 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 3.* 
 
 "Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 This exhortation was addressed to a young 
 missionary, who, like yon, had been recently 
 set apart by the laying on of hands for the 
 good fight of ministerial life. It is the coun- 
 sel of a veteran, whose career, from the hour 
 of his enlistment, had been a grand conflict 
 with the powers of darkness, and whose 
 battle was closing with victory. He had 
 striven for masteries, had won them, and was 
 now returning to his sovereign to receive 
 those distinctions which are promised to 
 loyalty, courage, devotion, and hard service. 
 But though he had secured his crown, the 
 fight was not over. The field was as crowded 
 as ever with hostility and danger ; and others 
 must fill up ranks which death or infirmity 
 had thinned. We can imagine that Paul 
 would be anxious to secure for a small but 
 eminently aggressive church, able, energetic, 
 
 * Preached at the ordination of a missionary. 
 
A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST. 163 
 
 and holy men. Upon Timothy lie had laid no 
 sudden hands. The selection of missionaries 
 should be a task of solemn deliberation. The 
 first apostles attempted no proceeding of this 
 kind without an especial appeal to the Holy 
 Ghost. They fasted, prayed, and waited to 
 receive a direct intimation of the Divine will. 
 They then laid their hands upon the man after 
 God's own heart, and sent him about his work. 
 The two epistles to Timothy compose an im- 
 pressive charge, to the study of which every 
 minister should devote his life. I have no 
 doubt you have often read and paused over 
 these inimitable compositions, so full of saga- 
 cious counsels, wise cautions, and invigorating 
 hopes ; and if by this address I can recall 
 some of them to your memory, and add any 
 remark which may increase the influence they 
 have upon your character, I shall have the 
 result for which I have laboured and prayed. 
 
 You will perceive that the apostle delivers 
 his lesson in military language. Timothy is 
 called a soldier of Jesus Christ. We have no 
 other mode of describing the operation of 
 principles opposed to each other, than bor- 
 rowing the language of external warfare ; and 
 when not principles merely, but spirits are 
 drawn up in battle array, thinking against 
 each other, planning schemes for each other's 
 
 m2 
 
164 SEEMON XII. 
 
 ruin, and wielding the dreadful weapons of 
 the mind, military phrases are scarcely ade- 
 quate to the description of such a conflict. 
 The scriptures abound in martial allusions. 
 Christ is the leader and commander of His 
 2)eople 9 who are commonly described as an 
 armed host, contending for every inch of 
 ground that lies between them and their own 
 land, to which they are represented as return- 
 ing through a country bristling with enemies, 
 prepared to dispute their passage; and not 
 simply travelling through the hostile land 
 with the negative resistance of an orderly 
 retreat, but falling upon their foes aggres- 
 sively, to win territory and captives for their 
 sovereign. Every Christian is a man of war 
 from the commencement of his journey to 
 heaven, and there is no retirement from ser- 
 vice, no quiet evening of his days in which he 
 may enjoy a laurelled repose ; he lays down 
 his weapons and his life together. This con- 
 dition of strife and contest applies with special 
 force to the preachers of the Cross — above all 
 to missionaries ; for these may be said to con- 
 quer a province, and ordinary ministers to 
 garrison it. If the harder service is the more 
 honorable, what distinction has the great 
 Captain conferred upon you, in assigning to 
 you a front position in the army that is 
 
A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST. 165 
 
 marching to the help of the Lord against the 
 mighty ! I hope you have well considered the 
 trust which has been confided to you ; I hope 
 you have not now to be told that the spot upon 
 which you stand is thickest with danger ; and 
 that a man behaving treasonably or cowardly 
 here, hurts the cause for which we fight, 
 more than the fall of a thousand elsewhere. 
 Grlory and infamy are side by side ; therefore 
 " endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 Endure the hardness of the march. The 
 march is often more trying to bravery than 
 the engagement. Your march is the intellec- 
 tual and moral preparation that leads you to 
 the field and arms you for battle. Endure the 
 hardness of study. Your enemy lies on the 
 other side of a foreign and difficult language ; 
 and through an almost impenetrable jungle of 
 superstitions. Master these ! In respect of 
 the preliminaries of the language, you are 
 more fortunate than we are, the ground being 
 more familiar to you, and the obstacles fewer ; 
 but as you approach the heart of its literature 
 our labors are equal ; and it will cost you the 
 exertion and patience it imposes upon us. I 
 do not think eminent scholarship essential to 
 the evangelist ; but language is your path to a 
 man's heart ; and the more extensive and 
 
166 SERMON XII. 
 
 minute your acquaintance with the tongue he 
 speaks, the more readily will you convey the 
 arguments and facts which God has enjoined 
 you to communicate to him. In preaching to 
 the Hindus, it is not enough that you be able 
 to speak the native tongue with fluency. By 
 a diligent reading of purely vernacular books, 
 you must acquire those idiomatic or charac- 
 teristic forms of speech that give such a charm 
 to conversation and discourse. I need not 
 tell you of the itching ears with which Hindu 
 people listen to the man who proposes to in- 
 struct them ; and while we ought not to shape 
 our sentences to tickle and gratify a passion 
 for ornament, it becomes us to avoid dis- 
 gusting it by barbarisms, or fatiguing it by 
 triteness and inanity. In studying the religion 
 of the Hindus, while you have no ambition to 
 excel in the curious learning of Indian sages, — 
 nor is it necessary in order to become an able 
 vernacular minister, — you will do well to lay 
 hold of the vulnerable points of the native's 
 faith, the more obvious and refutable errors 
 of his system. For these will be found 
 generally to lie near its foundation ; and in 
 this study, place the errors you find side by 
 side with scripture and with your own na- 
 ture ; read the book of God and the book of 
 your own heart together, and you will dis- 
 
A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST. 167 
 
 cover that idolatry is alike unscriptural and 
 unnatural. Adopt no views which you your- 
 self have not proved; use no phrases which 
 you have not married to your own thought ; 
 hazard no statements that you yourself cannot 
 show to be facts. Study thoroughly those 
 parts of Hinduism which are the strongholds 
 of its defence ; study them in the bazaars as 
 well as in the Shasters ; let your observation 
 gather something every day that may serve 
 to point an argument or enforce a lesson. 
 The best account of Hinduism, however, will 
 be found not in the Puranas, but in the Bible. 
 Here you have, in the words of the Holy 
 Ghost Himself, its origin and growth ; and 
 such revelations of the fallen heart of man as 
 every conscience verifies. If you aim to be a 
 faithful and swift witness against the wicked- 
 ness and errors of this people, endure the hard- 
 ness of Bible study. The Bible reading of a 
 missionary is hard and solemn work. If it be 
 anything else in the case of such a man, it is 
 a levity. God has spoken words for the 
 heathen ; He has, I trust, made you a chosen 
 vessel to bear them to the Gentiles of India. 
 How can you enforce words you understand 
 not ? And how can you succeed in grasping, 
 and making available, meanings that come up 
 from eternity and the Divine mind, unless you 
 
168 SERMON XII. 
 
 think with almost prophetic intensity, and 
 pray with the commanding faith of a Daniel, 
 to whose supplications God unlocked the 
 secrets of His providence and name ? Oh ! 
 to take up one of God's messages, which you 
 feel you must deliver ; to pause over it with 
 assiduous and watchful meditation — to bring 
 upon it the various lights of a sanctified erudi- 
 tion ; to be still dark as to its import, and in 
 darkness to go to the Father of lights, and to 
 plead for the return of the inspiration by 
 which it was first given ; to kneel beside it 
 with a stedfast eye, and wait, until the thing 
 of darkness is brought to light, and the coun- 
 sel of the Most High is manifest ; and then, 
 as a steward of the mystery, to take it, and 
 make it intelligible to the ignorant and brutish 
 mind of a heathen — to make it pass through 
 processes of thought and illustration until not 
 merely the pupil that sits at your feet and 
 hears it again and again, but the wayfaring 
 man who may not have the opportunity of 
 hearing it the second time, shall be able to 
 understand it ! — this is the hardness of the 
 missionary's Bible study, and involves an 
 application at once active, patient, laborious, 
 and sanguine ; to which only those will sub- 
 mit who are constrained by the love of Christ. 
 There are other motives that may prompt a 
 
A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST. 1G9 
 
 man to great exertion in his studies : a desire 
 for distinction or emolument, a taste for the 
 discoveries of knowledge or the elegancies of 
 art, will make a scholar; but no motive ex- 
 cept the love of Jesus can make a missionary. 
 There are so many discouragements in his 
 path, and his progress through it is so slow, 
 and it seems such a long and mountainous 
 way to success, 
 
 Alps peep o'er Alps, and hills on hills arise, — 
 
 his own earthly mind, a constant fear of un- 
 faithfulness, shocks of bodily illness diminish- 
 ing his strength, domestic troubles, and, above 
 all, the apathy, perverseness, and wickedness 
 of the heathen, that no ordinary fortitude 
 could withstand such hardships ; and these 
 trials will be yours. In endeavoring to cope 
 with them, many have fallen; and he only 
 overcomes whose sufficiency is of God. When 
 we are in the actual fight, when we close with 
 an adversary in the presence and amid the 
 cheers of others, zeal and enthusiasm sustain 
 us ; it is in the sterner road of private life 
 that we generally fail. Be watchful in the 
 quiet march. Let not your missionary life be 
 a life of occasions. I mean a life that exists 
 not except there be a public and inevitable 
 service to call it forth. A soldier discharges 
 
170 SERMON XII. 
 
 all his duties in drill, whether there be an 
 enemy or not. It is the private discipline of 
 the camp that nurses the heroism of the field. 
 Therefore, my dear brother, bring your spirit 
 into severe training. Keep always before you 
 the dispositions and habits in which you feel 
 yourself lacking. When no eye but Grod's 
 sees you, strive to cultivate them ; it will 
 often cost you a struggle to maintain a 
 heavenly mind — to cherish and practice in- 
 dustry in study, economy in domestic life, 
 conscientiousness in business, and painstaking 
 preparation for public work. Let your retired 
 interviews with God be so frequent, as to 
 form the grand necessity of your life. As far 
 as the earthly tabernacle will permit you, live in 
 heaven ; and, if possible, do not stand up in the 
 people's midst, until the angel that waits upon 
 the altar of inspiration has taken a coal and 
 laid it upon your mouth, and you have heard 
 him say, " Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; thine 
 iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged !" 
 
 Endure the hardness of the actual fight. 
 The missionary's fight is a hard battle. He 
 begins by conquering himself on the march, 
 and in proportion to the power by which he 
 has subdued the province of his own heart, 
 will be the strength of his arm against the foe, 
 and the chance of his victory. The enemy 
 
A GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST. 171 
 
 led up against you is the colossal system of 
 Hinduism, animated by the cunning and pride 
 of Satan. The poor idolater himself is not 
 an adversary. You must beware lest in dis- 
 cussion or preaching, any unfriendly senti- 
 ment should escape you; lest the contempt 
 which you must feel for the absurdities, should 
 show itself towards the victims of superstition. 
 You have no quarrel with the Hindu ; and you 
 must guard against the faintest semblance 
 of personal enmity. In a missionary's argu- 
 ments, love is more potent than logic; and 
 though it is sometimes expedient to ridicule 
 a sophism, in order to shame a disputant 
 whom vanity has made your opponent, irony 
 and satire rarely become the messenger of 
 Christ. Men's errors are not purely intel- 
 lectual ; in the case of a Hindu they have no 
 more to do with the understanding than as 
 that faculty may be exercised in the habits 
 that perpetuate them. No religionist, save 
 the Christian, can give a reason for the hope 
 that is within him. The prevailing temper of 
 the preacher who denounces idolatry, should 
 be pity ; not the spurious compassion that 
 looks down upon its object from a platform of 
 superiority, but the pity of Jesus ; the tender- 
 ness of the elder brother for a younger ; the 
 pity that men call weakness, the charity that 
 
172 SERMON XII. 
 
 beareth all things. It burned in Christ's 
 heart when he shed tears over Jerusalem ; in 
 Paul's heart when he wept over backsliders. 
 Pray earnestly and constantly that the spirit 
 of love may pervade your addresses to the 
 heathen. It will expand your exhortations, 
 it will lay your intellect, your acquisitions, 
 and all your appliances under tribute; and 
 draw them into one strain of irresistible per- 
 suasion to induce men to be reconciled to 
 God. It is hard to love those who hate God 
 and you ; it is hard to pursue a sinner, espe- 
 cially the phlegmatic and deceitful Hindu, 
 through his contemptible defences of himself 
 and of what he believes ; to endure the in- 
 difference of a conscience which every truth 
 fails to disturb ; to contend with your own 
 doubts as to whether God himself can bring 
 such a mind to the knowledge of the truth ; 
 and when you have succeeded so far as to 
 produce an apparent impression, and have 
 followed it up by careful and anxious teach- 
 ing, how painful, how sickening to find in the 
 end, that what you mistook for a conviction of 
 the truth, was a trick practised upon your 
 credulity ! Endure the hardness of returning 
 from false ground, and fighting your battles 
 over again. You leave the enemy dead upon 
 the field, as you imagine ; but while you are 
 
A GOOD SOLDIEE OF JESUS CHRIST. 173 
 
 chanting your victory song, he revives, and 
 renews the attack ! There is perhaps no 
 duty in the missionary's career that makes so 
 urgent a demand upon his valour, as the en- 
 durance of exertions consequent upon failure 
 and disappointment. It resembles bush fight- 
 ing, where the soldier must ever be on the 
 alert ; for at any moment he may be laid low 
 by an unseen hand, and can seldom strike a 
 blow himself. Prepare for this species of 
 reverse; remember that the battle is not 
 yours, but the Lord's. Your efforts may 
 appear to yourself to go but a little way, but 
 you are not answerable for results, you are 
 answerable only for courage, zeal, and fidelity. 
 See that you fail not ; leave all consequences 
 with God. Be you ever so successful, it is not 
 by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of 
 , the Lord, that the engagement is to prosper, 
 and the field to be won. The fight is a fight 
 of faith : take your confidence, not from ap- 
 pearances, but from promises which are yea 
 and amen. Strive to realize the presence of 
 Him who goes before you with the two-edged 
 sword and the undrooping arm; glue one 
 hand to the banner of the cross and the other 
 to the weapon of the Spirit : quit you like a 
 man, be strong ; so shall the enemy flee be- 
 fore you, and his strongholds tremble ! 
 
174 SERMON XII. 
 
 But other trials await you in the actual 
 fight. You begin your career in a critical 
 time. It seems to me that conflicts of no 
 ordinary severity await the Indian missionary. 
 There has been for a long time a silent under- 
 mining of the native religions of this country ; 
 and the work has advanced with uncommon 
 rapidity during the last two years. The peo- 
 ple are becoming thoroughly awakened to the 
 dangers that threaten their faith, their cus- 
 toms, their venerated institutions. Eecent 
 disturbances are symptoms of a profound an- 
 tagonism, and must awaken anxiety in the 
 mind of every missionary. An open declara- 
 tion of the gospel in the presence of the 
 heathen is no longer the quiet task our 
 fathers found it ; it cannot now be boldly 
 made, without risk ; and this risk may grow 
 more perilous. If you would fulfil your min- 
 istry faithfully, you must not only part with 
 your convenience, but often expose the se- 
 curity of your person or dwelling ; nay, be 
 subject to a more terrible class of perils, the 
 scorn of pride, and the misrepresentations of 
 malice. Woe be unto you if you shun danger, 
 when danger lies between you and perishing 
 souls. He that loveth his life shall lose it; 
 he that loses his life for Christ's sake shall 
 find it unto life eternal. If you are con- 
 
A GOOD SOLDIEE OF JESUS CHRIST. 175 
 
 scious of timidity in the presence of Hindus, 
 and are tempted to soften the strictness of 
 your message in order to make your errand 
 easy and safe, to cry peace when God has 
 not spoken peace, deplore before the Almighty 
 Judge a weakness that may ruin your soul. 
 Forget yourself in this high calling. What 
 matter if you or I shoald be called to suffer 
 for Jesus : we have no personal importance 
 whatever : our life is only worth preserving 
 as long as it can render any service to Christ. 
 The subject that fills our thoughts, and awakens 
 our care and solicitude should be Christ and 
 not self. Self we have long ago dedicated to 
 Him, and He is able to keep it, and will Him- 
 self answer for its well being. That which 
 you must look well to is the trust committed 
 to you ; to bear the gospel of Redeeming love 
 to the heathen. It matters not when or in 
 what manner you are called to lay it down ; 
 it may be early in your career, or late ; it may 
 be violently in an outburst of persecution ; it 
 may be peaceably in your own house ; it may 
 be suddenly in the midst of hopeful labour ; 
 it may be lingeringly in the furnace of slow 
 disease. What matters it ? God will never 
 lay you aside, until He can do without you. 
 Go with this confidence, and execute your 
 trust. What can man do unto you ? Yours 
 
176 SERMON XII. 
 
 is a charmed life until you have finished your 
 work. Think frequently with yourself when 
 you are preaching to the heathen, " This word 
 is not mine, but Jehovah's who has sent me ; 
 my soul contains it and my mouth gives it 
 forth ; I am simply accountable for the fidelity 
 with which I deliver it." This reflection, habi- 
 tually cherished, will give authority to your 
 word, and a holy fortitude to your spirit. 
 God can bring strength out of weakness ; the 
 feeblest and most timid soldier of His army 
 may become by faith a hero, and laugh at 
 impossibilities ! 
 
 Let me say in conclusion, prepare your- 
 self for no ordinary career. You will be a 
 great success or a great failure. You may 
 pass a quiet, respectable, and well-reputed 
 life, among men, and God may be ashamed of 
 you; or you may live without notice, — ob- 
 scure, afflicted, and despised, and be the glory 
 of Christ. While the Master gives you work 
 to do, do it thoroughly, unflinchingly, and 
 with high conscientiousness. Preach the word; 
 be instant in season, out of season. Watch in 
 all things, endure afflictions,* do the work of an 
 evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. And 
 when the chief Shepherd shall appear, thou shalt 
 receive a crown of glory thatfadeth not away. 
 
SEBMON XIII. 
 
 1 Peter iii. 8. 
 " Be courteous." 
 
 There is no feature of the Christian system 
 that so impressively attests its divine birth as 
 the universality of its provisions. The more 
 liberally we study it, the more clearly it dis- 
 covers the comprehensiveness as well as the 
 truth of Nature herself. Other forms of sacred 
 belief contemplate but a partial development 
 of the human character ; and as the religious 
 feelings are the most imperious of our sen- 
 timents, it follows that, when thus excited by 
 a narrow faith, they distort the mind ; bring- 
 ing out some of its powers, and depressing 
 others. In Hinduism he is esteemed the per- 
 fect man who can endure the most for religion ; 
 in Mohammedanism, he who can do the most. 
 Both heroes disdain ordinary virtues. The 
 devotee of Siva scourges and starves himself 
 in the wilderness ; the Mussulman, if the 
 Prophet gives him an opportunity, rushes into 
 the field and takes the life of the infidel or 
 loses his own : but each will violate truth and 
 
 N 
 
178 SERMON XIII. 
 
 honesty; and contemn that genuine love of 
 onr kind which is the parent of friendship, 
 fidelity, courtesy, and their kindred amenities. 
 Christianity has been charged with the 
 same one-sidedness, the same encouragement 
 of the heroic virtues, to the prejudice of the 
 common and more necessary morals of life. 
 But this accusation has been preferred by 
 those who have studied her parties instead of 
 her doctrines. It must be granted that the 
 annals of Christian sects exhibit shocking 
 pictures of infirmity and crime. We blush to 
 think of the malignity, the ambition, the 
 hypocrisy, the bigotry, and the lust, which 
 have so often polluted the fame and darkened 
 the vicissitudes of the visible Christian church. 
 But such evils are not due to the religion 
 of Jesus; they have sprung from the Bra- 
 minism and Mohammedanism of Christian 
 professors, from the ascetic and voluptuary 
 elements which share between them the vota- 
 ries of every false faith. During the ages in 
 which a corrupted priesthood used the church 
 as a carnal instrument to advance their order, 
 only such doctrines of religion were published 
 as, by an easy perversion, excused the enor- 
 mous impositions of the clergy. Under this 
 administration the gentler, the diviner features 
 of our blessed faith were veiled, while its 
 
BE COURTEOUS. 179 
 
 sterner qualities were invested with a rigour 
 they were never intended to assume. If 
 mercy appeared, it was to licence indulgence ; 
 if judgment, it was to wait upon ambition ; 
 if jealousy was awakened for the defence of 
 the truth, it was to imprison it; if zeal to 
 maintain the discipline of the church, it was 
 to execute plans of revenge. Those who have 
 classed the doctrines and rites of the gospel 
 with the abominations of paganism, have gene- 
 rally been indebted for their impressions to 
 Popery. But behold Christianity as she rises 
 from the grave of her humiliation, clothed in 
 the pure vestment of truth, with every feature 
 in natural symmetry, and every grace visible ! 
 Is she not the King's daughter, all glorious 
 within ? 
 
