txbvaxy of t;he trheoio^icai ^kmiaavy PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY BX 5133 .L5 1893 Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, 1828-1889. Cambridge sermons I CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. W 1 CAMBRIDGE SERMONS BY THE LATE JOSEPH BARBER LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES OF THE LIGHTFOOT FUND Hontron MAC MILL AN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1893 All Rights reserved First Edition 1890. Reprinted 1893. Extract from the last Will and Testa- ment OF THE LATE JOSEPH BARBER LlGHTFOOT, Lord Bishop of Durham. "I bequeath all my personal Estate not herein- " before otherwise disposed of unto [my Executors] "upon trust to pay and transfer the same unto the " Trustees appointed by me under and by virtue of a " certain Indenture of Settlement creating a Trust to " be known by the name of ' The Lightfoot Fund for " the Diocese of Durham ' and bearing even date "herewith but executed by me immediately before "this my Will to be administered and dealt with by "them upon the trusts for the purposes and in the " manner prescribed by such Indenture of Settle- " ment." Extract from the Indenture of Settle- ment of 'the Lightfoot Fund for the Diocese of Durham/ "Whereas the Bishop is the Author of and is " absolutely entitled to the Copyright in the several " Works mentioned in the Schedule hereto, and for the vi Extract from Bishop Lightfoofs Will. "purposes of these presents he has assigned or intends "forthwith to assign the Copyright in all the said "Works to the Trustees. Now the Bishop doth " hereby declare and it is hereby agreed as follows : — "The Trustees (which term shall hereinafter be " taken to include the Trustees for the time being of •'these presents) shall stand possessed of the said "Works and of the Copyright therein respectively " upon the trusts following (that is to say) upon trust " to receive all moneys to arise from sales or otherwise " from the said Works, and at their discretion from " time to time to bring out new editions of the same "Works or any of them, or to sell the copyright in " the same or any of them, or otherwise to deal with "the same respectively, it being the intention of "these presents that the Trustees shall have and " may exercise all such rights and powers in respect " of the said Works and the copyright therein re- " spectively, as they could or might have or exercise "in relation thereto if they were the absolute bene- "ficial owners thereof.... "The Trustees shall from time to time, at such "discretion as aforesaid, pay and apply the income "of the Trust funds for or towards the erecting, "rebuilding, repairing, purchasing, endowing, sup- porting, or providing for any Churches, Chapels, " Schools, Parsonages, and Stipends for Clergy, and Extract from Bishop Lightfoofs Will. vii " other Spiritual Agents in connection with the " Church of England and within the Diocese of " Durham, and also for or towards such other pur- " poses in connection with the said Church of " England, and within the said Diocese, as the " Trustees may in their absolute discretion think fit, " provided always that any payment for erecting any " building, or in relation to any other works in con- " nection with real estate, shall be exercised with due " regard to the Law of Mortmain ; it being declared "that nothing herein shall be construed as intended " to authorise any act contrary to any Statute or "other Law.... "In case the Bishop shall at any time assign to "the Trustees any Works hereafter to be written or " published by him, or any Copyrights, or any other " property, such transfer shall be held to be made for " the purposes of this Trust, and all the provisions "of this Deed shall apply to such property, subject " nevertheless to any direction concerning the same " which the Bishop may make in writing at the time " of such transfer, and in case the Bishop shall at any " time pay any money, or transfer any security, stock, "or other like property to the Trustees, the same "shall in like manner be held for the purposes of this "Trust, subject to any such contemporaneous direc- tion as aforesaid, and any security, stock or pro- viii Extract from Bishop Light f oofs Will. "perty so transferred, being of a nature which can " lawfully be held by the Trustees for the purposes " of these presents, may be retained by the Trustees, " although the same may not be one of the securities " hereinafter authorised. " The Bishop of Durham and the Archdeacons of " Durham and Auckland for the time being shall be " ex-ojfficio Trustees, and accordingly the Bishop and "Archdeacons, parties hereto, and the succeeding " Bishops and Archdeacons, shall cease to be Trus- tees on ceasing to hold their respective offices, and " the number of the other Trustees may be increased, "and the power of appointing Trustees in the place "of Trustees other than Official Trustees, and of " appointing extra Trustees, shall be exercised by " Deed by the Trustees for the time being, provided " always that the number shall not at any time be " less than five. " The Trust premises shall be known by the name " of 'The Lightfoot Fund for the Diocese of Durham/ " CONTENTS. TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. PAGE I. ESAU. And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. Genesis xxvii. 34. . 3 II. The Conqueror from Edom. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? Isaiah lxiii. 1. . 19 III. Purity of Heart. Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God. S. Matthew v. 8. . 34 iv. Two Sowings and Two Harvests. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatso- ever a ?nan soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap cor- ruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Galatians vi. 7, 8. . 48 X CONTENTS. PAGE v. Except it die. That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. i Corinthians xv. 36. . 63 vi. The One God and the Gods Many. Though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of Who?n are all things, and we for (unto) Him. 1 Corinthians viii. 5. . 80 vii. The Mirror of God's Glory. We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory. 1 Corinthians iii. 18. . 96 Viii. What advantageth it? If after the manner of ?nen I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me ? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink, for to-7norrow we die. 1 Corinthians xv. 32. . 109 CONTENTS. XI UNIVERSITY SERMONS. PAGE i. Shew us the Father. Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, a?id it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father ? S. John xiv. 8, 9. . 129 11. The Sword of the Word. The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sha?per than any two-edged sword, piercing eve7i to the dividing asunder of soul a?id spirit, a?id of the joints and marrow, and is a discer?ier of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any crea- ture that is not ?na?iifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. Hebrews iv. 12, 13. . 150 y in. The Head and the Body. That we may grow up into Him in all things, Which is the head, eve7i Christ; from Whom the whole body fitly joined together a?id compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body utito the edifying of itself in love. Ephesians iv. 15, 16. . 172 yC^L iv* The Wrath of the Lamb. >/0*r*pt-™f **/»*^' w A The wrath of the Lamb. &»*~f'ty ' Revelation vi. 16. . 193 xii CONTENTS. PAGE v. The Revealer of the Heart. The saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. S. John iv. 39. . 212 vi. The Meanness and the Greatness of Man. What is man, that Thou art mindful of him; and the son of man, that Thou visitest him f Psalm viii. 4. . 229 vii. Offences. It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh ! S. Matthew xviii. 7. . 248 viii. Folly and Weakness Triumphant. The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians i. 25. . 265 ix. Bought with a Price. Ye are bought with a price. 1 Corinthians vi. 20. . 283 x. Bethel. Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. Genesis xxviii. 16. . 300 xi. True Ambition. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Philippians iv. 13. . 317 PREACHED IN TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL, 1861—1875. c. s. L ESAU. And when Esau heard the words of Jus father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me also, 0 my father. Genesis xxvii. 34. Trinity College Chapel, 24th Sunday after Trinity, 1861. It is to be feared that even those who are most ready to confess that all Holy Scripture was written for our learning, do yet practically derive very little instruction from large portions of the Old Testament History. There are certain broad features indeed which we can scarcely mistake. When the flagrant sinner is struck down by divine vengeance in the midst of his crimes, or when blessings are showered on the faithful servant of God, the lesson is too plain to escape us. The history of David or of Ahab cannot be misread. But there are other parts of Holy Scripture which appear to us very perplexing 1 — 2 4 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. and unintelligible, which we are disposed perhaps to give up in despair. We cannot understand for in- stance why in certain cases grave sins are dealt with so lightly, or slight offences visited with so heavy a punishment. We feel that our measure of right and wrong would have been very different; that we should have established another law of retribution. There are many reasons for this. It arises in part no doubt because we are judging of past ages by the conven- tional standard of good and evil in our own, and are therefore unwilling to view some of the more current and respectable sins in their true light. But it is still more due to the circumstance, that the point which decides the true character of the action frequently does not lie on the surface of the narrative, and that it requires more pains perhaps than we are disposed to give, in order to appreciate its moral significance. And yet it is just those lessons requiring the most study to master which are the most valuable, when once learnt. For they not only give us the broad features of God's dealings with His creatures. They bring out the finer lines in the portraiture of good and evil. They develope the faint shadows of the picture. They discriminate between the real and the seeming. And thus they bring home to us our true position in the sight of God. They pluck off the mask, which we have worn to ourselves as well as to ESAU. 5 others. They penetrate the inmost depths of our spirit. And thus 1 the word of God is ' indeed ' quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,' a very 'discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.' And it happens very frequently in such cases — where the lesson conveyed does not appear at once on the face of the narrative, and where consequently there is a danger of our passing it over in a care- less reading — that our attention is arrested by some casual but pointed allusion to it in the writings of an Apostle or Evangelist, or in the words of our Blessed Lord Himself. And thus the light of the New Testament is shed upon the Old. The narra- tive assumes a new aspect. We at length recognise its importance. We are led to study it afresh, and each time we read it we are more fully impressed with the depth of the lesson it conveys. The instances of Balaam and of Esau both illus- trate the truth of what 1 have been saying. They are in many respects parallel. The difficulty is much the same in either case. We are at a loss to account for the extreme severity, as we are disposed to regard it, with which the offender is treated in the sacred narrative. Both alike are referred to in the New Testament. 