 There is one property which is the original 
 distinction of the religion of Jesus. Founded 
 on love, the doctrines of the Cross produce 
 love to God and love to man. This is not the 
 sentiment of other faiths. Their connecting 
 principle is an attachment to a local creed and 
 a particular people. Christianity has no pre- 
 scribed home ; is the peculiar heritage of no 
 nation. It is true she prevails in some lands, 
 and scarcely touches others ; but this is the 
 incidental partiality of progress ; like the be- 
 ginning of the sun's march, whose first foot- 
 
 N 2 
 
180 SERMON XIII. 
 
 prints are seen in the east, when the yet un- 
 visited west is in the dark. Christianity is 
 the necessity of mankind, and the system is 
 traversing the race to make that race one 
 family. You may trace to its influence every 
 movement whose aim is to make men and 
 nations touch each other. Christian doctrines 
 and predictions are abroad; they are ex- 
 pounded and proclaimed under different names 
 by every school of patriotism and politics ; the 
 monarchist and the republican, the deist and 
 the missionary, profess to dissolve antipathies 
 and to make all men brothers. Let a man's 
 opinions be what they may, take him from 
 Peru or Japan, from Europe or from India, he 
 will confess that a union of the hearts of all 
 men would realize his idea of the millenium ; 
 for this is the simple voice of human nature. 
 In Christian countries this voice has become a 
 principle, an opinion ; and the most strenuous 
 efforts are being made to facilitate transit from 
 land to land, and intercourse between people 
 and people. The steamer, the railway, the 
 telegraph, are so many protests against dis- 
 union: and they utter a glorious resolution, that 
 oceans and hills, languages and faiths, castes 
 and feuds, shall no longer divide brethren; 
 that hostilities shall cease, that bigotry shall 
 die, that war shall exchange his sword for the 
 
BE COURTEOUS. 181 
 
 ploughshare, and his spear for the pruning- 
 hook. 
 
 These demonstrations for union are the 
 necessary result of the Christian doctrine that 
 man should love man, and of the Christian 
 prediction that man will love man. Our 
 nature answers to them, every human being 
 feels that they are true : but we feel also that 
 as Christianity originated them, Christianity 
 only can accomplish them ; we feel, let it not 
 be in a boastful spirit, that the possibility of 
 the world's union rests with us. The deist, 
 the politician, and some other philanthropists, 
 have adopted the idea, and they exhibit it and 
 ask support for it as their offspring ; but they 
 can do nothing with it upon any principles of 
 their own : were every man a deist, or a mere 
 patriot, it would die. It wants an agency 
 commensurate with its aim ; and such a power 
 is furnished by the omnipotent Spirit who 
 dwells in the hearts of Christians, and gives 
 efficacy to Christian operations; and the ground 
 upon which He works out the idea, will con- 
 vince any one who considers it that no other 
 method could possibly accomplish the union of 
 all hearts. 
 
 He finds us divided; distributed into 
 peoples, nations, and tongues ; He goes down 
 through the conventional separations of dis- 
 
182 SERMON XIII. 
 
 tance, language, color, and caste, to the basis 
 of this division ; He finds it in selfishness, the 
 simple result of a divorce from God. When 
 man could no longer trust his Maker, his mind 
 made a stay of itself; clung to its own re- 
 sources with the tenacious eagerness and 
 jealousy of him who grasps a last prop. Of 
 all that contributed to self he became covet- 
 ous ; of all that was alien to it, suspicious ; 
 and to retain his control of it, he closed up 
 the originally noble sympathies of his soul, and 
 grew reserved, deceitful, cruel. Brotherhood 
 was gone ; no two men so affected could live 
 together, unless each imagined that himself 
 would derive an advantage from the connec- 
 tion; and mutual selfishness would be the 
 tacit bond of the union. Thus were men 
 driven asunder, banded into tribes and peo- 
 ples ; and mountains rose between them, and 
 oceans bore them to different shores, and 
 localities gave them different names and 
 different interests : strangers were enemies, 
 and that which should have been a visit was 
 an invasion ; and war, selfish, bloody war was 
 born, and became an inmate of men's hearts ; 
 and man armed himself with weapons, and 
 strengthened his home with bulwarks to 
 defend himself against his brother ! 
 
 Now the ground upon which the Spirit of 
 
BE COURTEOUS. 183 
 
 Christ unites men is the primal bond of their 
 relationship to God. He does not explain 
 away their antipathies by teaching them that 
 they are the children of one Father and ought 
 to love as brethren ; He does not propose that 
 they should learn each other's language, ex- 
 change each other's produce, and visit each 
 other's country. These are the lessons of the 
 philanthropist, whose theories are founded 
 upon our common birth and common rights ; 
 but the Spirit of Christianity restores a higher 
 bond before He enforces this secondary union. 
 He joins men where their separation from each 
 other began ; He draws them to God first ; — 
 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself. This 
 holy and re-uniting passion is awakened at 
 the Cross ; and when man stands before that 
 image of himself, and learns that it is the 
 humiliation of God, a shame into which His 
 love for lost and scattered men prompted Him 
 to descend ; when he learns that the Creator 
 whose authority he had renounced, whose curse 
 he had merited, was the first to propose recon- 
 ciliation, and that to negotiate and effect it He 
 had made himself human, and was hanging 
 there in the place of those He had condemned, 
 so illustrious an example of love subdues his 
 selfish heart ; and by the help of the blessed 
 
184 SERMON XIII. 
 
 Spirit who opened his eyes upon that sight, 
 he restores to his Maker a lost affection and 
 a lost trust, and pledges them by a second 
 covenant unspeakably more binding than the 
 first. 
 
 The man who so loves God must give hand 
 and heart to his fellow. He has no motive to 
 refuse them ; he cannot fear, therefore he has 
 no suspicion; he will not covet, for he has 
 ceased to live for himself; he cannot desert, 
 for the law of love and the example of the 
 Cross make him, insensibly, his brother's 
 keeper, and the two become one in interest, in 
 right, in destiny. 
 
 That this destruction of selfishness is the 
 leading design of Christianity, and that it is 
 the experience of all who are brought under 
 its power, may be proved by the following pas- 
 sages from the New Testament; — Ye are not 
 your own : for ye are bought until a 'price. He 
 died for all, that they which live should not 
 henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him 
 which died for them and rose again. None of 
 us liveth unto himself ; — whether we live, we 
 live unto the Lord : and whether we die, we die 
 unto the Lord. Hereby perceive we the love of 
 God, because he laid down His life for us : and 
 we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 
 This surrender of ourselves for the advantage 
 
BE COURTEOUS. 185 
 
 of others, which can only be practised under 
 the operation of Christian influence, is re- 
 garded in all creeds, and by all men, as the 
 highest human virtue. Its aspect is so charm- 
 ing that all men reverence and assume it. 
 They observe its forms and speak its language; 
 they designate it good-breeding, politeness, 
 complaisance, courtesy. Yisit an assembly. 
 How the members of the party appear to defer 
 to each other, as if every one preferred the 
 honor and comfort of his neighbour to his 
 own ! The kindest, the gentlest words in the 
 language circulate there ; and although each 
 person knows that the other cannot mean what 
 he says, it affects not the apparent harmony 
 of society : and the behaviour can hardly be 
 called a deception, for no one can be deceived 
 where all know and tacitly permit the cheat. 
 In fact, the language and attitude of courtesy 
 are the bonds of society. What a splendid 
 testimony this to courtesy itself ! If the world 
 does homage to its likeness, if men make 
 its images their household-gods, with what re- 
 spect should we gaze upon, with what eager- 
 ness should we seek to possess, the original ! 
 Genuine courtesy is the aspect of brotherly 
 love, and our meek and lowly Master, who 
 knew the world perfectly, has affirmed that 
 courtesy shall win the world to the acknow- 
 
186 SERMON XIII. 
 
 ledgment of the truth. " By this shall all 
 men know that ye are my disciples if ye love 
 one another." The world can only judge of 
 Christian love by its courtesy ; it cannot look 
 within our hearts ; it cannot be admitted to 
 our communion ; its blunt understanding can 
 only appreciate a palpable manifestation of 
 love ; and this is courtesy. The world knows 
 that its own politeness is a show, that courtesy 
 is a mash which every man takes down and 
 puts on when he leaves his chamber. The 
 meaning of our Lord's words appears to be 
 this, if the men of the world could see a 
 courtesy, simple, natural, sincere, the fruit of 
 brotherly love, it would be convinced that God 
 must be its author ; that the wisdom which is 
 " pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be intreated, 
 full of mercy and good fruits, without par- 
 tiality and without hypocrisy," must be from 
 above. 
 
 Christian brethren ! I address those in 
 whose hands is the argument which shall 
 bring the world to the truth. You may be 
 orthodox, earnest, prayerful, and active; you 
 must be all this if you are the people of Glod ; 
 but the world will not care for your doctrines, 
 and your fervour they will pronounce en- 
 thusiasm : be pitiful, be courteous, love as 
 brethren, and the world will understand you, 
 
BE COURTEOUS. 187 
 
 and glorify God in you. Christians have 
 departed from this rule. We have been apt 
 to make Christianity an object of dread to the 
 world ; we have too much concealed her gentle 
 forgiving spirit behind a formidable array of 
 dogmas, institutes, and orders ; we have made 
 the walls of Zion bristle with exactions and 
 warnings, as if it were a city besieged, instead 
 of a city of refuge ; as if it were intended to 
 keep men out, instead of inviting them in. 
 It is not meant that there should be any com- 
 promise of law, any relaxation of discipline. 
 For the church is an establishment and there 
 must be order; she has enemies and must 
 defend herself. But we insist that since her 
 mission to the world is a mission of love, this 
 feature should beam upon those that are 
 without. If the obstinacy and wickedness of 
 sinners compel us to announce the judgments 
 of heaven, let this ungracious task be a mis- 
 sion of tears. Let us weep with the broken- 
 hearted Redeemer when He pronounced a 
 curse on Jerusalem. 
 
 Christians have also erred in this respect 
 in their intercourse with each other. The 
 reason is to be found in the low state of our 
 personal godliness. We cannot manifest the 
 courtesy of religion unless we have the love 
 of Christ. I do not mean a conviction that we 
 
188 SEEMON XIII. 
 
 ought to possess it, but the emotion itself. 
 Where this love exists, it resembles a nervous, 
 darting, impatient light. If the senator has it, 
 it is apt to throw a gleam over his speeches 
 and measures ; if it burns within the heart of 
 the merchant, it lights up his transactions, 
 and impresses the nature of God even upon 
 the unspiritual enterprises of commerce ; its 
 testimony is never equivocal, its witness is 
 never dumb. 
 
 What hurt does Christianity receive from 
 those whose character gives an uncertain 
 sound ! Who, when they speak to them that 
 are without, are proud, selfish, exacting, and 
 irritable ; who deal out kind words as a miser 
 circulates his money, by single coins, and then 
 with a tolerable certainty of receiving them 
 back with usury ; who address their servants 
 as if they were cattle, and their equals as if 
 they were enemies ; who fill up the pauses of 
 life with uncharitable gossip, instead of prayer 
 and deeds of charity ; who seem not to have 
 a suspicion that they were born to suffer and 
 to serve ; to exhibit the patience, gentleness, 
 humility, and courtesy of Jesus ; to have 
 words of love for all, for the meanest. How 
 different His spirit who said, Learn of Me, for 
 I am meek and lowly in heart. None knew 
 the human heart so profoundly as He ; none 
 
BE COURTEOUS. 189 
 
 looked upon it so pitifully. How patiently He 
 endured the hatred and violence of enemies ; 
 with how meek a silence He bowed to the 
 unkindness, ingratitude, and treachery of pro- 
 fessed friends ! He never uttered an un- 
 charitable word, was never surprised into a 
 hasty expression : He preached, exemplified, 
 and died for, a religion of love. When His 
 followers are more thoroughly imbued with 
 love, and manifest its purity, patience, and 
 courtesy in the details of every day life, then 
 the blessed doctrines of the Cross will be 
 clothed with a new and practical power, that 
 shall compel an admiration for their beauty, 
 an acknowledgment of their necessity, and 
 ultimately the adoption and reign of their 
 principles. 
 
SERMON XIY. 
 
 Matt. xv. 8. 
 " Their heart is far from me." 
 
 Of those results of sin that afflict human 
 society, the loss of honesty is the most affect- 
 ing and disastrous. All men were first made 
 to be brothers, haying one heart in common 
 and a transparent intercourse. The structure 
 of our minds and the nature and capacity of 
 our sympathies were fashioned for truthful- 
 ness of conversation and unsuspecting trust. 
 The lie is not an original offspring of the mind ; 
 it is not like covetousness, intemperance, and 
 many other sins, the abuse of primitive in- 
 stincts ; it is a perversion, at once devilish and 
 unnatural, of the ordinary channels of expres- 
 sion, consequent upon a craven fear of each 
 other engendered by the father of lies. "When 
 he speaketh a lie," says our Saviour, with His 
 exact knowledge, " he speaketh of his own" 
 
 As a proof that a lie is a sort of prodigy in 
 vice, its tendency is to break up society, 
 and were it thoroughly to prevail, intercourse 
 would be at an end. Men are compelled to 
 
THEIR HEART IS EAR FROM ME. 191 
 
 be true in their transactions, if there be little 
 truth in their heart. Public confidence is the 
 cement of communities, and public courtesy* 
 smoothes the inequalities and irritations of 
 society. We cannot live together without the 
 forms of truthfulness, without drawing near 
 unto each other with our mouth and honor- 
 ing each other with our lips. Moreover, how 
 universally the lie is disowned ! A falsehood 
 inflicts a deadlier wound upon a man's cha- 
 racter, than almost any other crime ; and 
 " liar " is perhaps the most dreaded blot in 
 the pollutions of infamy. A person may be 
 intemperate and immoral, yet pass for a man 
 of honor ; but so largely do the pleasures and 
 advantages of intercourse depend upon out- 
 ward truthfulness, that he is denied the inner 
 circles of friendship whose word is known to 
 be insecure. There is another consideration 
 that helps to brand the man who stoops to be 
 false. Manliness, or the becoming dignity of 
 a human being, is supposed to consist in the 
 courage to hazard all for the truth ; to speak 
 it out and to maintain it. To be untrue is to 
 be base. 
 
 But is it not a painful thought that this 
 homage to truth is commonly little more than 
 expediency to serve the purposes of compact 
 
 * See Sermon xiii. 
 
192 SERMON XIV. 
 
 between man and man. I do not mean that 
 all who tell the trnth reckon upon the profit 
 of it : but habits of truth-doing and forms of 
 truth-speaking have descended to us and enter 
 into the formation of society carrying no heart 
 with them ; for how true it is, and let us look 
 boldly at the fact, that the conversation of men, 
 tricked out with every variety of polite expres- 
 sion, is unreal ; not the voice of the soul, but 
 the voice of the symbol. We have an excel- 
 lent stock of smooth greetings, and affecting 
 farewells ; of touching condolences, and gene- 
 rous felicitations ; but the heart is far from 
 them. We rarely, if ever, intend mischief; 
 but we do not mean all we say, nor feel all we 
 mean. The expression is often the reverse of 
 the sentiment ; and so subtle is the operation 
 of deceit, that when, for the time, we believed 
 in our own sincerity, a little reflection after- 
 wards convinced us that we were only acting 
 a part. 
 
 Now every man is apt to try another by 
 the possibilities or experiences of his own 
 nature ; and believing that his fellow does the 
 same by him, each tries to surpass the other 
 in the arts of deception ; and this rivalry pro- 
 duces imitations of genuineness so exquisitely 
 fine, that it is impossible to detect the counter- 
 feit. Thus, Every man walketh in a vain shew, 
 
THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME. 193 
 
 and, All the world's a stage. In commerce, in 
 diplomacy, and in the contests of war and liti- 
 gation, dissembling is an accomplishment : it 
 is provoked by competition, and verily, it lias 
 its reward : but, alas ! men cannot leave it 
 behind them when they quit these stormier 
 scenes for the retreats of life. Hypocrisy sur- 
 rounds us like an atmosphere : in the draw- 
 ing-room, in the friendly circle, wherever we 
 are gathered together, for whatever purpose, 
 there is a deplorable masking of the heart. 
 Every one feels it; every one professes to 
 mourn it ; every one contributes to it. We 
 meditate no deceit ; but the artificial signs of 
 kindness and truth that we find in use, we 
 adopt : for the avowal of the heart is forbidden 
 and almost impossible ; and before we are 
 aware of it, we discover ourselves repeating 
 the speeches of a stage-piece. Our hearts are 
 far from each other. 
 
 All these observations apply to the civilized 
 and improving portions of the human race ; 
 but they very imperfectly describe the untruth- 
 fulness of illiterate nations, where vices are 
 not checked by law, and where the rule of 
 self-preservation is cunning. In attempting 
 to convert the Hindus, our most formidable 
 adversary is hypocrisy. They lock up their 
 heart. We can evoke no true expression of 
 
 o 
 
194 SERMON XIV. 
 
 what takes place there. When we attempt to 
 raise them, everything seems to give way 
 nnder us : their honesty supplies no fulcrum 
 by which we may move and lift them. The 
 predominance of falsehood is the distinction of 
 Eastern nations and the remoter tribes of the 
 South Seas. Men get further from each other 
 as they recede further from God. 
 
 Such is the human race : a family for the 
 most part without truth, each one appearing 
 to the rest other than he is ; without confi- 
 dence, without unity; among whom life, in- 
 stead of being a fair game upon acknowledged 
 principles of playing, is a trick, a sleight of 
 hand, and stratagem wins the prize. This is 
 a dark picture ; but do not misunderstand me. 
 I look upon the world, the large house of 
 God's family; and you, perhaps, are in the 
 midst of a select chamber where hearts are 
 true and friendships staunch : but come 
 with me to less favoured apartments : mingle 
 with men when they mass together. Mark 
 the steps by which they advance in their 
 profession or business ; watch them when 
 they confer a favour, when they supplant a 
 rival, when they conclude a bargain ; closely 
 observe them in concert, from congresses 
 to cabinets, from parliaments to vestries. 
 Where is the frank attire of natural expres- 
 
THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME. 195 
 
 sion ? Where is honest speaking and earnest 
 disinterested work? Rarely indeed shining 
 out from a dark complication of jealousies, 
 overreachings, misunderstandings, and re- 
 sentments. 
 