'The way of Balaam the son of Bosor' is a by-word for disobedience and ungodliness. The 6 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. * profane' Esau, 'who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright', is the very picture and type of the hopelessly and irrevocably fallen. Yet this is certainly not the estimate we should have formed by ourselves. Our first impression of Balaam is of one, who — if he fell short of the highest perfection, if his duty to God was not all in all to him — yet at all events cannot be said to have gone very far wrong. We read of his consulting God in all he does. We find him acting as God com- mands him to act. We marvel at his subsequent history, and we are perplexed at the language which Scripture holds regarding him. So again with Esau. We have a sort of feeling that he too, like Balaam, is somewhat hardly dealt with. We are not sure that we should have given the preference to his brother Jacob — nay, we more than suspect that we should have reversed the judgment: that, instead of depriving him of the blessing, we should even have restored him the birthright. We have a lurking regard for his rough, impetuous, simple character, for his undesign- ing and generous spirit. The treachery which is practised upon him, and the success which attends his brother's plots, enlist our sympathies in his favour. It is only when we have examined the narratives more closely, giving them more thought and trying to divest ourselves of our prejudices, that we see their I.] ESAU. 7 history in its true light. Then at length we acknow- ledge the justice of God's rebuke of Balaam ; and we cease to marvel at his fall, because we can now see that, when he acted aright, he acted from fear and not from love. Then at length we discover the superiority of Jacob; and we wonder no more that Esau was deprived of the blessing and rejected as a profane person : for we see that Jacob — though amidst many imperfections, despite many grievous sins — did place his reliance on God; did look to Him, as the Giver of all good things; did live for more than the passing moment. In short Jacob was spiritually minded ; while Esau — with much in him to like, and something to admire — was careless and indifferent to all higher things, influenced only by passing impulses and mo- mentary impressions, without foresight, without re- flection, the type of that hopeless class of men, whose maxim is, 1 Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' To this latter narrative, the history of Esau, I will ask your attention for a few moments this morn- ing. I know of no sadder story. I can imagine none. If the character of Esau had been less attractive, his fall would have excited less pity. If his prospects had not been so brilliant, his fate would have been less terrible. But it is the combination of these two circumstances in the narrative — the ruin of a character 8 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. which we are disposed to admire, and the unspeakable value of the birthright and the blessing which he recklessly threw away — that gives the interest to the story, and rivets our attention to the lesson which it contains. The destruction of so many bright hopes, the dissipation of so many glorious visions, the hope- less and irrevocable ruin of one so simple and honest and open-hearted — what can be more touching than this ? And hence it is that we seem to hear ringing sharply above the most piercing shrieks of pain, and the loudest wailings of grief, that one exceeding bitter cry, uttered in the agony of despair, ' Bless me, even me also, O my father.' And perhaps it may be that the narrative comes home with peculiar force to ourselves, that we are con- scious of some crisis in our own lives, or recall some incident in the career of others whom we have known and loved, which reminds us only too painfully of the fate of Esau, and gives point to the lesson. Is it so with any of us ? May it not be so in some degree or other with most or all of us ? Or is it a mere form that we bewail our manifold sins and wickednesses ; that we confess the remembrance of them to be grievous unto us, the burden intolerable? Have we not each our special temptation, our besetting sin ? And it may be that at one time or other this has culminated in some act, more heinous than we had I.] ESAU. 9 supposed possible — some breach of the law of love, or of truth, or of purity, according to our special tempta- tion — one act which has seemed to shut us out from the presence of God, and to leave us to darkness and despair. And then at length we have learnt in our bitter anguish to measure the exceeding great value of that heavenly birthright, which as sons of God we have inherited only to spurn and to set at naught, and — in remorse, if not in penitence — have striven by the importunity of our cries to arrest the blessing, ere it has passed away from us for ever. I need scarcely dwell on the character of Esau, as it is painted in the sacred narrative. Making allow- ance for the rude habits of the patriarchal age, he is not essentially different in character from a very large number among ourselves. He has just the same