 Amid this desolate separation of hearts, 
 however, which makes us say in our haste, all 
 men are liars, there is one haven in which a 
 man may generally anchor his troubled faith, 
 and where he may rest his aching sight upon 
 unaffected expressions, and his heart upon 
 honest love. It is a happiness, the greatest 
 earth can afford, that after contending with 
 the outside world, wearied by the unceasing 
 vigilance with which we are obliged to walk a 
 path so full of snares, we can retreat to our 
 own home. There at least a man is under- 
 stood. The glance of his children is genuine. 
 There the caress, the pressure of greeting, is 
 the welcome of a full heart : the smile is no 
 flattery there, the tear no display, the obedi- 
 ence no purchase. There heart comes forth 
 to meet heart; and no longer frozen by the 
 presence of the stranger, they overflow into 
 each other; and amid the music of words 
 that cannot lie, and the brightness of looks 
 that want no construing; amid services that 
 ask no reasons and expect no rewards, 
 a man gives himself up to sweet forget- 
 
 o 2 
 
196 SEEMON XIV. 
 
 fulness of care and the dark and stormy 
 world without ; 
 
 The social hours, swift- winged, unnoticed fleet. 
 
 But imagine, if you * can, that your home 
 instead of being the asylum of simplicity, in- 
 nocence, and honest love, were a theatre for 
 dramatic exhibitions ; that instead of meeting 
 there with glad and confiding hearts, you were 
 received with parade ! Suppose that your very 
 children had an unnatural fear of you, a fear 
 that made them deceitful ; that in spite of the 
 fullest revelations of your own heart, they did 
 not, could not, understand you ! Suppose that 
 you yourself felt a parent's true and passionate 
 regard ; you evince it by a tender nurture ; 
 but your children, your own children, are un- 
 moved ! The kiss of their lips is a show ; 
 their little clasp a ceremony. You watch them 
 when they are together, and the merry laugh 
 rings out, and caressses, sympathies and out- 
 spoken words, denied to you, are exchanged 
 without reserve and without measure; but 
 your presence is a chill ; the sound of your 
 voice arrests everything natural ; your coming 
 is a sign for artifice ; they never answer with 
 an improper word, they run to do your wishes, 
 but it is with a studied alacrity. You give 
 them presents, you impress warm kisses upon 
 
THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME. 197 
 
 them, you indulge and pet them, you use 
 every means to get near their hearts ; you 
 want a simple expression addressed to you 
 from your own child ; your soul yearns for it ; 
 be it love, be it anger, anything real. But 
 these deceptions kill you ! The smile withers, 
 the kiss takes away your breath ! you look for 
 your child not in its form, beautifully moulded 
 though that be, but in the heart that closes 
 itself against you. You are worse than child- 
 less. For a son, a daughter, upon whose 
 infancy you gazed with the delicious reverie of 
 a parent's newly-enriched heart, for your chil- 
 dren to unfold the beautiful blossoms of their 
 growth, only to discover the adder of hypoc- 
 risy coiled up in the core of their being, hiding 
 a devilish fang beneath the blandishments 
 of a caress ! I will not describe the anguish 
 with which a father so stricken and isolated 
 will retire into himself, realizing the bitter 
 words of Job, They that divell in my house 
 count me for a stranger : my breath is strange 
 unto my children, for their heart is far 
 from me. 
 
 If ye then, being evil, know what to expect 
 from your children, and shrink from an un- 
 natural picture of childhood without a heart 
 and without truth, how much more shall our 
 heavenly Father be wounded when within the 
 
198 SERMON XIV. 
 
 circle of His family he receives the honor of 
 the lips only ! That He has the views, expec- 
 tations, and feelings of a parent admits of 
 no donbt, for the Lord hath spoken, I have 
 nourished and brought up children, and they 
 have rebelled against me. If then I be a father, 
 where is mine honor ? Now God has an onter 
 world, and He has also a place of which He 
 has said, " This is my rest for ever : here will 
 I dwell; for I have desired it." The people 
 of the wide earth know Him not ; and when 
 His eye wanders over the millions of heathen- 
 dom, He expects misunderstanding, coldness, 
 and deceit. His gospel has not been preached, 
 His Spirit has not striven, there. He is grieved 
 and vexed at the stiff-necked nations, and He 
 will in the end draw them unto Himself ; but 
 they at present offer Him no retreat, His 
 tabernacle is not among them. He dwells 
 in His church. Here His will is read and 
 honored ; His son is acknowledged ; His com- 
 mands obeyed. He loves His house, beautiful 
 for situation, the joy of the whole earth; He 
 loves His people ; and His joy is to see them 
 walk in the light of His countenance. 
 
 But it is here, in His own family, that He 
 utters the lamentation, Their heart is far from 
 Me ! It is here that he has detected the cheap 
 reverence of a bended knee, and the loathsome 
 
THEIR HEAET IS FAR FROM ME. 199 
 
 incense of unmeaning praise ! Consider the 
 wound you inflict upon God the Son, when 
 with what seems to be a penitent glance, you 
 look up, and join in an appeal to His passion 
 and death, while your heart at the very 
 moment is musing far away. He brings you 
 a pure and ardent love ; you repay Him with 
 studied gestures, and set phrases of respect. 
 His approach to you is the eager meeting of a 
 Father in haste to be gracious. You draw 
 near with your mouth only, and make the in- 
 terview a jest ! You may disclaim an evil 
 purpose; there may be no intention to offer 
 an affront ; and were you a stranger in the 
 house, insincerity, or mere speech-reverence 
 would be expected and overlooked; but you 
 say, Our Father, without a child's heart ! You, 
 who look for sincerity in your own children, 
 and, if it were denied you, would be the most 
 inconsolable of mortals ! But you think 
 the analogy halts ; that the position of our 
 heavenly Father with regard to His children 
 is not precisely similar to yours. If it be not, 
 it is because there are considerations that 
 render the instance of His example infinitely 
 more pathetic and distressing. He has done 
 more for you as a Father, than you can ever 
 do for your own family ; His love is stronger, 
 wiser, more lively, more prone to sacrifice, 
 
200 SERMON XIV. 
 
 than any parental affection : His right to obedi- 
 ence is more authoritative than any earthly 
 father's claims ; and He has a keener a more 
 poignant consciousness of the hurt inflicted 
 by deception, as well as a more intense abhor- 
 rence of its wickedness, than you can have. 
 We cannot wonder that among the threaten- 
 ings of the word of God, the most terrible 
 shaft should be levelled against the hypocrite ; 
 that sins of this class should be more hateful 
 to the Holy One than errors of faith or excesses 
 of appetite. Knowest thou not this of old, since 
 man was placed upon earth, that the joy of the 
 hypocrite is but for a moment ? You will re- 
 member that on the two or three occasions 
 during His ministry in which the deeply tran- 
 quil spirit of Jesus was flushed for a moment 
 with indignation, showing a spark of the wrath 
 of the Lamb, His anger was kindled by the 
 smooth-lipped Pharisee, who carried an asp 
 under his tongue. All classes knew that He 
 was gracious, except the generation of vipers 
 who concealed every species of baseness be- 
 neath the folds of a sacred profession. This 
 same Jesus has taught us when we pray, to 
 say, Our Father ! Let us never again repeat 
 it with a cold and distant heart. Sincerity is 
 obviously the first law of prayer. Let us, in 
 the words of Jeremiah, lift up our heart with 
 
THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME. 201 
 
 our hands unto God in the heavens. And 
 in ways as well as in words let there be 
 warmth, transparency, and love. Our spirits 
 are ever liable to withdraw from the form of 
 duty, leaving it a dead work; but let us 
 check this tendency to lifelessness by looking 
 unto Jesus, whose inspiration shall pervade, 
 sanctify, and prosper all our service. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 Rev. iii. 14, 15, 16. 
 
 " And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans 
 write : These things saith the Amen, the faithful 
 and true witness, the beginning of the creation of 
 God; I know thy ivorks that thou art neither 
 cold nor hot : I ivould thou ivert cold or hot. So 
 then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold 
 nor hot, I ivill spue thee out of my mouth.'" 
 
 You will have learned from the lesson that 
 this is the language of Jesus Christ to one of 
 the seven churches. You will be able to recall 
 the circumstance that each of the seven epistles 
 addressed to them, is prefaced by an enunci- 
 ation of some of the titles and distinctions 
 that naturally designate or properly reward 
 the Captain of our Salvation. To the church 
 at Pergamos He is the avenger of wrong, 
 grasping the two-edged sword. To the church 
 at Thyatira which had been nearly devoured 
 by the hypocrisy and seductions of Jezebel, He 
 subscribes Himself, the Son of God, with eyes 
 like unto a flaming fire, penetrating and con- 
 suming saintly profession, shooting to the 
 reins of the heart, bringing everything to light 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 203 
 
 and to proof. You may perceive that these 
 and similar titles in the salutation of each 
 epistle, indicate the character of the message 
 transmitted. It is remarkably so in the letter 
 to the Laodicean Christians. Against this 
 church, the Lord is about to utter a deep 
 complaint of wrong done to Himself; of that 
 species of offence which men, in dread of 
 the infamy attached to it, are most careful to 
 avoid, the violation of oaths, the perjury of 
 the heart : He was about to charge His own 
 people, the children of light, with deeds which 
 the children of this world brand as a reproach 
 to our nature. He opens the accusation there- 
 fore with an appropriate and impressive solem- 
 nity. These things saith the Amen, the faithful 
 and true witness , the beginning of the creation 
 of God. The two first titles explain each 
 other. Amen signifies true, faithful, certain. 
 The Lord bears His testimony against the 
 offending church as the Amen Witness. His 
 words are not the hasty expressions of resent- 
 ment, nor the perverted representation of pre- 
 judice ; they convey the truth explicitly and 
 simply. The Laodiceans may not readily admit 
 the charge, may not be conscious of the guilt ; 
 but every accent of that charge is pronounced 
 with an Amen; and it is the Amen of Glod 
 Himself. " The beginning of the creation of 
 
204 SEEMON XV. 
 
 God," is a divine title, — the Origin of the crea- 
 tion, whose mind is the mirror in which all 
 truth is at once reflected. Let God be true and 
 every man a liar. He is justified when He 
 speaketh, and clear when He judgeth. 
 
 We have now to consider that part of the 
 Laodicean letter which contains a complaint, 
 and a threatening. 
 
 I. I know thy works that thou art neither 
 cold nor hot : I would thou wert cold or hot. 
 
 These words derive their force from a pe- 
 culiar covenant under which Christ and the 
 Laodiceans were united. It was a bond sur- 
 passing in tenderness and in sacramental 
 authority the holiest and closest earthly fellow- 
 ship. The union between Christ and His dis- 
 ciple is composed of every element that can 
 bind two persons together, and possesses these 
 elements in an infinitely perfect degree. It 
 comprehends the indentures of servitude, the 
 covenants of friendship, the blood of family, 
 and the mysterious betrothment of mar- 
 riage ; everything that is ardent in passion, 
 authoritative in obligation, and binding in law. 
 Passing over that exquisite drama of love, 
 Solomon's Song, where the doubts, the dejec- 
 tions, and the extacies of that passion are 
 painted with a fidelity that gives it the highest 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 205 
 
 place among this class of compositions, let me 
 select from Hosea,* an avowal of Christ's 
 attachment to the believer, "I will betroth 
 thee unto me for ever; yea I will betroth 
 thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg- 
 ment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies." 
 Here is a similar disclosure from Jeremiah, t 
 "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: 
 therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn 
 thee." Such was the plighted vow and the 
 fervid declaration of Jesus to the Laodicean 
 believers ; and they had professed to return 
 the passion, " We love Him because He hath 
 first loved us. Thy vows God are upon us. 
 What shall we render unto the Lord for all His 
 benefits towards us ? Our soul thirsteth for 
 Thee, our soul followeth hard after Thee. Set 
 us as a seal upon Thine heart, as a seal upon 
 Thine arm : for love is strong as death ; many 
 waters cannot quench it." In burning words 
 like these, had the Laodicean church described 
 the kindling of their own love for Jesus. 
 
 But this is not all. We cannot know the 
 sacramental engagements that bind the be- 
 liever to Christ unless we consider the manner 
 in which they were brought together. You 
 will find an account of it condensed in the 
 words, " He first loved us." He who com- 
 
 * Chap. ii. 19. . f Chap. xxxi. 3. 
 
206 SERMON XV. 
 
 plains of the Laodiceans was- the first to love 
 them. It was not the love of an eqnal, that 
 brought with it no authority and left no debt ; 
 it yearned for an object infinitely below it ; it 
 took the form of mercy and self-sacrifice, 
 of strenuous and costly labour, of every 
 species of humiliation and suffering; it sur- 
 rendered life itself to win its purpose. The 
 Laodiceans went not after Christ ; Christ went 
 after them : He found the shadow of death 
 upon them : He descended into that shadow 
 and saw them lying, insensible and helpless, 
 within the grasp of the grim destroyer who 
 " had the power of death." No eye pitied them 
 save His, no arm but His could attempt sal- 
 vation. They were His creatures ; had been 
 convicted for treason against Himself; it was 
 not innocent misery that He pitied, it was not 
 to rescue virtue from captivity, or to vindicate 
 innocence from calumny, that He armed Him- 
 self for deeds of mercy : the souls He loved 
 were wicked, depraved, and righteously lost. 
 He would bless them that had cursed Him, He 
 would do good to them that had hated Him, 
 He would pray for them that had despitefully 
 used Him. This was the spirit in which Jesus 
 followed the Laodiceans, — prepared to save 
 them ; to put forth all the power of God to 
 justify the law that had condemned them, and 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 207 
 
 to give scope to the mercy that impatiently 
 waited to begin her work. There lay a road 
 impassable to all but Himself between Jesus 
 and lost souls. It was a road of tears and 
 blood ; it led Him through valleys of shame 
 and over mountains of labour ; it exposed Him 
 to the contradictions of sinners, to the darker 
 assaults of demons, the furies that hell sends 
 out to dog the steps of the sinner; and it 
 brought Him to the last anguish of humanity, 
 death. But no toil exhausted Him, no terror 
 chilled his resolution, no impediment shook 
 the purpose of His heart. Lost souls lay at 
 the end of His career, and lie staid not, until, 
 with vesture dipped in blood, He reached them, 
 mighty to save ; and he did save them : saved 
 these Laodiceans from the ever-blazing furnace 
 of God's wrath : lifted each soul into His arms, 
 washed it in His blood, gave it a new nature, 
 a new dress, and a new name; entered its 
 title to heaven in the Book of Life ; and the 
 recompense He sought was love : not gratitude 
 for condescension; this was too formal, too 
 cold for Him ; He demanded love for love ; not 
 merely a subject's homage, but a brother's 
 heart, a child's trust, the fond devotion of a 
 friend, passing the love of women ! Less than 
 this would be a satire upon Gethsemane and 
 Calvary ; it would be a fouler wrong than the 
 
208 SERMON XV. 
 
 mock coronation with which Herod derided 
 the majesty of the Saviour. A crown of 
 thorns from an enemy is better than a cold 
 heart from a friend. The reciprocal senti- 
 ment of a soul saved from hell, must be love ; 
 love in the highest ardour of its passion, ab- 
 sorbing all lower attachments, and inspiring 
 all other pursuits. If you think these ex- 
 pressions are too strong, look into the New 
 Testament; there I find them warranted by 
 command and proved by experience : The love 
 of Christ constraineth me. Thou shall love the 
 Lord with all thy heart. I how my knees unto 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, — that 
 Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith : that 
 ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be 
 able to comprehend with all saints what is the 
 breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 
 and to know the love of Christ, which passeth 
 knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the 
 fulness of God. As the Father hath loved me, 
 so have I loved you : continue ye in my love. 
 Love is the spring of the believer's union with 
 Christ ; his service and his joy flow from it ; 
 it is the grand distinction of his discipleship. 
 
 The Laodicean believers had allowed this 
 distinction to die out ! This was the com- 
 plaint. They had no love for Jesus. They 
 still observed the formalities of worship ; still 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 209 
 
 baptized in His name, attended the ministry of 
 His servants, and decently maintained the 
 ornaments of religion : but He tried their 
 reins ; He looked not at the prostrate knee 
 and the uplifted hand ; He searched the heart 
 of that Laodicean assembly ; He found to His 
 deep grief that He was forgotten there; He 
 had no place in their hearts, — He, who was 
 Himself all heart ; who had shed His blood to 
 save them from death ; whose life had been 
 the price of their rescue, — souls whom He 
 had betrothed for ever ; His by creative right, 
 by redemptionary purchase, by covenant oath, 
 and by love sacramentally pledged; whose 
 names were engraven on His hands, and trea- 
 sured in His heart. No love for Jesus from 
 these souls ! I know their ivories, He writes, in 
 bitter words, " and I know that they love Me 
 not ! They are not hostile to Me, they do not 
 blaspheme My name, pollute My Sabbaths, and 
 throw down My altars. But what to Me is an 
 altar, unless it be kindled with love ? Better 
 it were thrown down ! What to Me is a frigid 
 Sabbath, and the calling of an assembly with- 
 out heart ? What to Me is the spreading forth 
 of hands, unless the spirit be bowed ? What 
 to Me is the homage of gesture and voice ? 
 Better a heathen festival, than a formal Sab- 
 bath ; better the cabalistic mantrams of idol- 
 
 p 
 
210 SERMON XV. 
 
 atry, than hypocritical invocations to the true 
 Saviour. I hnow thy works that tlixm art neither 
 cold nor hot ; I would thou wert cold or hot." 
 Christ had enemies in Laodicea; they did 
 what they professed to do ; they hated Him, 
 they fought against Him ; they were naturally 
 and necessarily at enmity with Him. He had 
 never touched their hearts, and called them 
 His love and His bride. He expected to be 
 crucified by these. But what were His friends 
 doing ? Taking care of themselves ; doing as 
 much for the Lord as their safety and honor 
 permitted; avoiding extremes to escape un- 
 pleasant notice. They had families to bring 
 up, business to look after, and a civil position 
 to maintain. brethren ! to accept Jesus 
 upon conditions ! Did He take care of Him- 
 self when He went forth to serve them ? Was 
 He judicious enough to avoid extremes ? He 
 was the Son of God ; did He look after His 
 reputation ? When Peter advised Him to be 
 temperate and neutral, He replied with holy 
 indignation, Get thee behind me Satan, thou 
 art an offence unto Me. It behoves Christ to 
 suffer. For their sakes I sanctify Myself. 
 Christ abhors neutrality. For His sake we 
 must sanctify ourselves, placing ourselves at 
 His feet for time and for eternity; to live as 
 He shall choose, to acknowledge but one Lord, 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 211 
 
 to know but one service, to love but one 
 object, to do all this in extremes, that is, with 
 all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. 
 
 I hope you have not failed to apply these 
 observations. Christ writes a letter to you, 
 and He bids me read it. These things saith 
 the Amen, the faithful, and true witness, the 
 beginning of the creation of God ; I knoiv thy 
 works that thou art neither cold nor hot: 
 I would thou wert cold or hot. Is not this part 
 of the letter an exact description of us ? 
 Where are they who have lost their first love, 
 and are now living at ease in Zion ? Did you 
 in the days of your espousals love Christ too 
 ardently? Did you at that time allow Him 
 too distinguished a place in your hearts, and 
 devote to His service an improper proportion 
 of your time ? Have you been happier since 
 the ardour of your early piety abated ? You 
 are more cautious now than you were then. 
 You never used to miss an opportunity of 
 speaking for Him, of bringing honor to His 
 name, and sacrifices to His cause. Now you 
 imagine you have less time to give to these 
 things ; your attention is engaged and divided 
 by a wider range of interests. And is it well, 
 think you, that this is so ? Do you live better, 
 work better, suffer better, and can you die 
 better, than you could have done then ? You 
 
 p 2 
 
212 SERMON XV. 
 
 execrate those who violate the marriage vow ; 
 you censure the prodigal who despises the 
 filial bond ; you scorn the man who puts a lie 
 into his right hand before he grasps yours, and 
 under the mask of friendship attempts to 
 injure you ; you justify the hanging of a con- 
 spirator and the infamy that cleaves to his 
 house. What has become of your own mar- 
 riage-vow to Christ, solemnly exchanged at the 
 Gross and ratified by blood ? Your adulterous 
 heart has gone after other lords, and Jesus, 
 your rightful husband stands before you with 
 a dishonoured name ! Where is your filial 
 bond ? You have rebelled against the authority 
 of your Father's house : from disrespectful 
 and dishonourable motives you have left your 
 home and are now a wanderer without support 
 and without decency. Where is the warmth 
 and fidelity of your former friendship ? You 
 put a hand in Christ's, exclaiming, 
 
 happy day that fixed my choice 
 On Thee my Saviour and my God ; 
 
 Well may this glowing heart rejoice, 
 And tell its raptures all abroad. 
 
 What says the glowing heart now ? I will tell 
 you what Christ says of it. " He setteth up 
 his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumb- 
 ling block of his iniquity before his face. His 
 foolishness perverteth his way, and his heart 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 21o 
 
 frettetli against the Lord." What has become 
 of your loyalty to the Prince toko forgave your 
 first treason and whom in the instance of that 
 gracious clemency you swore never again to 
 offend ? You remember the promise, " I will 
 extol Thee, my God, King, and I will bless 
 Thy name for ever and ever : every day will I 
 bless Thee." Are you blessing Him to-day? 
 You say you are not His enemies. Then why 
 lounge outside the King's camp, without equip- 
 ment or position, indifferent to the marshal- 
 ling of His hosts and the trump of battle ? 
 
 II. Because thou art lukewarm, and neither 
 cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 
 
 I need not explain that there is here an 
 allusion to the nauseous effects of drinking 
 tepid water. It is the strongest language of 
 disgust and loathing. I need not tell you that 
 words of this kind were very rarely spoken by 
 Christ. On two or three occasions only did 
 the wrath of the Lamb explode in a threat. 
 He never answered His revilers; He pitied 
 and forgave those whom a censorious world 
 had judged to be beyond forgiveness ; many 
 upon whom He wrought the most signal mer- 
 cies were notoriously immoral ; and He prayed 
 for His murderers. The habitual temper of 
 His spirit was, and is, patient endurance and 
 
214 SEEMON XV. 
 
 forgiveness of injuries. When sinners had 
 placed themselves beyond the possibility of 
 redemption, He wept over them. If His mind 
 was not always happy like the sunshine, its 
 clouded sorrows concealed no thunder; they 
 were " big with mercies," and broke in bless- 
 ings upon the head of His enemies. It was an 
 extraordinary provocation indeed that made 
 Him angry ; and the offence that most sensibly 
 wounded the holy Saviour was hypocrisy. 
 The sanctimonious iniquity of the Pharisees, 
 the affected candour of the scribes, incurred 
 His heaviest rebukes. But in no passage, 
 save the text, do I recollect an expression of 
 loathing, the most emphatic species of dislike 
 of which we are capable. It is the most pain- 
 ful and incurable temper of mind that any 
 object can awaken in us. We can pacify anger, 
 we can conquer repugnance, we may moderate 
 every species of aversion, save loathing. It is 
 a feeling over which the will has no power. 
 It is as if our whole nature were involuntarily 
 ejecting the offensive object. It is not whether 
 we consent to accept it, we cannot — our senses, 
 tastes, and nerves, throw it from us. Just as 
 in the body a poisonous substance is rejected 
 by a spasmodic action of the stomach, so 
 we cast from us whatever grossly offends our 
 moral nature. There are many persons whom 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 215 
 
 we dislike, there are some who move our 
 indignation; bat there is hardly one whose 
 qualities are so repulsive as to excite loathing. 
 These observations may serve to exhibit the 
 imag-e of the text in relief, and to indicate 
 Christ's abhorrence of the lukewarm Chris- 
 tian. Strange conjunction of words, lukeivarm' 
 Christian ! 
 
 The first thing that strikes us is the won- 
 derful revolution of temper from liking to loath- 
 ing. Is it possible for Christ to loath what 
 He once loved? If there be any meaning 
 in the text, it is possible. How came the 
 Laodiceans to be lukewarm ? Did the tempe- 
 rature of their love start from heat or cold? 
 Heat undoubtedly: it was a descending, a 
 cooling piety ; love waxing cold, zeal burning 
 low, life going out: implying a disunion of 
 heart, a criminal infidelity of affection, a dis- 
 placement of confidence, a breaking of solemn 
 faith, a base dishonor upon all previous ex- 
 pressions and tokens of love. When our 
 affections have been devoted to an object, 
 and have commanded and obtained the re- 
 linquishment of every other interest; when 
 everything has gone with them, property, 
 name, reputation, intellect, heart, and life 
 itself; when we feel that we have kept 
 back nothing; when we have made a sacri- 
 
216 SERMON XV. 
 
 fice of our whole selves without question 
 or grudge; — then if we meet with an in- 
 sufficient or an ill- sustained response, we 
 are shocked; but recovering, we welcome 
 the first explanation that offers itself; for 
 the heart that loves wholly is not quick to 
 suspect; but if the explanation come not, 
 and proof after proof, in ruthless demon- 
 stration, tell us that our love is not re- 
 turned, our trust is not esteemed, our 
 great sacrifice is simply permitted, then 
 love changes into loathing : you feel how 
 mean, how unworthy, how innately repul- 
 sive must that nature be that could be un- 
 faithful to an affection like yours; and this 
 would be the natural expression of your 
 disgust, " I will spue thee out of my mouth." 
 But this illustration only half explains the 
 problem before us. We can have no con- 
 ception of the love of Christ, or the sacri- 
 fices it made to carry out its purposes; 
 hence we can know as little of the wrongs 
 which those inflict upon Him who allow 
 their love to grow cold, and their union to 
 become formal and distant. But the threat- 
 ening will not on this account lose its 
 force. It implies all that we can under- 
 stand by it, and dread from it; and pro- 
 bably, as much more, as a Divine affection 
 
NEITHER COLD NOR HOT. 217 
 
 surpasses the imperfect analogy in our own 
 mind by which we seek to understand it. 
 Tli mi hast left thy first love. Remember 
 therefore from whence thou art fallen, and 
 repent, and do the first works. He that hath 
 an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto 
 the churches. 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 1 Kings xix. 11, 12, 13. 
 
 u And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount 
 before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed 
 by, and a great and strong wind rent the moun- 
 tains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the 
 Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind : and 
 after the wind an earthquake ; but the Lord wms 
 not in the earthquake : And after the earthquake 
 a fire ; but the Lord ivas not in the fire : and 
 after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, 
 when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in 
 his mantle, and went out, and stood in the enter- 
 ing in of the cave.''' 
 
 Elijah is the most remarkable prophet of Old 
 Testament history. His introduction and exit 
 have a wild abruptness and obscurity that 
 rather befit a hero of romance than an historic 
 personage. He comes upon the epoch of his 
 career full armed, is the leader of a few pro- 
 digious events, and escapes in a whirlwind. 
 He was probably born in Thisbe, a city of 
 Galilee ; but as he is said to have been of the 
 inhabitants of Gilead, it may be supposed that 
 he had sojourned a long time in that country. 
 
ELIJAH. 219 
 
 His parentage, his rank, his private calling, we 
 are not permitted even to conjecture. It is 
 not unlikely that for many years he had been 
 a man of study and prayer. A character like 
 his, of so much energy and presence when 
 brought into action, often acquires its great 
 features in retirement. Moses had a training 
 of forty years before he was qualified to be the 
 founder and lawgiver of a great people : John 
 the Baptist spent his youth in deserts, where 
 deep meditation and holy converse with God 
 gave to the voice of the wilderness the tone 
 that startled a nation; and Elijah who occu- 
 pies a middle space between these illustrious 
 lights, and, like them, burst upon his age with 
 a sudden splendour, must have had a long and 
 careful preparation for the mission he was 
 destined to fulfil. 
 
 Elijah began his work when the fear and 
 even the worship of God had died out in Israel. 
 The people since Solomon's death had been 
 growing worse and worse. Their present 
 reigning prince, Ahab, did evil in the sight of 
 the Lord above all that were before him. As 
 a stroke of defiance against Jehovah, as well 
 as in contempt of all decency, he had married 
 into a heathen family ; an alliance that brought 
 frightful disasters upon the cause of God; 
 for Jezebel was one of the fiercest and most 
 
220 SERMON XVI. 
 
 abandoned women of her time. She was bent 
 npon making all her lord's subjects pagans; 
 she carried her father's gods and her father's 
 priests into the land of Israel, erected temples 
 to Baal, and pressed upon her husband the 
 necessity of getting rid of the prophets of 
 Jehovah. A bloody persecution was then 
 opened upon the Lord's anointed; hundreds 
 of holy men were butchered because they 
 refused to bend the knee to Baal ; and everv 
 warning voice was silenced in death or in cap- 
 tivity. It was at this crisis, when the altars of 
 idolatry covered the land, and when nearly a 
 thousand foreign priests, of a foreign religion, 
 rode over the consciences and spoiled the sub- 
 stance of the people, that the prophet Elijah 
 appeared. The blood of his brethren, visible 
 in every public resort and highway, told him 
 there was but a step between him and death : 
 he walked on the ashes of martyrdom, and 
 over his head there hung the sword of the 
 persecutor. These circumstances gave an iron 
 rigour to his principles, a certain gloomy 
 strength to his character, and a stern severity 
 to his discourses. The message he was com- 
 manded to deliver to Israel, and to Ahab in 
 particular, accorded with and strengthened 
 these features of his mind. He belonged to a 
 class of ministers who speak threatenings and 
 
ELIJAH. 221 
 
 administer judgments ; and the iniquity lie saw 
 in high places, the idolatry and sacrilege that 
 polluted the country, impressed the prophet 
 with the justice of those awful visitations of 
 which he was the agent. 
 
 The ministry of Elijah, which was that of 
 a destroying angel, is intended to teach us the 
 inefficacy of judgments as a converting in- 
 strumentality. The prophet had become de- 
 pressed because sword, pestilence, and famine, 
 had failed to scourge a rebellious people to a 
 right mind. During a three years' drought, 
 he watched the effect of starvation. He had 
 foretold that this judgment would chastise the 
 monarch and his people for their crimes. The 
 famine came with terrible and wide-spreading 
 calamity ; and Elijah went into the solitudes 
 of Samaria to await its results upon the public 
 mind of Israel. His giant soul was revolving 
 in its depths the sufferings, the humiliations, 
 the ultimate submission, of a backsliding and 
 reprobate people. Let us follow the prophet 
 to Samaria, and abide with him there, until 
 his reappearance before Ahab, when the famine 
 shall have done its work. Grod is about to read 
 him exquisite lessons on tenderness ; for he 
 had known little else than the terrors of the 
 Lord. The Divine voice drew him to a brook 
 near the Jordan, and there the stern man was 
 
222 SERMON XVI. 
 
 softened by the ministry of a bird. When we 
 have become harsh and austere in onr ways 
 by a long familiarity with the hypocrisy and 
 injustice of our fellow-men, nothing so quickly 
 touches a spring of tenderness as the in- 
 stinctive attachment or offices of some inferior 
 creature. Receiving his daily bread from the 
 beak of a raven, he must have felt that pro- 
 vidence was as gentle as it was terrible : and 
 that perhaps love was "mightiest in the 
 mightiest." He remained here until, for want 
 of rain, the stream of his hiding place dried 
 up : the Lord then commanded him to journey 
 northward, to Zarephath, a large inland vil- 
 lage, lying between Tyre and Sidon, where a 
 poor widow had been appointed to sustain 
 him. There were many widows in Israel; 
 why was he sent to a heathen woman of Sidon ? 
 To teach him, what perhaps he never knew 
 before, that there were sheep which were not 
 of his fold. The conduct of Jezebel had pro- 
 bably increased his national emnity against all 
 Gentiles. He supposed that Jehovah could 
 have no mercy on the accursed votaries of 
 Baal ; and yet Baal was one of the principal 
 gods of Sidon, and the woman to whom he 
 was the preacher of mercy and salvation was 
 a worshipper of that idol. Arriving at the 
 village he found that the famine had preceded 
 
ELIJAH. 223 
 
 him ; the poor widow's means had been so 
 pinched by the dearth that the last handful of 
 meal was in the barrel and the last drop of oil 
 in the cruse. But the oil and the meal wasted 
 not while the man of God was with her. The 
 miracle of the unfailing meal, however, like 
 the miracle of the five loaves, did not convert 
 those for whose sake it was wrought. Whether 
 Elijah during the twelve months he spent with 
 this Sarepta family, directly instructed them 
 in the knowledge of the true God, we know 
 not ; but the woman appears to have remained 
 a stranger to the truth until the Lord afflicted 
 her with the death of her child. It was the 
 sickness of her daughter that drove the 
 Canaanitish woman to Christ. It was the 
 death of her son that bowed the woman of 
 Sarepta to the confession of Jehovah. The 
 prophet took from the mother's bosom the 
 corpse of her boy and carried him up- stairs into 
 the loft where he slept. She overheard the 
 breathing of those mighty prayers that brought 
 back the soul of the child ; and when he was 
 restored to her arms once more, the living son 
 of her heart, she exclaimed, " Now by this I 
 know that thou art a man of God, and that the 
 word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." 
 
 But Elijah must leave Sarepta for Samaria. 
 The three years' famine was now closing, and 
 
224 SEEMON XVI. 
 
 the Lord commanded the prophet to show 
 himself unto Ahab, to make another appeal 
 and another stand for Jehovah. It was to be 
 supposed that the people, subdued and crushed 
 by a long affliction, would now yield to any 
 demonstration that might contrast the power 
 of the Lord with the impostures of Baal. 
 Elijah met the king : and after upbraiding 
 him with a sharpness and authority which no 
 kingly presence could resist, he called upon 
 Ahab to decide the controversy that now 
 divided and was destroying the country. A 
 famine had reigned for three years. Had 
 Baal sent it, or was it the scourge of Jehovah ? 
 Rain was yet denied ; it was the duty of the 
 king and his people to humble themselves 
 before the deity who had punished them, 
 whether Jehovah or Baal. A trial of the 
 gods was proclaimed. Elijah proposed that 
 the witnesses should assemble on Mount 
 Carmel, a neighbouring promontory about two 
 thousand feet high, stretching into the Medi- 
 terranean sea. The king's decree summoned 
 the priests of Baal, to meet Jehovah's prophet 
 on Carmel' s top ; and all the people were com- 
 manded to accompany them. There stands 
 the Tishbite, alone, worn down with care, and 
 travelling, and watching ; but his eye sparkles 
 with the indignation of jealousy, and with an 
 
ELIJAH. 225 
 
 expression of ominous irony. There, on the 
 side of idolatry, stand in imposing array the 
 flower of Baal's priesthood, four hundred and 
 fifty men, with their divinations and enchant- 
 ments. I need not detail the triumphs of that 
 glorious day, when in the sight of Israel and 
 Israel's king, the pretensions of the god of 
 Ekron were stripped off; when the priests of 
 Jezebel, smarting under the caustic banter of 
 the prophet, danced round their altars with 
 frantic mortification, crying to a god that could 
 not save ; and when the God of heaven de- 
 scended in fiery rebuke, consuming the sacri- 
 fice of Elijah and the indecision of the people ! 
 Now, thought the prophet, if we can follow up 
 this splendid testimony by putting every hea- 
 then priest to the sword, we shall annihilate 
 idolatry at a blow ! Resistless for the moment, 
 he gave the command, and the people, eager 
 to show the sincerity of their repentance, 
 arrested the priests of Jezebel, brought them 
 down to the brook Kishon and slew them 
 there. To crown the triumphs of this day, 
 the rain began to fall ; and now there seemed 
 to be nothing wanting that miracle could do to 
 complete the conversion of the people. Elijah 
 hastened first to the court to find the queen 
 overwhelmed with defeat and humiliation ; but 
 Jezebel, so far from being terrified into con- 
 
226 SEEMON XVI. 
 
 viction by the appalling wonders of Carmel, 
 was preparing to take his life ! 
 
 This was so heavy and sudden a blow to 
 Elijah's faith in the converting power of judg- 
 ments, that courage and dignity forsook him 
 for a time, and he fled like a frighted deer 
 because a woman had threatened him ! An 
 angel of God found him in a wilderness of 
 Beersheba, lying under a juniper tree ; bitterly 
 complaining of his lot and praying the Lord to 
 take his life. It was now that Jehovah ex- 
 plained to his servant by the impressive signs 
 described in the text, that power might 
 avenge and destroy, but could not win ; that 
 the silent intellectual process of instruction 
 and spiritual influence can alone reach the 
 heart and change the man. 
 
 The theatre of these signs was Horeb, cele- 
 brated of old for displays of the Divine terrors. 
 Here Moses saw the flaming majesty of the 
 I am in the bush. Here was Sinai, the mount 
 that might be touched ; that burned with fire, 
 and trembled when the trump of God gave forth 
 the voice of words. Recalling these events, and 
 impressed by these associations, Elijah, after 
 a journey of forty days, drew near to this 
 Horeb, the mount of God; and entering a 
 cave or grot, hollowed out in one of its sides, 
 he lodged there. Here God found him. 
 * 
 
ELIJAH. 227 
 
 " What dost thou here Elijah ?" The prophet 
 answered in a distempered mood, that he had 
 been jealous for the Lord of Hosts : that in 
 spite of all he had done to reclaim Israel, the 
 divine covenants were jet broken, the altars 
 profaned, the prophets slain, and himself, the 
 sole remaining witness for the truth, they 
 were seeking to destroy. Then the Lord 
 commanded the melancholy and despairing 
 Seer to ascend to the top of the mount ; and 
 while he stood there, surrounded by bleak and 
 barren hills, fit images of power and desola- 
 tion, the Lord passed by in a succession of 
 grand and suggestive phenomena. There 
 were four signs ; of which three were material, 
 and the fourth intellectual. 
 
 1. A strong wind swept by, rending the 
 imbedded cliffs of Horeb and scattering them 
 like stubble. The stormy soul of Elijah 
 found a congenial element in this untamed 
 and mighty agent; and he perhaps wished 
 he could ride upon its wings, turn its head 
 toward Samaria, and demolish the usurpation 
 of Baal. But while he watched for some par- 
 ticular appearance to indicate the presence of 
 Jehovah ; some strange glory or voice to show 
 that the hurricane was a fit chariot for the 
 career of a God, the storm fell ; and the pro- 
 phet knew that the Lord was not in the wind. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SEEMON XVI. 
 
 2. Then followed another sign, more ter- 
 rific than a tempest. Perhaps in all nature 
 there is nothing which so nearly resembles 
 what we should think to be the immediate in- 
 terposition of God as an earthquake. " After 
 the wind, an earthquake." As the prophet 
 felt that ancient and lofty pile of hills, ap- 
 parently immortal in their stedfastness, give 
 way beneath his feet, writhing helplessly in 
 the grasp of some unseen power, like a con- 
 vulsed child, he must have thought, " Surely 
 God is here I These fearful shakings and 
 hurlings are the tokens of His dread presence :" 
 and he might have repeated to himself the 
 triumphant chant of a psalm he had often 
 sung, What ails ye, ye mountains, that ye 
 skip like rams ; and ye little hills like lambs ? 
 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the 
 Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob ! 
 But the Lord was not in the earthquake ; the 
 convulsions subsided without a sign. 
 
 3. The third wonder that passed before 
 the eye of the now perplexed prophet, was an 
 element as destructive as an earthquake but 
 far more imposing. Shining about the bright- 
 ness of the sun, roaring and consuming, a 
 huge fire played about the rocks on which 
 Elijah stood. And as he saw its nimble 
 tongues of flame lick up the hard verdure of 
 
ELIJAH. 229 
 
 the ground, and split and melt the rocks with 
 its devouring heat, he knew that this fierce 
 brightness had been from the beginning a 
 chosen vehicle of Jehovah. He remembered 
 Sodom and Gomorrah ; he remembered Sinai, 
 part of the very hill that now blazed around 
 him, when lightnings had accompanied the 
 declaration of law ; and he probably waited to 
 receive from that fire another commandment 
 for Israel. There stood the stern man, in the 
 midst of devastation. The wind had shaken, 
 the earthquake had swallowed up, the fire had 
 consumed ; but God had not spoken ! The 
 prophet had been awed, but not instructed. 
 He had gone up to the mount doubtful, dis- 
 satisfied, perhaps self-condemned: the material 
 signs gave him no relief. They were splendid 
 and dreadful, but there was no mind in them. 
 