virtues, and just the same faults. He is the father's favourite son. He is born to great hopes. He has brilliant prospects before him. His career is in his own hands. His lot may well be envied by others. But all is thrown away upon him. He is reckless of his opportunities. He is insensible to his blessings. He loses everything by one desperate act of folly. He finds out too late the value of what he has lost. He would give anything to recover it, when recovering it is hopeless. And yet his character is far from utterly vicious. Of such a man we might say, that IO TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. he is no one's enemy but his own. If his bad passions are strong, his impulses for good are strong also. If he is reckless and undisciplined, he is simple and honest and open-hearted. He is in short not so very much worse — perhaps not at all worse — than a great number, who are admired and loved among ourselves, and whose manifest faults are forgiven for the sake of many rough virtues and generous affections. Nor do I think that the guilt of Esau will seem so much deeper in comparison with that which we may incur, when we consider the nature of the privilege which he despised, of the blessing which he threw away. True it is that the promise which pertained to Esau — the promise given to Abraham and renewed to Isaac — was something more than the possession of lands and flocks and houses ; that his birthright implied more than mere rank or wealth or earthly power. He knew that by virtue of his birthright he was destined to be the father of the chosen seed ; that in him all the families of the earth should be blessed ; that from his race as concerning the flesh Christ was to come, the Redeemer of the whole world. This he knew, or might have known. This inheritance he bartered for a morsel of meat. For this he is con- demned and branded as a profane person. It was no common offence then of which Esau was guilty. It was perhaps as great an offence as in his I.] ESAU. I I position he could have committed. Yet it is not greater than that which we shall commit, if like him we despise our birthright. For have we not an in- heritance more precious still — we who are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ — a name more glorious than his, for it is a name better than of sons and of daughters ? If he might have been the father of Messiah's race, how much greater is our privilege, to whom is accorded a far more intimate, because a spiritual, relationship ? ' Whosoever shall do the will of My Father Which is in heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.' Are we tempted for some worldly consideration, for some momentary advantage, for wealth or popularity or fame or ease or pleasure, to barter away this brilliant inheritance ? Is not the price we give as ruinous, the exchange we get as worthless, as it was with Esau ? There are two circumstances however in the story of Esau, which it may be well to dwell on more at length: for from these we may derive the most valuable lesson. Yet at first sight they only perplex us. They seem not only to palliate the guilt, but almost to obliterate the offence. They lead us to look upon him as the victim rather than the culprit, as sinned against rather than sinning. The first of these is the circumstance that he is surprised into selling his birthright. It is a momentary, unpremedi- 12 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. tated act ; he falls into a snare laid for him ; we feel disposed therefore not to judge him too harshly : we cannot regard his offence as very heinous. In the second place, though the loss of the birthright was certainly his own act, whatever excuse we may make for it, yet he was deprived of the blessing by no fault of his. By no reasonable foresight could he have prevented it. He made some efforts at least to ob- tain that blessing. He did not throw it away. He was robbed of it. Surely this can not be laid to his charge. Of this at least he is innocent. In considering the first of these points, let us ask ourselves what is meant by being surprised into such and such a sinful act — what leads to it, what state of mind it supposes, how it comes about ? In a certain sense indeed Esau is surprised into selling his birth- right. He returns from the field hungry and faint. He asks for food. His brother will not give it him except at the price of his birthright. He yields. ' Behold,' he says, ' I am at the point to die : and what profit shall this birthright do to me ? ' But is this yielding an isolated act ? Does it not show a defective character ? Does it not betoken a certain spiritual depravity, a low, worldly view of his position ? He 'despised his birthright,' we are told, and therefore he is branded as 'a profane person.' For indeed surprise would be utterly powerless, I.] ESAU. 13 unless the character were previously undermined. And so it is no excuse for a sinful act; it is scarcely in any degree a palliation. It is rather a revelation of secret depravity in a man, hidden successfully from his neighbours, ignored by, but not unknown to, him- self. After the flagrant deed is committed, others may be at a loss to account for it. It is unexplained to them by anything in his previous career. But to himself it is clear enough. To him it is not an isolated act, but one link in a long chain of evil. He has been aware all along that he was sinking into sin. He has thrust away the troublesome thought, but he has been aware of it. He has taken no measure, it may be, of the growth of his guilt. It has ripened into grievous sin unnoticed. In no other sense can it have been a surprise to him. For all