 4. While he thus stood bewildered, debat- 
 ing with himself what this might mean, the 
 last sign explained all : it was a still small 
 voice : it was still, because no sound struck 
 audibly on the ear ; it was small, because no 
 ostentatious medium conveyed it ; it was the 
 voice of mind whispering to mind. God spake 
 to Elijah ; and without any symbol there were 
 thoughts interchanged that bowed the pro- 
 phet's soul to the dust. And it came to pass 
 when Elijah heard it, or felt it, he wrapped 
 
230 SERMON XVI. 
 
 his face in his mantle and returned to his cave, 
 standing in the entrance to hear the voice 
 again, as if repeating the words of Samuel, 
 Sjoeak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. 
 
 My dear brethren, that which bows the 
 mind, that which makes a man wrap his face 
 in his mantle in silent and intelligent reverence, 
 is not a sign that strikes upon the senses, but 
 a thought understood and felt in the heart. 
 Miracles have an historic value, but they have 
 seldom produced in those who witnessed them 
 a moral benefit; neither error nor vice can 
 spring from a miracle, nor can either be 
 ejected by a miracle : they arise from the 
 connexion of mind with mind, and must be 
 destroyed by a new mental fellowship. 
 
 This will be manifest if we follow the 
 course of the Divine revelation. The patri- 
 archs transmitted a few simple and fixed 
 beliefs ; the Jewish economy dispensed miracles 
 and types; the knowledge of God became 
 more defined and enlarged ; it was systematized 
 in laws, but national and local in its appli- 
 cation. When Christ came, IDe made the 
 gospel the subject and instrument of teaching, 
 fulfilling the prediction, And they shall be all 
 taught of God. Divine knowledge, in coming 
 down to us from the past, has become more 
 and more a voice speaking to the heart ; more 
 
ELIJAH. 231 
 
 and more free from material mediums. When 
 Abraham embraced the knowledge of Grod it 
 was on its way to us ; when Moses lodged it 
 in the Jewish tabernacle it was purifying itself 
 for us ; when Christ found it there and baptized 
 it with the Holy Grhost and with fire, He sent 
 it forth to us. It is now doing its greatest 
 work, not by flood and fire, although there are 
 cities in the world as wicked as Sodom; not 
 by miracles, although there is as hard a scep- 
 ticism as ever reigned in Judea or Rome ; but 
 by the still small voice of instruction, sup- 
 ported and carried out to gracious results by 
 the silent communion of the Holy Grhost. 
 
 These are the last and crowning means of 
 Christianity. Everything else, by whatever 
 name you call it, belongs to the three first 
 signs. And what a fondness we have for these 
 signs, the picturesque and the striking ! But 
 what do they gain who seek to embellish the 
 church with a gorgeous architecture ; who 
 cultivate the sublimity of domes and capitals ; 
 who subdue by a solemn coloring the very 
 light that falls upon the worshippers ; who 
 jnace in imposing situations the picture, the 
 statue, the emblem ; who burnish their altars 
 with gold, and bring to the holy crucifix the 
 homage of tapers and the genuflexions of 
 surplice and mitre; who enter the assembly 
 
232 SEEMON XVI. 
 
 with the music of chanted litanies, and terrify 
 the people by the thunder of anathemas ? The 
 Lord is not in the architecture, the picture, the 
 music, the pomp : you see no more here than 
 the three signs of the prophet ; you must seek 
 the Lord in the voice of the conscience : this 
 is the sign of the gospel dispensation, the 
 word, and not the picture; Christ, and not 
 the crucifix; the Holy Ghost, and not the 
 seven candles. If we stop with the three 
 signs, we go no further than the heathen. 
 The negro falls down before the whirlwind and 
 the earthquake, and cries, Lo God is here ! 
 The Parsee worships the shining fire. But 
 their impressions are sensuous and temporary ; 
 fading before the heart is touched, for the still 
 small voice of instruction is wanting. Look 
 at the people around us ! We see whole 
 nations prostrate before the three signs. To 
 the Hindu the splendours of Hinduism are the 
 whirlwind, the earthquake, and the fire ; and 
 his homage is fear and admiration. When 
 I have seen an idol arrayed in traditionary 
 terrors, and magnificently paraded through 
 the streets of a large native town, and in the 
 night too; and when ten thousand human 
 beings have pressed near to worship amid the 
 gleaming of innumerable torches of colored 
 light, and rockets and candles of every device 
 
ELIJAH. 233 
 
 shooting up into the air ; and when the priests 
 have sune in solemn cadence, and the multi- 
 tudes have shouted their acclamations, I have 
 caught the prevailing awe. With all my better 
 knowledge I could not resist the terror and 
 beauty of the spectacle ; but the Lord ivas 
 not there. The multitudes returned to their 
 homes with an intoxicated sense and a fevered 
 imagination ; but no silent voice to instruct 
 and win them to God. But I have taken one 
 of those Hindus whom the earthquake and the 
 fire had dazzled but not changed; I have 
 drawn him away from the three signs, and 
 invited him to wait with me for the fourth; 
 and while we listened, a still small voice spoke 
 in our hearts ; and when he heard it, he 
 wrapped his face in his mantle and cried, 
 What must I do to be saved I And the effect 
 of that voice was a new heart and a new life. 
 It was the silent winning of Calvary, and not 
 the fiery testimony of Carmel : it was not 
 Moses or Elijah thundering forth the law upon 
 the senses, but Jesus breathing truth and grace 
 into the soul. 
 
 Let me persuade those who are conscious 
 of it to take heed to the whisper of God. See 
 that ye refuse not Him that speaketh : for if 
 they escaped not that refused Elijah, who 
 spake on earth, much more shall not we escape 
 
234 SERMON XVI. 
 
 if we turn away from Him that speaketh from 
 heaven. Have you ever bowed before this 
 voice and hidden your face in penitence ? 
 Perhaps amidst the clamour and discord of 
 louder voices, the still accents of Jesus escaped 
 you. He that hath ears to hear let him hear. 
 We cannot catch the sound without profound 
 listening. When we do hear it, speaking 
 pardon from the Cross, speaking help from 
 the right hand of God, speaking victory in 
 the conflict, 
 
 'Tis music in the sinner's ear, 
 'Tis life and health and peace. 
 
 For the comfort of those who have been terri- 
 fied by the storm and fire of the law, I am 
 commanded to promise that the blessed sign 
 of a Saviour's presence shall follow. You 
 have been convinced of sin; have quaked 
 beneath the threatenings of Horeb ; a storm 
 of distemper and doubt is rending your souls ; 
 but follow Elijah's example ; wait, be of good 
 courage, and He shall strengthen your heart ; 
 the thick cloud of sin shall pass away before 
 the still small voice of heavenly peace. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 Luke x. 42. 
 
 " But one tiling is needful : and Mary hath chosen that 
 good part, which shall not be taken aivay from her." 
 
 Which is the good part ? is the grand question 
 of life. It is not possible to divide the appli- 
 cation of life's energies between a number of 
 great objects : for although the capriciousness 
 of our tastes, and the interfering claims of 
 corresponding attractions, may induce us to 
 attempt the possession and enjoyment of them 
 all, it will be found that every man's life will 
 be one thing; that whether he intend it or 
 not, it will be a single career, wherein the 
 diversities of pursuit and of vicissitude will 
 be but the inequalities of one grand trunk- 
 road to heaven or hell. He may not be aware 
 that his life is of any importance — there may 
 be nothing to distinguish it from the common 
 level of social existence ; it may be apparently 
 useless, obscure, unknown ; but it is about to 
 leap into the gulf of outer darkness, or to 
 mingle with, and lose itself in, a sea of light. 
 What moment must attach to the leading prin- 
 
236 SERMON XVII. 
 
 ciples of that life ! By leading principles I 
 mean those first feelings and decisions which 
 determine us to take the right hand road in- 
 stead of the left, or the left instead of the 
 right. Every one of you is on a journey, and 
 every traveller is in one of these roads. There 
 may be slight deviations in your steps ; the 
 man in the left hand road may in the course of 
 his walking swerve to the right side of it. 
 This may retard his progress, but it does not 
 affect the direction of his path. You may 
 have good desires to-day and bad desires to- 
 morrow ; you may be a pattern of virtue this 
 hour and a warning to virtue the next ; but 
 the question is, in which road are you walking ? 
 I wish to press upon my young friends the fact 
 that whether they have made up their minds 
 or no, as to the path or the portion they shall 
 choose, they are walking a path, and spending 
 a portion. In religious matters, to say, " I 
 am waiting, I have not made up my mind, 5 ' 
 is folly ; as much so as it would be in a pas- 
 senger by railway, who should say that he was 
 hesitating about the road he should take, when 
 he is speeding on in a definite line at the rate 
 of thirty miles an hour. We have the power 
 to select and to adhere to what we choose ; 
 but we are moving none the less if we make 
 no choice at all; and in the end, God will 
 
MART OF BETHANY. 237 
 
 make us strictly accountable for the issue of 
 the journey. I feel anxious to secure the 
 attention of the young, because they have no 
 established convictions, and their minds are 
 easily turned. I want to secure an early deci- 
 sion for the narrow way and the good part. 
 I am the way, and I am the bread of life. 
 Here is the path and the portion. If I had the 
 ability to present Christ to you in the beauty 
 and grandeur of his nature and in the tender 
 affectionateness of his. character, you would at 
 once perceive that you were made to love no 
 other, to admire no other; to confide in, and 
 live with no other. Your connection with 
 earthly objects, your transactions with them, 
 your pleasure in them, your dependence on 
 them, would be so trifling in comparison with 
 your fellowship with Him, that you would only 
 reckon them at all for His sake ; and their 
 power to delight or benefit you would be His 
 gift, and they would be several ways of enjoy- 
 ing Him. But we are slow to apprehend a 
 comeliness which gratifies no external sense of 
 beauty. There is nothing in the face of the 
 Man of sorrows which would invite a second 
 glance from a worldly eye. I have seen thou- 
 sands from the gay world crowd the saloons 
 of art to look upon the painted Christ of some 
 great master, whose exquisite pencil had traced 
 
238 SEEMON XVII. 
 
 with startling fidelity a face of suffering, meek- 
 ness and love, and with the magic of color and 
 tint had wrought a soul into the canvas : but 
 the language of admiration was not, " Come 
 see if there ever was sorrow like this," but, 
 " See if there ever was painting like this." 
 The sermons of Italian art impress the fancy 
 and give a pensive hue to the imagination, but 
 they never touch the conscience. It may be 
 thought a gothic remark, but the artist has 
 misjudged his province when he attempts to 
 give us patterns of things in the heavens. 
 
 Less comely still to the worldly man is 
 the religion of Christ; for its symbol is a 
 standard of dishonor. The doctrines of the 
 Cross enjoin absolute separation from all that 
 the carnal mind holds to be desirable and pre- 
 cious. Christianity puts a mean value upon 
 houses and lands, upon distinctions and honors. 
 If you compare its vocabulary with that of the 
 world you will find that the same words stand 
 for totally opposite ideas. Thus, the word 
 darkness in one, means light in the other ; the 
 word foolishness in one, means wisdom in the 
 other ; the word god in one, means devil in the 
 other, and so on. It is true that this hostility 
 in taste and phraseology is not so manifest now 
 as in earlier times J when the confession of 
 Christ was unfashionable ; but the applauded 
 
MAEY OF BETHANY. 239 
 
 toleration of the present day is only granted 
 to the externalism of piety. The religion of 
 the heart is as objectionable as ever to the 
 unconverted man. You may talk about the 
 church of Christ, discuss the character of its 
 ministers, the wisdom of its institutions, the 
 inconsistencies of its professors ; but you must 
 not speak to an individual about the necessity 
 of his own conversion. And there is a mutual 
 understanding between professing Christians 
 on this subject, so that one knows, as by in- 
 stinct, how far it is prudent for him to go in 
 conversing on religion. " The carnal mind is 
 enmity against God, and is not subject to the 
 law of God, neither indeed can be." It there- 
 fore only remains for me to pray that while I 
 exhibit the excellencies and person of the 
 despised Son of Grod, the Holy Spirit may give 
 you an eye to appreciate and a heart to admire, 
 love, and choose, like Mary, the chief est among 
 ten thousand — the altogether lovely. 
 
 There is nothing in the New Testament 
 narratives so full of touching and instructive 
 incident as the connection of Jesus with a 
 Bethany family, a brother and two sisters. 
 " Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and 
 Lazarus." When passing through the village 
 on His way to Jerusalem He made their house 
 His home. And as they lived but two miles 
 
240 SERMON XVII. 
 
 from the city, He used after the day's labour, 
 to return to Bethany in the evening, spend 
 the night there, and walk back to the city the 
 next morning. He sometimes took several of 
 His disciples with him, for the family were in 
 good circumstances, and able to accommodate 
 not only their illustrious guest, but his friends. 
 The sisters were types of distinct phases of 
 life. Martha was busy with her hands, Mary 
 with her thoughts ; Martha laboured, and 
 Mary listened. It is remarkable that per- 
 sons of one family and one training should be 
 so variously moulded. But although I am 
 tempted to continue the comparison of these 
 two daughters of Abraham as models of two 
 representative features of Christian mind, the 
 ideal and the practical, both equally essential, 
 though both finding fault with each other, I 
 must defer it for another occasion, and con- 
 sider Mary by herself, as an illustration of 
 what has been already advanced, that in 
 respect of the design and end of life, we can 
 have but one part, and but one way — and 
 Mary chose the good part. The word part 
 signifies the share of an inheritance. Mary 
 had recently found it at Jesus' feet, and was 
 overcome by the new and strange feelings 
 which the love of God had awakened in her 
 heart. Her thoughtful nature gave itself up 
 
MARY OF BETHANY. 241 
 
 to the wonderful revelations of the lips upon 
 which she hung ; and her sister, who perceived 
 the change, though she understood it not, im- 
 puted the rapt attention and fixed eye of 
 Mary to the enthusiasm of a gratified listener, 
 whereas they betokened the new and tran- 
 sporting fellowship into which a soul enters 
 when it first believes in Jesus. Mary had 
 been wont to help her sister; strangely did 
 she now seem to neglect her duty. Every 
 duty of life is not only compatible with piety, 
 but derives from it its safest counsels and its 
 highest inspiration. But when we first close 
 our eyes upon the world and open them upon 
 heaven, the darkness we leave and the light 
 we find, the dungeon we escape from, and the 
 free holiday air into which we come, and for 
 the first time breathe and live, the guilt which 
 made us afraid of God, and the forgiveness 
 which makes us cry Abba, Father ! are states 
 of position, knowledge, and feeling, so violently 
 and intensely opposite, that no wonder if those 
 who are realizing the transition should be 
 almost beside themselves. When they have 
 passed from death into life, and find them- 
 selves sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and 
 in their right mind, they have no eye for 
 another object, no ear for another's words ; 
 they can think of nothing else, talk of nothing 
 
242 SERMON XVII. 
 
 else, attend to nothing else, until the new con- 
 sciousness becomes somewhat habitual, and the 
 absorbing and bewildering happiness subsides 
 into the " sober certainty of waking bliss." 
 
 Jesus knew all this better than Martha, 
 and excused the half-tranced spirit of Mary, 
 when her sister would have had Him reprove 
 her for neglect of household cares ; and Martha 
 herself was admonished, though with a fault- 
 less mixture of tenderness and solicitude. 
 " Martha, Martha, thou art careful and 
 troubled about many things, but one thing 
 is needful : and Mary hath chosen that good 
 part, which shall not be taken away from her." 
 This good part was the knowledge of the Lord 
 Jesus as her Saviour — it was, in fact, Jesus 
 Himself. She was not content with His being 
 the guest of the family ; not content with the 
 privilege of listening to His conversation with 
 her sister and brother. She had heard Him 
 say that He was a Shepherd, seeking lost sheep 
 and lambs, and she had strayed from the fold. 
 Mary had found no portion in the wilderness ; 
 no shelter for her fears, no promise of the 
 green pastures and the still waters so con- 
 genial with the deep thoughtfulness of her 
 spirit, and there was the Shepherd Himself, 
 and he had bent His eye upon her, and in that 
 eye, glistening and running over with the 
 
MARY OF BETHANY. 243 
 
 light of love, she saw a welcome and drew 
 near to His feet ; she felt that He was about 
 to die for her, and ventured upon His mercy. 
 And now her heart was burdened with love, 
 and she cried, What can I do for Him ? 
 She uttered no loud professions of attachment, 
 no avowals of the great things she would do if 
 she had the power ; but she began to do what 
 she could. Her love was too genuine to allow 
 her hands to be still. Now that her heart had 
 found its object she would evince a careful- 
 ness, a diligence, a practical aim that should 
 outstrip Martha herself. And what could she 
 do for Christ ? Martha was anxious that He 
 should lack no comfort while He abode with 
 them in Bethany ; and she served Him with 
 all the love, reverence, and industry of which 
 her nature was capable. The Magdalene, 
 Joanna, Susanna, and others, followed Him 
 from place to place, ministering to Him of 
 their substance : what could Mary do ? Was 
 there no room in His service for a meeker and 
 more retired spirit than theirs ? Yes, her 
 faith instructed her ; she had heard Him speak 
 of His death ; perhaps her woman's heart had 
 gone further into this mystery than the faith 
 of the apostles ; for when Christ declared the 
 necessity of His death to them, they replied, 
 Be it far from thee, Lord ! but when He spake 
 
244 SEEMON XVII. 
 
 of it to her, she prepared an anointing for His 
 burial ! It would be too much to say that 
 Mary apprehended fully the meaning of the 
 Saviour's death ; but she seems to have known 
 that that death was a part of His mission on 
 earth, and an event vitally affecting her sal- 
 vation ; and she would do what in her lay to 
 put honor upon it ; she would spare from her 
 own limited means, hoard the money which a 
 Jewish maiden delighted to spend upon orna- 
 ments, and purchase an unguent, costly and 
 precious, to pour upon His head ere it was 
 bowed in death for her, and to anoint those 
 gracious feet at which she first tasted His love. 
 The act was singular, the price of the 
 ointment extravagant, she was a woman, and 
 one peculiarly averse to display; her zeal 
 would be called forwardness, the offering of 
 her self-denying love would be censured as 
 waste, her motive would be misunderstood; 
 but faith raised Mary above every personal 
 consideration; she was simply the handmaid 
 of her Master ; and she meant to glorify Him; 
 her single eye was so clear and heavenly, that 
 she rendered this service unconscious of her- 
 self, and, it may be, of the presence of others, 
 until the silence and wonder of the company, 
 before whom she did it, were broken by the 
 complaint of Judas Iscariot. Whenever we 
 
MART OF BETHANY. 245 
 
 desire to offer up anything to Jesus, there is 
 always some Judas at hand on the side of 
 economy and propriety to dissuade us from 
 dome; it. "Whence this waste!" cried the 
 covetous hypocrite, " the ointment might have 
 been sold for three hundred pence and given 
 to the poor." Three hundred pence is £9 16s. 
 of our money ; a large gift for Mary, but she 
 felt that even this was not enough — Too 
 much ! She might have said, 
 
 Too much to Thee I cannot give, 
 Too much I cannot do for Thee ; 
 
 Let all Thy love and all Thy grief 
 Graven on my heart for ever be. 
 
 And they were graven on Mary's heart; and 
 how her spirit must have thrilled with grati- 
 tude and triumph when her Lord silenced the 
 rude and malignant tongue of the adversary, 
 and vindicated the heart that had placed at 
 His feet its costliest gift, and its entire service. 
 " Let her alone ! " cried He, as poor accused 
 Mary was wiping His feet with her hair, 
 " against the day of my burial hath she kept 
 this. For the poor always ye have with you, 
 but me ye have not always." He was not 
 wont to neglect the poor who used to feed 
 them by thousands together. He was not 
 wont to sanction extravagance, who on every 
 occasion commanded that the fragments should 
 
246 SERMON XVII. 
 
 be gathered up and nothing lost. But the 
 heart that gives itself to Jesus, leaves no 
 fragments to be gathered; its gifts are not 
 selected, numbered, weighed, and valued ; 
 everything goes in, . and all is too little ! 
 Mark the honor with which Mary's act was 
 crowned: "Verily I say unto you, Where- 
 soever this gospel shall be preached through- 
 out the whole world, this also that she hath 
 done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her." 
 And the Lord has honored Mary's deed with 
 this celebrity, not that she may be admired 
 simply, but imitated. 
 
 My dear young friends, Mary's was a wise 
 choice, for she chose the best portion. It was 
 best because it comprehended every other. 
 When the Lord is our portion, there is 
 not a single want of body, mind, or heart, 
 unprovided for; and the blessings by which 
 these wants are supplied may come and go 
 without touching the portion itself. The Giver 
 is ours, ours eternally; the gifts are for a 
 season, and are subject to the fluctuations of 
 occasion and want. Riches take to themselves 
 wings, and carry off with them distinctions, 
 luxury, and friends ; beauty enjoys its morn- 
 ing triumph like the flower, and dies at noon ; 
 youth frequently dies with it, and the glorious 
 vigour of manhood follows, and man soon lieth 
 
MARY OF BETHANY. 
 
 247 
 
 down and riseth not. Children are the Lord's 
 heritage. He gives them and He takes them, 
 but Himself remains the portion, I will never 
 leave thee. The secret of a Christian's steady 
 unbroken happiness is this; he makes no 
 blessing his portion, but Him with whom is 
 the power of blessing. Choose Christ, and 
 you choose all with Him, all that may be 
 necessary in time and beyond time. This is 
 particularly noticed in the text, "Mary hath 
 chosen that good part, which shall not be taken 
 away from her" and so strictly and affectingly 
 true is this, that Jesus is never so precious as 
 when everything else is wanting ; 
 
 Though waves and storms go o'er my head, 
 
 Though strength, and health, and friends be gone ; 
 
 Though joys be withered all and dead, 
 Though every comfort be withdrawn ; 
 
 On this my steadfast soul relies ; 
 
 Jesus my portion never dies. 
 
 But Mary's was a universal choice, it was 
 the choice of her whole being. Her judgment 
 and conscience consented to the truth of her 
 Saviour's words; she had sufficient taste to 
 discriminate and admire the beauty and value 
 of His religion, but her heart was as ready to 
 love as her understanding to approve. She 
 did not choose Christ as a portion she might 
 want bye and bye, when youth had left her, 
 
248 SERMON XVII. 
 
 and the season of pleasure and vanity had 
 passed ; when sickness would cut off ease and 
 comfort ; when age would leave her without 
 a friend. Her heart had no rival, her prudence 
 no reservation, her purpose no condition; 
 thought, feeling, sympathy, passion, all con- 
 sented to the choice ; it was the better part 
 for them all; and then, and there, she gave 
 herself a whole burnt offering to the Lord. 
 What an insult to Christ to offer Him the 
 approval of our judgment, and reserve for 
 other things the devotion of our heart; and 
 yet many of you are living under the ban of 
 this dishonor. You would be ashamed not to 
 profess to believe and respect the Saviour: 
 you are not ashamed to sin against the Saviour: 
 but this divided service, this convenient com- 
 pact with religion, stipulating for its respect- 
 ability and for its assistance when nothing else 
 will help you, a disposition to allow, and a 
 repugnance to do and suffer, must end in 
 shame. I hope you know this ; I hope that 
 your judgment is not so far reprobate as not 
 to condemn you for it, that your conscience is 
 not so far hardened as not to wound you for 
 it. confess all at His feet as Mary did ! and 
 since He once more offers Himself as your 
 portion, accept Him this moment ! 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 Gen. v. 24. 
 
 "And Enoch walked with God: and he teas not; for 
 God took him" 
 
 Between the creation of man and the destruc- 
 tion of his race by the flood, there was a period 
 of one thousand six hundred and fifty-five 
 years. Yet the history of these centuries is 
 condensed into four chapters ; and the lives of 
 the great men who flourished during the ante- 
 diluvian epoch are nearly all brought within 
 the chapter before us. Two or three verses 
 are allotted to each ; wherein it is briefly stated 
 that they lived, begat children, and died. 
 They were all nearly contemporary with each 
 other : for Adam lived to see Methuselah, the 
 grandfather of Noah. What customs and 
 habits they followed, how they lived, what 
 cities, and how many, they built, the Holy 
 Spirit has not deemed it necessary to inform 
 their descendants. Their lives were nine 
 times as long as ours, and their physical 
 condition was, perhaps, as much superior to 
 ours. It is not so clear that their intellectual 
 
250 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 character corresponded with it. We read of 
 Jabal the tent-maker and shepherd, of Jubal 
 the musician, and of Tubal Cain the discoverer 
 of metals ; but it is doubtful whether their 
 achievements went beyond their necessities ; 
 and almost certain that they had no literature. 
 Their moral state, with one or two shining 
 exceptions, was deplorable. Adam had nume- 
 rous children : but it was two hundred years 
 after the birth of Cain before a religious society 
 was formed. The first church was planted in 
 the family of Seth, when he and his son Enos 
 began to call upon the name of the Lord. 
 The brightest star of the few lights that shone 
 out from the antediluvian gloom, was Enoch, 
 the son of Jared, and the seventh from Adam. 
 From a brief record preserved in the Bible, 
 it would appear that Enoch's spiritual life 
 began when he was sixty-five years old : that 
 is, after the birth of his son Methuselah : 
 that the testimony he then received, that he 
 pleased God, advanced him to so close a 
 fellowship with the Deity, that after preach- 
 ing against the rebellion and depravity of 
 those corrupt times for three hundred years, 
 he was permitted to escape the pang of man's 
 last hour, passing up to glory in the light 
 of life, instead of from the darkness of the 
 tomb. 
 
ENOCH. 251 
 
 Enoch was probably a teacher and prophet 
 by profession. St. Jude has given ns an 
 extract from his predictions. " And Enoch 
 also," writes this Apostle, "the seventh from 
 Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, 
 the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his 
 saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to 
 convince all that are ungodly among them of 
 all their ungodly deeds which they have un- 
 godly committed, and of all their hard speeches 
 which ungodly sinners have spoken against 
 him." It has been supposed that this quo- 
 tation was taken from the Booh of Enoch, an 
 apocryphal work. There is a frequent refer- 
 ence to this book in the pages of the old 
 fathers ; but for several centuries the Enoch 
 manuscript was missing ; and it was not until 
 James Bruce, the traveller, picked up this 
 curious relic in Abyssinia, that criticism was 
 able to verify the extracts found in the writ- 
 ings of the early church, and to pronounce 
 upon the authenticity of the book. Bruce 
 found it in an ^Ethiopic version, and incorpo- 
 rated by the Abyssinians with their books of 
 the Old Testament. Many of its descriptions 
 resemble so closely portions of the Apocalypse, 
 that it is difficult to believe it was not written 
 after that book, and therefore subsequently to 
 Jude's epistle. Be this as it may, whether 
 
252 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 Jude extracted his passage from the work in 
 question, or found it among the traditions of 
 the Jewish fathers, there can be no reasonable 
 doubt that the quotation is genuine : and, as 
 casting one or two rays of historic light upon 
 a period beyond the sphere of history, it is 
 a fragment unspeakably precious. We may 
 learn from it that in antediluvian times God 
 raised up a ministry of holy men to preach 
 His judgments, predict His coming, and pre- 
 serve His worship. Enoch and Noah were 
 among these ancient preachers, by whose 
 faithful labours the Spirit of God strove with 
 the old world. That age was darker than any 
 that has followed it : yet even then there 
 lived men whom the Holy Ghost has thought 
 fit to set forth as examples to the church in 
 all ages. 
 
 We have said that Adam was still living 
 when Enoch flourished : and the younger 
 saint might have been often seen visiting the 
 tent of the illustrious father of man, to hear 
 the story of Adam's creation and fall. We 
 can imagine old Adam striving to recall for 
 young Enoch's sake the felicities of the first 
 Eden ; describing to the listener the sublime 
 elevation of his soul before he stooped to trans- 
 gression, his converse with God and angels, 
 his happy freedom from sin and dread, the 
 
ENOCH. 253 
 
 health and beauty of his person, and the in- 
 numerable delights of his position. But espe- 
 cially would the first Adam speak to his 
 disciple of a second Adam, and of the promise 
 regarding the seed of the woman bruising the 
 serpent's head. Enoch, however, went to a 
 higher source than Adam to learn of Christ. 
 He retired from men to increase the illumina- 
 tion he had received from the conversation of 
 others. A glimmering of the truth drew him 
 to the fountain of light, and there he poured 
 out his heart, beseeching that God would re- 
 veal to him the hope of the world more dis- 
 tinctly, and vouchsafe the salvation of a holy 
 faith in the Messiah ; and God seems to have 
 taken Enoch into very close communion. 
 The path of the patriarch became like the 
 shining light, shining with clearer and further- 
 reaching beams, until he saw before him not 
 only his own journey to heaven, but the high 
 road upon which the nations of distant ages 
 would press into the kingdom of God. Such, 
 even in that dark time, was the progress of a 
 saint of the Lord. 
 
 The figure employed to illustrate Enoch's 
 piety is very expressive : he walked ivith 
 God. The idea suggested by it is companion- 
 ship. Two walk together because they are 
 agreed. To produce fellowship of this kind, 
 
254 SEEMON XVIII. 
 
 there must be a unity of purpose and of taste, 
 a correspondence of circumstances, and a 
 harmony of will. We can admire a man's 
 character without walking with him : we can 
 converse with him, transact business with him, 
 receive favours from him, or confer favours 
 upon him, without walking with him : we can 
 dwell with him in the same house, meet him 
 at the same table, and exchange with him the 
 courtesies of daily life, without walking with 
 him. There is a general benevolence or 
 humanity that engenders what is called polite- 
 ness, that is, kindness seasonably offered : and 
 even where the temper is extinct, the gracious 
 form is preserved ; nothing is commonly more 
 unreal, yet nothing is more necessary, than 
 politeness. But the man with whom I walk is 
 my friend. I have proved his character, and 
 find it sound : I have tasted his conversation, 
 and not only approve his opinions but imbibe 
 his spirit. I have watched the issues of his 
 hearif and found their counterpart in my own 
 bosom. He may be separated from me, I still 
 walk with him : his profession may be oppo- 
 site to mine, I still walk with him : his attain- 
 ments and rank may look down upon mine, I 
 still walk with him. But the foundation of 
 this friendship is a common humanity. I 
 doubt whether a man and an angel could 
 
ENOCH. 255 
 
 commune with so entire a union. Then how 
 are we to conceive of a man walking with 
 God ? What have they in common, the Crea- 
 tor and the creature ? What mutual ground 
 in the two natures in which to plant friend- 
 ship ? God is the Ancient of days ; man fleeth 
 like the shadow of a day. God is the builder 
 of the universe ; man, an insect that flits 
 within the building. God embraces all know- 
 ledge, and is the fountain of wisdom ; man 
 knows nothing, not even himself. God is 
 righteous and of immaculate purity ; man is a 
 fallen being, selfish and corrupt in constitution, 
 base and mischievous in practice, erring and 
 reprobate in judgment. God is good, lovely 
 in goodness, tender in sympathy, and uni- 
 versally kind; man is a little, narrow, hard, 
 selfish soul ; proud as the heavens, small and 
 vile as the dust; rebelling against his God, 
 hating his brother, and living for himself. 
 Upon what analogy of nature or of disposition, 
 can there be intimacy between God and man ? 
 I can imagine the Creator demanding homage 
 from man, giving him laws, appointing the 
 bounds of his habitation, and permitting him 
 to live upon His bounty : I can imagine God 
 making known His will to man, and placing 
 him under a government adapted to his nature : 
 I can imagine God even speaking to man 
 
256 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 through the medium of an angel or an ele- 
 ment : but how can we understand the Most 
 High taking a man's soul and locking it in His 
 own in the embraces of friendship ; walking 
 with him in the retired and confiding converse 
 of an intimate relationship ? 
 
 My brethren, there is more than we con- 
 ceive in the meaning of that verse, " And God 
 said, let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness. So God created man in his own 
 image, in the image of God created he him." 
 Whatever be the meaning of likeness and 
 image, they must imply, I think, natural affi- 
 nity. They cannot be limited to the dominion 
 which was given to man over inferior creatures; 
 nor do they express simply the spirituality 
 and immortality of man's nature. We believe 
 there are family features between God and 
 man, which prove that one is the father and 
 the other is the child. It would seem that 
 the mind and heart of man formed originally 
 an epitome of God Himself; that the mani- 
 festations of the intellect and the temper 
 resembled those of the Deity ; that the lan- 
 guage of the heart was the same, and that the 
 aims of the understanding and the bias of the 
 will followed the purposes of God. Man, it 
 appears to us, was created altogether for a 
 familv union with His Maker : hence so much 
 
ENOCH. 257 
 
 has been done to restore him. God has pur- 
 sued His wandering offspring with a father's 
 yearnings. When angels fell, they were con- 
 signed to destruction : when man sinned, it 
 was the rebellion of a son, not the treason 
 of a subject. The father condemned and 
 punished, but He could not destroy. He 
 loved His own image ; and the human spirit, 
 although soiled and disfigured, had attractions 
 for Him; and a remembrance of its former 
 loveliness stirred the parent's affection, raised 
 its tone to inconceivable ardour and power, 
 and put it upon the labour of recovering the 
 fallen child. See this relationship further 
 illustrated in the method of our salvation. God 
 became man. He made Himself man ; and if 
 the distance between the two natures is infinite 
 in degree, it is not so in kind. How naturally 
 do they blend in Christ ! How easily are the 
 powers of the Deity developed through human 
 senses and faculties ; as if that the latter had 
 been cast in the mould of the former. We 
 observe nothing violent, nothing ungraceful, 
 no inequalities in the character of Christ. 
 The God and the man are so intimately 
 mingled that the line which separates them is 
 often invisible. They have the unity of one 
 existence. We must also remark, that after 
 Christ had redeemed us by His death, He 
 
 - s 
 
258 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 arose from the dead with a glorified body, and 
 ascended to His Father and to our Father a 
 perfect man, the representative of a restored 
 race. God wears our nature still, and is the 
 " order " and pattern after which His " breth- 
 ren" will be formed. This, we think, is the 
 secret of God's permitting man to walk with 
 Him. There is a divinity in man's nature not 
 totally effaced by sin : some features of the 
 Godhead are yet expressed in humanity, and 
 the affection of the heavenly Parent for His 
 degenerate and fallen family has moved Him 
 to restore to glory, honor, and immortality, all 
 who desire to return and be reconciled to Him. 
 Enoch walked with God because he yielded to 
 the Spirit that drew him to God; drew him 
 until he passed from the tabernacle of nature 
 to the spiritual court of the true worshipper. 
 The nearer he approached God, the more dis- 
 tinctly conscious was he of a home feeling. 
 His powers had become deranged in other 
 climes; but this atmosphere of heaven was 
 native air, and the strayed child recovered 
 his own strength and nobleness under the 
 Father's roof. 
 
 My brethren, what is the meaning of walk- 
 ing with God in these times ? In Enoch's 
 days it consisted of retiring from the world 
 and climbing sublime altitudes of devotion. 
 
ENOCH. 259 
 
 But what is the altitude of modern piety? 
 Alas, it may hardly be called walking after 
 God, much less with Him ! Many of us do not 
 inquire for Him, and the world hateth Him. 
 But you, brethren, have professed to come 
 out from the world ; you permit yourselves to 
 be called the disciples of a pure and world- 
 denouncing faith ; you have enrolled your- 
 selves for a pilgrimage to the better land ; you 
 have been registered as the children of Enoch, 
 of Noah, of Abraham ; the successors of John 
 and Paul; the fellow-heirs and brethren of 
 Christ. But how can you link your names 
 with this genealogy if you do not walk with 
 God ? The man who consorts with a loftier 
 spirit than his own, grows like his companion. 
 In such society his faculties are kept at their 
 full tension. The powerful intellect of the 
 superior commands his imitation; he adopts 
 his sentiments, insensibly copies his diction 
 and address, and catches inspiration from his 
 spirit. Do you bear the marks of daily com- 
 munion with God ? 
 
 Let us now consider the means by which 
 our walk with God may resemble in its fellow- 
 ship and progress that of the very eminent 
 patriarch before us. Enoch's piety is not 
 inimitable. We must take care lest we regard 
 the saints of the Bible rather as objects of 
 
 s 2 
 
260 SEEMON XVIII. 
 
 reverence than as patterns of life. We must 
 follow those who through faith and patience 
 inherit the promises. It was not by an ex- 
 clusive favour that Enoch gained so rare an 
 intimacy with the Father of spirits. There 
 was no apartment in the heavenly mansions 
 erected solely for Enoch. As a member of 
 the general assembly and church of the first- 
 born, he claimed no brighter revelations and 
 aspired to no higher privileges than those that 
 were offered for the attainment of his brethren. 
 The testimony of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 sets this question at rest : — " By faith Enoch 
 was translated that he should not see death." 
 Again, " Before his translation he had this 
 testimony, that he pleased God." It was faith 
 that drew God to him, and brought upon his 
 heart the rays of the divine complacency, for 
 the writer affirms in the next verse that, 
 " without faith it is impossible to please God :" 
 but through faith we may open with him the 
 most secret and familiar converse, if we " dili- 
 gently seek him." The word here rendered, 
 diligently seek, means to search out, to seek 
 that which has been lost until it be found ; 
 implying diligent inquiry and painful efforts. 
 Now, if God honored Enoch by unusual dis- 
 tinctions, Enoch first glorified God by follow- 
 ing hard after him. Enoch believed that the 
 
ENOCH. 261 
 
 riches of the divine glory would reward this 
 noble toil ; and he was not disappointed. God 
 is the rewarder of them that diligently seek 
 Hint. 
 