the while the seed was there, and had taken root, and the noxious plant was growing ; and he knew it, and he hid it from others, and he would not confess it perhaps even to himself. Is it an act of sensuality into which he has been betrayed ? One act perhaps, which has poisoned the fountains of his spiritual life, which has bound his outward existence with heavy chains which he cannot shake off. The temptation took him unawares, we say. He was startled into sin. But is this the whole account of the matter? Is it natural, is it reasonable, 14 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [I. that this should be so ? Who shall dare to trace the secret history of that man's soul, to lay open the hidden springs of his guilt ? Who shall venture to say what forbidden thoughts he has admitted, perhaps welcomed, how recklessly he has lingered on the border line of good and evil, how longingly he has hovered about the accursed thing, before he dared to touch it ? Or again, is it a palpable breach of truth or honesty ? He has committed some act of fraud or treachery, which has destroyed his good name for ever. How came this to pass ? Were there no ante- cedents in his career which led naturally to that result ? Had he not contracted a habit, for instance, of saying less or more than he meant, of expressing an enthusiasm or an interest which he did not feel, of paring down the truth to fit it into some conventional mould, of suppressing a little here or exaggerating a little there? Or if he fell, not from moral cowardice or from the desire to please, but from greed of gain, were there not here also insidious influences at work ? There are many cases, where the question of right is doubtful. These he has decided in his own favour. There are others, where, if he investigated, he might find that he was defrauding his neighbour. These he will not enquire into. He will not be dishonest knowingly, but he will take no I.] ESAU. 1 5 pains to find whether he is so or not. These are the beginnings of his guilt. By these a fraudulent habit is created. By degrees he goes on from bad to worse. He avails himself of his superior cunning ; he defrauds his neighbour in little things where he is sure of escaping observation. By this time he has ceased to respect honesty as a thing to be prized in itself. To him it is so much capital to trade upon — and for this purpose the semblance is as good as the reality. Hitherto he has preserved his reputation before the world. But at length he is surprised, as we say, into some flagrant act of dishonesty. Society lays him under a ban. His character is irrecoverably lost. And so it was with Esau. It was not that one act of selling his birthright which constituted his guilt. That was but the revelation of his true cha- racter, the summing up, as it were, of his depravity. But fearful as is the lesson which this incident suggests, it is not half so fearful as that which we derive from his subsequent fate. He bartered away his birthright, but how was it with the blessing ? It was by no act of his own that he lost this. There is nothing in the narrative which leads us to such a supposition. There was no unholy traffic here, no profane contempt here. He did not drive the blessing away. It went in spite of him. The key to this difficulty is found in the allusion in the Epistle to the 1 6 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. Hebrews. The loss of the blessing is there repre- sented as the inevitable consequence of the sale of his birthright ' Ye know that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.' His fate up to a certain point was in his own hands. After that it was placed beyond his reach. So it was with Esau, and so it is always with the downward course of guilt. We may wade for a time amidst the shallows of sin, feeling our footing and heedless of danger. A single step more places us at the mercy of the waves, and we are swept away into the ocean of ruin. When we read of God's hardening the sinner's heart, we are perhaps startled at the phrase, yet there is no doubt that it represents a fearful moral truth. The sinner after a time ceases to be his own master. He has coiled a chain about him, which binds him hand and foot. He is dragged helplessly down. There is no more terrible passage in classical literature than that in which the Roman poet describes the guilty man trembling in his secret soul, as he sees himself falling, falling headlong, un- heeded and unsuspected by those nearest to him. With a true moral insight he regards this state as the just retribution of offended heaven — the heaviest punishment which can be inflicted on the most heinous guilt. Such indeed it is. Translating it into the language of Scripture we should say, that God ESAU. 17 has hardened such a man's heart. Surely we need not call to our aid the terrors of an unseen world — however true those terrors may be — to deter us from the path of guilt. The thought that our hearts also may be hardened, that we too may shut ourselves out from the presence of God, should be sufficient to check us in our downward career. And even supposing this deadness should not pervade our whole spiritual being, may not the yielding to our special temptation, the indulgence in our favourite sin, stiffen and paralyse some limb or other of our moral frame ? Do we not every now and then see an instance of this ? We are brought in contact with some one, who, thoroughly conscientious in most things, keenly sensitive on many points of duty, is yet hardened in some one point of his moral constitution, seems dead to some moral virtue. Yet such cases are exceptional. It is the tendency of this paralysis