 It is true that in some sense we may find 
 God without a painful search : for whether 
 we inquire after Him or not, He makes Him- 
 self known to us. Everything around us is 
 full of God. No thoughtful mind can resist 
 a certain indescribable influence in nature by 
 which God brings His existence home to the 
 heart. In this sense philosophers have found 
 God, and poets have sung of Him. He has 
 been manifest to them who asked not after 
 Him : but God has not rewarded them with 
 His friendship. There are others who inquire 
 at a diviner oracle than science, and profess a 
 holier religion than poetry, yet cannot be said 
 to walk with God. They have casually looked 
 about for Him, and having learned that no 
 man cometh to the Father but by the Son, 
 they have sought Him through Christ : they 
 have obtained a glimpse of the divine glory, 
 but ask for no further revelation. God never 
 walks with these. They have not diligently 
 sought Him, or rather, they have not ardently 
 continued their search. God is not found at 
 once. No being may be said to find Him 
 absolutely ; to possess Him wholly. The most 
 
262 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 favoured worshipper has only discovered a 
 portion of God. He is like a mine ; the trea- 
 sures of His being are gathered by the diligent, 
 and they who toil the hardest bring away the 
 most. They who follow him through those 
 passages of His wisdom, power, and mercy 
 that have been opened to the inquirer, and 
 who at every revelation thirst for more secret 
 and sublime disclosures, find their way at last 
 to the hand and heart of the Deity. Let us 
 not imagine that our knowledge of God has 
 reached its climax when faith in Christ has 
 reconciled us to Him. Intercourse is but 
 then begun ; the field of a glorious fellowship 
 is then thrown open ; and if the soul set forth, 
 nobly resolved to improve the privileges earned 
 for it by the sufferings and death of Jesus, 
 there will be efforts more strenuous, and con- 
 flicts more painful, and changes more striking 
 after its reconciliation with God than there 
 were before it. How mean the thought that 
 we know enough of God when we have learned 
 that He is not our enemy ! If anything can 
 move the contempt of an angel, it is a man 
 who having tasted that the Lord is gracious, 
 cries " Enough !" To be brought to the foot 
 of the mountain of holiness and not dare to 
 venture up ! Venture, did we say — let us not 
 say venture, for we are not come unto the 
 
ENOCH. 263 
 
 mount that burned with fire, nor unto black- 
 ness, and darkness, and tempest, and the 
 sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words ; 
 for then might a Moses exclaim, I exceed- 
 ingly fear and quake. " But we are come 
 unto Mount Zion, to the city of the living 
 God;" and yet we are too indolent to go up 
 and enter in ! We are come to "an innume- 
 rable company of angels," who beckon us to 
 climb higher, and stretch out a thousand 
 hands to minister to us and help us up ; and 
 yet we ignobly stand at the bottom of the 
 mount. We are come to " the church of the 
 first-born, which are written in heaven;" we 
 have seen them go up before us ; we have 
 seen Enoch under the force of his sublime 
 aspirations climb to the summit of holy Zion, 
 and enter the cloud of the Divine Majesty ; 
 we have seen Noah climb after him; and 
 Abraham and the Patriarchs, Moses and the 
 Prophets, Paul and the Apostles, Stephen and 
 the Martyrs, we have seen the spirits of the 
 just go up, and their feet stand within thy 
 gates, Jerusalem! and yet this imposing 
 array of witnesses, stretching over the vast 
 Bible history, has not excited within us a 
 heavenly ambition to emulate their career, a 
 spark of holy rivalry ! We are come " to Jesus 
 the mediator of the new covenant, and to the 
 
264 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 blood of sprinkling, " and yet we do not ask 
 what that covenant lias made over to us, and 
 what that blood can do for ns. That covenant 
 confers the right of an abundant entrance into 
 God, and yet we are satisfied if it saves ns 
 from hell; that covenant is our passport to 
 the inner chamber of the Divine presence, the 
 chamber of visions and revelations, where the 
 most undisguised utterances are heard, and 
 where the soul recovers the image of her 
 Maker ; and yet with the Testament of our 
 dying Lord in our hand, bequeathing to us 
 these exalted honors, we do not press on to 
 make them our own ! And the blood of 
 sprinkling we are prone to think has done all 
 that is needful when it justifies us ; when it 
 turns back from us the judgments of the law. 
 We seem to forget that it cleanses from all 
 sin, and thus removes the grand objection to 
 our walking with God. 
 
 brethren, are we come to these examples 
 and helps, by the aid of which we may attain 
 the heights of Zion, and enter into that sacred 
 fellowship with God with which Enoch was 
 honored, and do we stand at a distance from 
 oar Creator ? Let us mourn and weep over 
 this unnatural conduct ; let each one arise and 
 go to his Father, and say, " I have sinned 
 against heaven and in thy sight :" let us with 
 
ENOCH. 265 
 
 sincere humility and with the emotions and 
 resolves of penitence fall at His feet, confess 
 our almost unpardonable disobedience, and 
 plead for the intercession of our Elder Brother, 
 that tve may obtain mercy, and grace to help 
 us for a new career in the Christian life ! 
 
SEBMON XIX. 
 
 Gen. v. 24. 
 
 "And Enoch ivalked toith God: and he ivas not ; for 
 God took him." 
 
 If a passion for gold can swallow up other 
 interests, and make men leave their homes, 
 sacrifice their comforts, and even peril their 
 lives, shall a passion for God be less potent ? 
 Shall this not be able to master other desires, 
 and subordinate other pursuits, and inspire 
 an equal spirit of self-denial ? Let us, dear 
 brethren, strive to approach unto God ; it will 
 cost an effort, but the object will recompense 
 the toil. We are in pursuit of God, and He 
 meets our discouragements with the promise, 
 " They that seek me shall find me." It is 
 not an enterprise of doubtful issue ; for our 
 exertions receive a constant stimulus from 
 certain earnests of success which the Lord 
 lays in the seeker's path. We are not allowed 
 to grope after God in utter darkness. He 
 affords cheering intimations that He is not far 
 from us. He draws us after Him, increases 
 the light on our path, and ordains that we 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 
 
 267 
 
 shall wall- and not faint. We need not bor- 
 row the index of human science ; nor pnzzle 
 and tire ourselves with metaphysical questions. 
 Philosophy cannot "show ns the Father." 
 The Lord Jesus leads us to God, and whither 
 He goes, we know; and the way we know. 
 He that hath seen Him, hath seen the Father. 
 We cannot, in our sinful state, dwell with 
 definite ideas on the purely spiritual existence 
 of God; but. the fulness of the Godhead, 
 dwelling bodily in the man Christ Jesus, is 
 represented in a form upon which we can 
 look, — a person ; and, the marvellous ways 
 of God ! in a person of our own nature. The 
 overwhelming glory of the Deity is softened 
 through the beautiful and perfect humanity of 
 Christ. God cannot commune with us apart 
 from His Son. The clearest revelation which 
 he has made of himself, is called, the truth as 
 it is in Jesus. Prayer, which is the main help 
 of the soul's walking with God, is only ac- 
 cepted through Jesus ; and when Paul, in a 
 grand petition, asks that the riches of the 
 divine glory may be granted to the Ephesians, 
 he adds this most needful supplication, " That 
 Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ;" 
 and when his prayer rises to an almost peril- 
 ous sublimity ; when his large apostolic soul, 
 transported with the freedom and immensity 
 
268 SERMON XIX. 
 
 of grace, prays that they may be filled with 
 all the fullness of God, he makes this the result 
 of knowing the love of Christ, ivhich passeth 
 knowledge. And of the spirits that from the 
 margin of death have plunged into this full- 
 ness, of those who dwell with God in the 
 sinless and immortal regions of heaven, we 
 read that there they worship and meditate and 
 live through Jesus. The Lamb who saved 
 them on earth, is now in the midst of the 
 throne, feeding them, and leading them unto 
 living fountains of water. Let me exhort you 
 to cultivate a deeper acquaintance with the 
 Saviour. You have seen His arm and felt its 
 power ; tell Him, you want a larger place in 
 His heart ; you want to read His life, and ever 
 to place it before you as the pattern of your 
 own ; tell Him you want your spirit to take 
 root in the deep things of God, especially in 
 that deepest of all, His own love. If in earnest 
 and firm resolve you make the Lord Jesus your 
 portion, and Him only, and Him always, He 
 will with sympathetic affection lead you into 
 the more secret repositories of grace, give you 
 more of the knowledge and secure for you 
 more of the friendship of His Father and 
 your Father, than you can either ask or think. 
 " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
 have entered into the heart of man, the things 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 269 
 
 which God hath prepared for them that love 
 Him." 
 
 Let us now follow Enoch to the crown of 
 his piety. God took him. It is scarcely neces- 
 sary to prove that neither these words, nor 
 that passage in the Hebrews founded upon 
 them, can be fairly interpreted to mean any- 
 thing else than a miraculous translation to 
 heaven. The language that registers the 
 departure of every patriarch in this chapter, 
 except Enoch, is simply, he died. We may 
 hence conclude that when Moses writes con- 
 cerning Enoch that God took him, he does not 
 vary the description of an ordinary death, but 
 records a singular and extraordinary fact, that 
 men found not Enoch, because God had trans- 
 lated him. Moreover, the word used in the 
 text to signify Enoch's departure, is found no 
 where else in the Old Testament to mean 
 death; but it is employed in the Book of 
 Kings to describe Elijah's removal — "And it 
 came to pass, when the Lord would take up 
 Elijah." 
 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 ought to have precluded all criticism on this 
 subject. But a miracle like the translation of 
 Enoch involves a too credulous acceptance of 
 the supernatural ; it is also a needless demand 
 upon our faith, when a slight modification of 
 
270 SEKMON XIX. 
 
 the text will reduce the wonder to a very 
 natural event. It has therefore been sug- 
 gested that the difficulty in the passage of the 
 Epistle be got rid of in this manner — "By 
 faith Enoch was translated that he should die 
 suddenly by lightning, for before his transla- 
 tion he had this testimony that he pleased 
 God."(!) But surely a license like this, makes 
 criticism a ploughshare instead of a pruning- 
 knife; and the fairest gardens of literature 
 would soon be a wilderness, if this rude, this 
 most unscholarly treatment of an ancient 
 author were permitted in the elucidation of 
 classical learning. In the instance before us, 
 our English version is a faithful copy of the 
 original text : and giving the writer credit for 
 meaning what he said, and not supposing that 
 he accommodated his description to any tradi- 
 tion existing among the Jews, the statement 
 may be relied on, that Enoch, like Elijah, was 
 taken up to heaven without dying. 
 
 The scriptures say nothing- of the manner 
 of this translation ; nor indeed of the reason 
 of it. The latter may be conjectured. It is 
 not improbable that it had reference to the age 
 in which Enoch lived. We have already, in a 
 former discourse, referred to the depravity of 
 the antedeluvian world. Men lived in that 
 age for eight centuries. When the opening of 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 271 
 
 a grave was so unusual an occurrence, heaven 
 or another state might soon be forgotten. 
 Even in our day, when life is brief and mor- 
 tality incessant, it is hard to awaken a serious 
 thought on eternity. And in Enoch's times it 
 might have been necessary by some wonder or 
 prodigy to arouse men from the stupidity and 
 ignorance of centuries : and the sudden vanish- 
 ing of Enoch in the midst of his years by a 
 miraculous translation was adapted to produce 
 this effect. The news of the patriarch's ascen- 
 sion must have electrified the fathers of the 
 ancient world. They were the immediate 
 descendants of Adam, but had never imagined 
 the possibility of this miracle. Every one of 
 the departed had bowed to the decree, " Dust 
 thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 
 The old men had mournfully followed their 
 father Adam to the grave; Eve was laid 
 beside him ; and they had no other notion of 
 their end but that since the father and mother 
 of the race had gathered ii'p their feet, it was 
 appointed unto them all once to die. But the 
 translation of Enoch convinced them that 
 there was something in man above the law of 
 mortality. Enoch was born amongst them ; 
 they had seen his infancy, youth, and man- 
 hood ; he was subject to the same wants and 
 carried the same infirmities as they ; and yet 
 
272 SERMON XIX. 
 
 lie had escaped death, the uniform issue of 
 want and weakness. Thoughts like these 
 would stir up among them a questioning as to 
 the reason of Enoch's deliverance from the 
 grave, and they would recur to his life. There 
 was the secret of his miraculous exit. They 
 would remember something in his life that 
 disdained submission to death. They would 
 remember his sermons ; for Enoch like JSFoah 
 was a preacher of righteousness ; they would 
 recall his declamations against their wicked- 
 ness ; his testimony of the Messiah, and of 
 the day in which God would judge the world. 
 They had, perhaps, regarded him as a visionary, 
 a man of solitary walks and musings ; perhaps 
 they had sported with his piety as £he dream 
 of an enthusiast; and even persecuted the 
 messenger of Grod when he followed them to 
 the haunts of their unlawful pleasures, and 
 boldly witnessed against their sins. But now 
 they saw the end of that holy and benevolent 
 life ; they saw the poor visionary conveyed 
 away beyond the stars ! Here was the power 
 of goodness : Enoch was borne away above 
 the tombs of his fathers, proving that a higher 
 world, a nobler existence, awaited the seeker 
 of God. The mantle of Enoch's testimony 
 fell ; and one would think it should not have 
 fallen in vain. Those among his brethren who 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 273 
 
 called upon the name of the Lord began to 
 revive the expectation of the Messiah. In 
 Enoch's own family this hope was so strong 
 that Lamech, his grandson, called his eldest 
 child Noah, under an impatient supposition that 
 he was the promised deliverer, — "This child," 
 said his father, " shall comfort us concerning 
 our work and the toil of our hands, because of 
 the ground which the Lord hath cursed." 
 
 We have dwelt upon the manner and 
 reason of Enoch's translation : it remains for 
 us to consider the event itself as the con- 
 summation of a holy life. " Enoch walked 
 with God ; and he was not ; for God took him." 
 Here is the probationary character of piety. 
 Enoch walked with God first, and then God 
 took him ; removed him from earth ; from the 
 shifting tent of pilgrimage to the abodes of 
 immortality. With those blemishes of frailty 
 which no degree of intelligence can efface, with 
 laws of physical nature limiting his intellec- 
 tual faculties, it was ''impossible for Enoch to 
 walk with God in perfect intimacy. There 
 was an immense reserve both of emotion and 
 understanding that could never get into action 
 on earth. He loved God : but how imper- 
 fectly awakened even this passion, cultivated 
 though it was to the highest pitch of sacred- 
 ness and friendship, compared with what it 
 
 T 
 
274 SERMON XIX. 
 
 would be in the heavenly state. When the 
 soul of the patriarch had passed through the 
 rude gradations of an immortal life; when 
 by instruction, regeneration, affliction, labour, 
 and many severe encounters and exercises of 
 faith, courage, and endurance, Enoch had been 
 prepared for the glorious life of heaven, God 
 set him free from those laws that hold us to 
 the dust, exalted his vision above the horizon 
 of a terrestrial sphere, unbound the wings of 
 his spirit, and bade it fly homeward. Enoch 
 had often gone thither by faith, had often 
 gazed through the telescope of hope upon 
 those fair landscapes which stretch away from 
 the other side of a good man's grave ; but now 
 faith was cast off like a mantle, hope was un- 
 distinguishable in the realization of its dreams, 
 and love, that crowning and immortal grace, 
 found itself rolling to God, its fountain and 
 ocean, like a river freed from its embankments. 
 The ascending prophet rising through the 
 grosser medium of sense, gained the element 
 of pure spirit, and resumed his study of God 
 in happy freedom from the vile restrictions of 
 mortality. Before his translation, he pleased 
 God as an infant pleases its father. Its imper- 
 fect imitations of speech, its little struggles to 
 grasp an idea, its prattlings and questions 
 charm the tender and watchful parent, be- 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 275 
 
 cause they indicate the shape of the future 
 man. We can imagine no gratification more 
 exquisite than a father's joy, as he observes 
 the unfoldings of that beautiful flower, a child's 
 mind ; unless indeed it be the chastened 
 triumph with which he afterwards points to 
 the happy results of his training in the boy 
 now grown to manhood ; capable of discourse 
 and counsel ; qualified to hold up his head 
 among his father's friends, and to augment 
 the importance of his father's house ; then the 
 cup of parental bliss overflows. Now God 
 rejoices over His children in this manner, but 
 in a far higher degree. Enoch was a child on 
 earth; he walked with God, but his steps 
 were feeble, his progress slow ; he called upon 
 the name of his Father, but the call was a 
 lisp, the broken accents of infancy. He learned 
 from the volume of God's works, and conned 
 over the lessons of His grace ; but his highest 
 efforts were little more than a spelling out the 
 simplest passages of providence and mercy ; 
 but there was growth. Enoch's heart went 
 before his intellect. The child loved his 
 Father before he understood Him ; and love 
 is that feature in the divine image in which 
 God most delights. An early affection has 
 more charm for Him, than a precocious intel- 
 ligence. The first and great commandment 
 
 t2 
 
276 SERMON XIX. 
 
 is, Thou shalt love, not, Thou shalt Tmow, 
 The builder and master of the human mind 
 has made it to act with the greatest freedom 
 and success when it is moved by love. If this 
 be the dominant feeling it hallows every other 
 passion ; and it also imparts to the reason a 
 clearness, to the understanding a strength, to 
 the fancy a warmth, and to the will a gentle- 
 ness and humility, which ensure the very 
 highest results in intellectual inquiry. God 
 does not seem to have intended any great 
 general triumphs for the intellect on earth; 
 he holds this in abeyance and calls out the 
 emotive faculties. The reason of man will 
 perhaps do wonders in heaven ; but the love 
 of God must first do wonders on earth. The 
 expansion of the understanding is reserved 
 for that world where sin cannot corrupt and 
 failure and sorrow cannot depress it. Hence 
 God contemns human wisdom, as such ; but 
 honors every symptom of holy affection ; and 
 the humble soul who knows little and loves 
 much, is a more choice intelligence than the 
 man of science, although before men the latter 
 be a prodigy of intellectual power. 
 
 It is delightful to reflect upon the sudden 
 enlargement of a mind like Enoch's transported 
 to heaven in the twinkling of an eye ! What 
 a glorious birth there must have been of power 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 277 
 
 to think, and of capacity to love ! What 
 an instantaneous accession of ideas ! When 
 Enoch entered heaven, no Saviour had gone 
 down to redeem the world ; the glorious com- 
 pany of the apostles had not been formed, the 
 noble martyrs had not bled for the Cross, and 
 the church of the first-born numbered but 
 three or four souls, Abel, Enoch, Adam, and a 
 few others. But these were enough to begin 
 the new song, Unto Kim that loved us, fyc. 
 Although the sacrifice was not offered, it was 
 made in purpose, and they felt they were blood- 
 bought souls. We may imagine the angels 
 gathering about this little band, and asking 
 each other the meaning of the anthem in 
 which they were unable to join ; we can sup- 
 pose that these blessed first-fruits would make 
 the host of heaven yearn for the harvest-time, 
 when that dark and distant earth would return, 
 not her twos and threes, but her millions to 
 augment the population of the skies, and 
 crown the work of the Son of God. Enoch 
 could doubtless descry the line of ages and 
 events through which the gospel scheme would 
 run, — its superficial trials and changes, its 
 resistless progress, its infallible success and 
 final triumph. What Enoch foresaw in vision 
 we have seen in accomplishment. Heaven 
 will be very different now from what Enoch 
 
278 SERMON XIX. 
 
 found it. To be translated now, when the 
 redeeming work is finished ! When He that 
 went forth, travelling in the greatness of His 
 strength, has returned from Edom and from 
 Bozrah, with His garments dyed in the blood 
 of His enemies, and His brows graced with 
 the many crowns of His achievements. Enoch 
 found heaven a field of expectation ; we shall 
 find it a scene of triumph ; Enoch conversed 
 with Christ on the decease He should accom- 
 plish ; we shall congratulate Him on what He 
 has accomplished. Enoch found but a few 
 companions to enter with him into the 
 immediate visions of the Divine glory ; we 
 shall greet numbers without number, of every 
 kindred, with Jesus at their head; a sight 
 that Enoch saw not for ages after his transla- 
 tion. Heaven was worth living for in Enoch's 
 time ; it is worth dying for now ! We cling 
 to life as if death were our greatest affliction ; 
 we battle with disease as if it would sever us 
 from happiness for ever ; we mourn for them 
 that are gone as if the saddest fate had over- 
 taken them : but if we know it not, they know 
 it, that heaven is worth dying for. 0, breth- 
 ren, live for heaven, and think it not a hard 
 fate that, like Enoch, we cannot escape thither 
 without passing through the valley of death ! 
 It is no disgrace to die : the humiliation of 
 
GOD TOOK HIM. 279 
 
 the grave is no more : Christ has wiped off its 
 reproach. The stroke from which we shrink, 
 He felt ; and 0, how keenly, how ignomini- 
 ously ! But from that hour, it was written, 
 Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, 
 Sorrow for the happy dead has no ground or 
 reason apart from ourselves. We ought to 
 call them the happy living. They may well 
 mourn for us, if there be weeping in heaven. 
 We are buried, and not they. We lie in tombs 
 of ignorance and sin, and they walk over the 
 earth that covers us. The restraint, the cor- 
 ruption, the insensibility, is ours : theirs the 
 liberty, the purity, the vigor, and the happi- 
 ness of life. We speak of them as memories 
 of yesterday, of last year, of last century : we 
 are memories and not they : they are recollect- 
 ing us, not we them. We are in the past, and 
 they look back upon us over centuries of ad- 
 vancement. To them secrets are unveiled and 
 events known which this plodding earth will 
 not discover or understand for ages. The 
 onward thinkers of mankind and the most 
 enlightened and effective agents in all the im- 
 portant movements of the human race are in 
 heaven, and working with us from there ! 
 The fathers, ivhere are they ? In understand- 
 ing and experience more worthy of their 
 fatherhood than when they instructed us on 
 
2S0 SERMON XIX. 
 
 earth. The prophets, do they live for ever ? 
 Live ! Yes, in the glorious fruition of their 
 predictions. Man giveth up the ghost, and 
 where is he ? In his own rightful immortality, 
 thinking without weariness or failure, and 
 labouring with unfettered powers and with 
 infinite results. We can thus fill up nearly all 
 the blanks of the Old Testament by the reve- 
 lations of the New. By the torch of the New 
 Testament we can read the problem of a 
 grave : listen to its grand rendering, Sown in 
 corruption; raised in incorruption : sown in 
 dishonor; raised in glory : sown in weakness ; 
 raised in power : soimi a natural body raised a 
 spiritual body. 
 
SERMON XX. 
 
 Isaiah lxi. 3. 
 <c Beauty for ashes." 
 
 This is the mission of Christianity : it finds 
 ashes; it gives beauty. Man resembles a 
 palace in ruins ; the touching and impressive 
 remains of what was once noble and splendid. 
 We gaze upon the human race with feelings 
 not unlike the melancholy awakened in some 
 ancient and dilapidated mansion. Here rose 
 the towers, proud heralds of majesty; that 
 fragment of a column marks what was once 
 the royal entrance ; and the enclosure in which 
 we stand, roofless and matted with wild grass, 
 was a hall of state; and the passages we 
 are threading, dark and dank, noisome and 
 obscene, where birds of darkness flit and 
 scream, once led to the sumptuous apartments 
 of beauty and chivalry : we climb a piece of old 
 ivied wall and look about us : we observe that 
 the ruin imparts a gloom to all the landscape : 
 nature sympathizes and suffers with it : every- 
 thing upon which its shadows fall looks old 
 and venerable for its sake. 
 
282 SERMON XX. 
 
 Such a grand old ruin is the human race : 
 it was built in paradise, with attributes rising 
 like towers to the skies ; the habitation of 
 God, the resort of angels, the glory of earth, 
 which had no beauty of herself, but that 
 which was reflected upon her from him who 
 was created in the image of God. But sin 
 entered humanity, and death by sin ; and, 
 agreeably to that retributive law, when Thou 
 with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity , Thou 
 makest his beauty to consume away like a moth, 
 the structure became ashes. We cannot take 
 our stand outside this ruin, and look at it 
 from positions of contrast, to observe its 
 gigantic outline standing clear against the 
 light of heaven, because we ourselves are the 
 ruin. We never could have discovered it, or 
 been made conscious of it, but by the revela- 
 tion of God. The divine word instructs us, 
 and the Holy Spirit makes us feel, that we 
 are little more than a fragment of what we 
 once were. Our thoughts on almost any 
 subject are small, indistinct, and without 
 authority : the will that should rule us is our 
 slave ; the passions that should obey us are 
 our masters ; the tastes of a God-like intel- 
 ligent being are reversed. We gravitate to- 
 wards earth and hell; with the propensities 
 of a worm, we bore our way through clods of 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 283 
 
 grossness, and make ourselves the bed of a 
 worm : morally, as well as materially, we may 
 " say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to 
 the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." 
 It is the law of spirit to go upwards; but 
 unless the breath of a new life quicken him, 
 man, materialized and brutalized by sin, is ever 
 sinking, ever falling, through stages of sin, ig- 
 norance, and misery, further and further from 
 God, until His nature merges in the Satanic, 
 and God Himself cannot restore him. 
 
 As an illustration of these statements, I 
 need not fetch a cannibal from Fiji; I need 
 not take you from this city. Can there be a 
 more impressive picture of an intellect in ashes 
 than a man bowing his knee to a bit of wood, 
 or offering up the reverence of his judgment 
 and his trust to a beast ? And when you 
 behold all this country of India, with its many 
 millions of souls; when you examine the 
 foundation upon which they build their hope 
 for eternity ; when you consider the ridiculous 
 folly of their gravest speculations ; when you 
 reflect that, what they call their religion is a 
 system of gigantic vices, giving scope and 
 stimulus to that very nature winch religion 
 was intended to destroy ; when you observe, 
 though without surprise, that the spirit of the 
 people answers to these appalling superstitions, 
 
284 SEEMON XX. 
 
 in tlie almost helpless violation of all morality, 
 in the habitual prostitution of truth, purity, 
 and honesty, in a universal incapacity for 
 generous and manly deeds ; when above all 
 you find them a learned people, and that 
 these abominations are sanctioned by their 
 moralists, statesmen, and poets ; when wicked- 
 ness is inculcated in schools ; is anything 
 wanted to complete a most perfect example of 
 man in ashes, man without form, either as an 
 individual mind, or as a community of minds ? 
 And is it not true that his mournful ruin 
 shades and saddens everything else? The 
 moral landscape seems to blight the physical. 
 In spite of the gorgeous cloud-land of these 
 tropical skies, in spite of the florid vegetation 
 of an Indian soil, its massive trees, its bi- 
 annual harvests, its abundant fruits ; no 
 thoughtful man can walk through the country 
 without being sickened by the poverty, the 
 degradation, the profound stupidity, the social 
 miseries, and the pitiful fanaticism of the 
 people. Everything wears a heathenish as- 
 pect, except the blessed heavens, whose stars, 
 like true evangelists, are ever preaching against 
 those who substitute an image for Kim whom 
 the heavens cannot contain. 
 
 But you will find illustrations of man in 
 ashes even in polished cities, where govern- 
 
BEAUTY FOE ASHES. 285 
 
 ment, education, and "wealth concur to lessen 
 misery, to diffuse knowledge, to multiply arts 
 of refinement, to impress order, and to teach 
 morality. It is true that men as a general 
 rule are richer, wiser, happier, in England 
 than in India ; but it is no less true that in 
 both countries human nature is a ruin ; it 
 certainly has not been rebuilt in England. 
 There is not the same appearance of dilapida- 
 tion ; but because a few repairs have been 
 effected in one corner, and an apartment here 
 and there reclaimed, we must not deceive our- 
 selves with the notion that the edifice of 
 humanity has been restored. Civilization may 
 cover ashes with beauty, but it cannot give 
 beauty for ashes. You may find ashes beneath 
 the covering of man's best estate. The most 
 improved nature, the most fortunate circum- 
 stances, will not secure us against failure, 
 sorrow, and death. Man's happiness, such as 
 it is, can only be counted by moments ; man's 
 best established reliances most commonly fail 
 him, and in the hour of his greatest con- 
 fidence ; man's intellect, even when most 
 continuously and successfully exerted, per- 
 forms but half its task. Its efforts consist 
 mainly of great attempts, indicating what it 
 might have done. The works which men 
 leave behind them in literature, mechanics, 
 
286 SERMON XX. 
 
 government, and arts, are little else than 
 splendid fragments. What might not such a 
 man have done had he lived, is the common 
 epitaph of genius. 
 
 But let us narrow our observation to self; 
 let every one of us find, as he may easily do, 
 an example of ruin in his own nature. Have 
 we a sound part in us ? Two words will de- 
 scribe me thoroughly and exhaustively, sin and 
 ashes. " Israel, thou hast destroyed thy- 
 self, but in me is thy help." I feel that I am 
 a ruin, a fragment. I can conceive what I 
 might have been, what I may yet be; but 
 what I am, except so far as the grace of God 
 has changed me, let my frail body testify — the 
 seat of a thousand ailments now, a little heap 
 of dust by and by ; what I am, let my deceit- 
 ful heart reply, with not a healthy spot in 
 it, evading by its subtlety the most careful 
 scrutiny, and yet in its turn the veriest dupe 
 of its own deceit ; what I am, let my own sins 
 bear witness. The plain path to God and 
 heaven was shown me, I knew it to be the 
 way of right and salvation, and heavenly 
 motives were given to induce me to walk 
 therein ; the Spirit strove, the word instructed, 
 example warned ; but I took my own course ; 
 knew it was destruction, but still took it, and 
 but for the restraining grace of God, I should 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 2S7 
 
 have been in hell. What I am, let the law of 
 God which I have transgressed, and the pro- 
 vidence of God which I have tempted, and the 
 love of God which I have despised, let these 
 answer that, from the sole of the foot, even 
 unto the crown of the head, I am morally, 
 intellectually, and physically, a ruin. The 
 depth and extent of this ruin, let the suffering 
 Jesus reveal; He can tell who, to give me 
 beauty, became ashes I 
 
 Now by what process does beauty spring 
 from ashes ? You have heard of that fabulous 
 Egyptian bird, the phoenix. The ancients 
 describe it as single, the only one of its kind ; 
 in shape like an eagle, but of more beautiful 
 plumage. They imagined that it lived five 
 hundred years in the wilderness, and then 
 built a pile of aromatic wood ; and setting this 
 on fire with the wafting of its wings, con- 
 sumed itself to ashes : that from the ashes 
 arose a worm, which in time became beaut)/ 
 for ashes, another phoenix ! We have no 
 account of the origin of this fiction, but it is 
 an exquisite type of the process by which life 
 and organization are renewed. Ashes imply 
 suffering: and death ; these lie at the foundation 
 of beauty. That which thou soivest is not 
 quickened except it die, but if it die, it bringeth 
 forth m n.cli fruit. 
 
288 SERMON XX. 
 
 We have become guilty in the sight of 
 God ; the sentence and the curse of death rest 
 upon us ; the way back to life is through ashes. 
 Under the law, no sinner could see the beauty 
 of the Lord, or inquire in His temple, except 
 through the ashes of an heifer, or of some 
 other animal, sprinkling the unclean. The 
 consuming fire was ever kept burning upon 
 the Jewish altar : animal life was continually 
 suffering, animal organization was incessantly 
 passing into ashes, and from these, as the 
 accepted types of the last great Offering, 
 sprang "the beauty of the Lord," shining 
 upon the sinner's heart, conveying pardon and 
 salvation, changing the sinner into its own 
 image from glory to glory; and all at the 
 price of ashes. And here we must distinguish 
 between the positive ruin, described in the 
 first part of this address as the personal result 
 of man's sin and the fact of man's condition, 
 and the vicarious sufferings and death of our 
 Lord Jesus. We must consider Him as a 
 member of the human family ; not only suffer- 
 ing and dying with them, but by reason of 
 His divine nature dying for them. We were 
 consuming in the fires of sin, and should have 
 perished in our ashes, but He threw Himself 
 upon the pile and it became an altar of atone- 
 ment; He converted the smoke of torment 
 
BEAUTY FOE ASHES. 289 
 
 into the sweet incense of an oblation, and the 
 ashes of the sacrifice became the seeds of a 
 new race and a new earth. Beauty came forth 
 in the person of Jesus, the first glorious fruit 
 of suffering. In Him we see the perfection of 
 man restored, the ruined intellect once more 
 assuming the image of Grod, surpassing in the 
 second Adam the intelligence of the first : we 
 see the heart once more all glorious within, 
 the body once more the perfection of immortal 
 beauty ; so that although " by man came 
 death, by man came also the resurrection of 
 the dead :" the resurrection of the spirit and 
 the resurrection of the body. Risen with 
 Christ from guilt, from misery, from ashes, 
 there is perfect deliverance from every possible 
 evil, through a Saviour's work and name, and 
 the restoration of universal beauty. 
 
 From the time of Christ's ascension to 
 glory there has been working upon the earth a 
 resurrection power. Like the breath of the 
 four winds that swept over the charnel- valley 
 of the prophet, it is immediately connected with 
 prophesying, with preaching to men the facts 
 of Christ's work and death, and publishing 
 the love of God who " spared not His own Son 
 but freely delivered Him up for us all;" and 
 this gospel is found to be a savour of life to 
 dying souls ; a proclamation and a power of 
 
 u 
 
290 SERMON XX. 
 
 liberty to those who are held fast by reigning 
 sins ; and a law of love, of civilization, and of 
 social order to men whom ignorance and inhe- 
 erent vice had driven asnnder from each other ; 
 and a renovating spirit, making all things new, 
 raising in power whatever has been sown in 
 weakness, giving spirituality to that which is 
 material, and changing dishonor into glory. 
 And although it is true that the world still 
 lieth in wickedness and spiritual death, there 
 is a great multitude which no man can number 
 gathered into an invisible .society, composing 
 a few apartments of the " spiritual house," 
 which Christ the architect is raising upon the 
 ruins of the fall. We say an invisible society, 
 for the world cannot discern the unity of these 
 stones, or the plan of the building as it rises 
 from them. Yet even those who have no eye 
 for the perception and enjoyment of heavenly 
 forms, cannot fail to see that Christianity, 
 whether' it ; spring from heaven or men, is 
 the mightiest agency on earth. It is ever at 
 work in the ashes of our waste places. Set it 
 down anywhere, and wait awhile : the curse of 
 ignorance flies before it, men know them- 
 selves, they learn the nature and the laws of 
 their Maker; man worships his God, and 
 embraces his fellow ; his understanding is 
 ennobled by heavenly ideas and strengthened 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 291 
 
 by positive knowledge ; his love, his hope, his 
 trust, no longer the dupes of error and the 
 slaves of lust, but raised from the mire and 
 the clay, get wings for heaven and rest in God ; 
 the foundation of society is changed, and all 
 its activities are directed to the elevation of 
 the race. The transforming power of the 
 gospel was never so rapid in its action, and its 
 triumphs were never so conspicuous as in 
 these days : and no antagonism shall let it, 
 until its work is done. What is that voice 
 that is everywhere crying out for redress, that 
 impatience of things as they are, that now 
 urges forward nations who for ages had never 
 conceived such an idea as change ? What 
 mean those great political events that are 
 clearing the Lord's path to the peoples of the 
 earth, — breaking up caste in India, despotism 
 in Naples, exclusiveness in China, and popery 
 in Rome ? Are not these the signs of the 
 Lord's approach, the preliminary changes that 
 lie between ashes and beauty ? 
 
 Hitherto we have considered the text as a 
 remarkable enunciation of the character and 
 scope of the gospel mission, and we have made 
 this the chief topic of our address, but we must 
 not omit the local object of the passage. The 
 words were spoken by Christ, and in this con- 
 nexion, " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon 
 
 u 2 
 
292 SERMON XX. 
 
 me ; because the Lord hath anointed me to 
 preach good tidings to the meek ; he hath 
 sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to 
 comfort all that mourn ; to appoint unto them 
 that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty 
 for ashes y You will remember that this scrip- 
 ture Jesus read in the synagogue of Nazareth 
 and applied to Himself. Let us for a moment 
 withdraw from a world in ashes, and from 
 the exciting prospect of its renovation, t.o 
 find those particular cases of misery to which 
 the words were originally addressed, to com- 
 fort them that mourn in Zion. If we may 
 venture to ascribe to Christ, what is com- 
 monly observable in men, some master quality 
 of mind that gives its nature to all the rest 
 and manifests the individuality of the person, 
 that quality in our blessed Lord is tenderness. 
 For Him the house of mourning had a peculiar 
 charm ; it was there His brow was lightened 
 by those gleams of joy that sometimes irra- 
 diated for a moment the habitual sadness of 
 the Man of Sorrows. He was in His element 
 when tears were to be wiped away and bur- 
 dens were to be lifted from the oppressed, 
 when sins were to be forgiven and sobbing 
 hearts quieted ; and even when He feasted and 
 rejoiced with His people, the occasion was the 
 festive thanksgiving of recent mourners ; every 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 293 
 
 guest there wore a garment of praise for some 
 special tenderness shown him in extremity. 
 My dear brethren, let me preach Jesus, the 
 same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. 
 Where are they who, like Job, are sitting in 
 the ashes of loneliness and sorrow ? Do you 
 mourn under the Lord's displeasure? Are 
 you tasting the bitterness of unpardoned sin ? 
 Unto you is the word of this salvation sent. 
 Hear and receive the blessing pronounced 
 upon them that mourn; — thou afflicted, 
 tossed with tempest, and not comforted ; behold, 
 I will Ioaj thy stones with fair colors, and lay 
 thy foundations with sapphires. Have you 
 been so long in sackcloth, that you begin to 
 fear that the mercy of Grod is " clean gone for 
 ever?" So might have thought the poor 
 woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen 
 years ; and the Bethesda patient, who for 
 thirty and eight years had lain upon the edge 
 of the water of life, but could never get in : 
 but beauty was reserved for both ; the ever- 
 mindful Friend came by ; and there could be 
 no inveteracy when Jesus touched the disease. 
 0, doubt it not, that this Saviour is present 
 now to raise you from the dust. Believest thou 
 that I am able to do this for thee? Answer 
 Him at once ; and if the affirmative is embar- 
 rassed by a misgiving, break out in the despe- 
 
294 SEKMON XX. 
 
 rate confidence of one in a similar distress, 
 " Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief !" No, 
 sorrowing friend, thou shall not be sent away 
 without comfort. Whatever the cause of thy 
 mourning, if it afflicts thee, it grieves Him. 
 Bare thy heart to this incomparable physician : 
 bid Him touch the secret sore, bid Him probe 
 it : believe in His skill, in His love, in His heart. 
 No mother ever touched her ailing child with 
 so cautious and watchful a ministry as He will 
 address to thee : He will pour into the wounds 
 of thy spirit the balm of His forgiving love, 
 and bind them up, and invest you with the 
 beauty and salvation of His righteousness. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 141. 
 
 It hardly suits with the candour and honest thoroughness 
 which are said, by the disciples of it, to be the distinguishing 
 merit of a certain Theological School, to throw, as writers of this 
 class commonly do, a haze, half philosophical and half poetical, 
 around the doctrine of the Cross. The death of Jesus Christ as 
 the consummation of a pattern, and the same event considered as 
 an appeasing offering, are two ideas so plainly marked off from 
 each other, that no man need teach his brother the difference 
 between them. It is true that if we take the pains to analyze 
 them, we may find a ground common to them both, where they 
 run into each other and become the same thing. The good man 
 is as the wicked man ought to be ; and the latter, in deriving 
 benefit from his example, may be saved from punishment in one 
 of these two ways ; — the example may atone for him, and in this 
 sense be the price of his escape ; or its virtuous efficacy may 
 deter him from further sin, and be the means of his reformation ; 
 in either instance there is a vicarious element. But is it fair to 
 attempt to get rid of the directly sacrificial nature of the death of 
 Christ, uifmistakeably defined and clearly affirmed because in- 
 tended for the apprehension of common people, by ignoring in it 
 the circumstance of penal substitution? If Jesus did not die in 
 our stead, that is, in the sacrificial sense, to appease wrath and to 
 purchase acceptance, a sense sufficiently intelligible in all lan- 
 guages, it is better to say so clearly and decidedly, instead of 
 investing a plain idea in philosophical mist ! But the truth is, 
 that the New Testament so positively and variously declares that 
 the blood of Christ was a "ransom," and that we are " bought 
 with a price ;" and its doctrinal and practical writings are so 
 unanswerably based upon this view of the Saviour's crucifixion, 
 that it requires considerable learning and more ingenuity to make 
 people believe anything else concerning it. The most painful 
 symptom of unbelief in the present day is this handling of the 
 word of God deceitfully ; this blowing from the Gospel trumpet an 
 uncertain sound. Let the writers against whom we make this 
 complaint, return to the compositions of Paul, and answer this 
 question, not to their consciences, but to their honest critical 
 judgment. Could any writer understanding the sufferings and 
 death of Christ as they expound them, have written of the Cross 
 as the Apostle has done in his Roman and Corinthian Epistles ? 
 
LON DON : 
 
 PRINTED BY HAYMAN BROTHERS, 
 
 GOUGH SQUARE, E.C. 
 
1 ' ' " 
 
 .