to spread. It seizes on one limb first, but presently it extends to all. The moral frame, like the bodily, is compacted and knit together in a marvellous way. There is a wonderful sympathy between limb and limb. 1 Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it' In what I have said, I have been speaking the language of warning, and not the language of despair. C. s. 2 1 8 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [i. Despair is no word of the Christian's vocabulary. So long as there is any heavenward aspiration, any loathing of sin, any yearning after better things, however slight, however feeble, there is still hope. Cherish these higher feelings. Quench not the Spirit, though it flicker faintly and lowly. From these few sparks a bright flame may be kindled, which shall cheer your heart, and throw a light upon your path, and guide you home to your heavenly rest. II. THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments f rom Bozrahf Isaiah lxiii. i. Trinity College Chapel, 3rd Sunday in Lent, 1868. The feud between Edom and Israel had been long and bitter. The descendants of the brothers Jacob and Esau, living as near neighbours, viewed each other with no brotherly or neighbourly eye. The conflict began at a very early date. When the Israelites, set free from Egypt and traversing the desert, asked permission to pass through the territory of the Edomites, the request was churlishly refused. In vain did they plead that they would do no injury to person or property ; that they would avoid fields and vineyards and keep to the highway ; that they would even pay for the water which they might drink. 1 Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border; wherefore Israel turned away from him.' 20 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [n. This rude and unbrotherly repulse was neither forgotten nor forgiven. Established in the land of promise, the Israelites appear very frequently at war, very rarely in alliance, with the Edomites. ' Who will lead me into the strong city ? Who will bring me into Edom ? Wilt not Thou, O God, go forth with our hosts?' This is the climax of the Psalmist's prayer — repeated in two different psalms — when Israel is engaged in a fierce contest with this brother tribe. And this hereditary feud continued to the latest days of Israel, now smouldering treacherously and now bursting out into flames — a feud far worse than the generous antagonism of declared enemies. For there is always a wretched meanness, a low malice, an exaggeration of bitterness — arising out of the false position — in the quarrels of those, whom God and nature have intended to be friends. It is when two peoples of the same race and language go to war, when a nation is divided against itself by civil dis- sensions, when members of one family fall out, that the worst passions of man's nature have full play. But it was in the day of Israel's deepest sorrow, that Edom's iniquity reached its climax. When their sharpest pang overtook the Israelites, when their enemies beleaguered them, when their palaces were rifled and their walls thrown down, when their sons II.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 2 1 and their daughters were swept away into captivity, some change might have been looked for in the attitude of the Edomites. Surely now the moment was come, when past injuries and long-embittered feuds should be forgotten, when the true fraternal love should well up in their hearts, when brother once more should run to meet brother, and embrace him and fall on his neck and kiss him. But, unlike his forefather, Edom had now no tenderness, no com- passion for Israel's sorrow. With a fiendish glee he looked on at the catastrophe. The great Babylonian conqueror was delivering him from a dangerous enemy, a troublesome neighbour — a troublesome brother, it might be said, but what cared he for this ? Who made him his brother's keeper ? It was this heartless display of cruel satisfaction, which called forth the bitter cry for vengeance from the exiles on the banks of the Euphrates, interrupting so strangely the plaintive elegy of the mourners : 'Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of Jerusalem ; how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.' Then it was, in the hour of Israel's humiliation, that Edom ' stood on the other side ; ' that ' in the day that the stranger carried away captive Israel's forces and foreigners entered into his gates/ Edom was 'even as one of them;' that 'in the day of their 2 2 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [il. destruction' Edom 'rejoiced over the children of Judah,' and 'in the day of distress spake proudly;' that Edom 'stood in the cross-way to cut off them that did escape.' It was for this, that the prophet Obadiah predicted a terrible vengeance on this unfeeling race. 'The day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen : as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.' ' The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them.' It was for this that the two great prophets of the fall and cap- tivity, the one an exile on the banks of the Chebar, the other lingering still among the ruins of the holy city, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the strophe and anti- strophe of the same tragedy, ' deep answering deep ' (as it has been said) 'across the Assyrian desert,' join in denouncing God's judgment on the offending Edom. And in this chorus of inspired utterances, early and late, the voice of the Evangelic prophet is not silent. Raising his eyes, he sees approaching from the south-eastern frontier, from the direction of Edom, and of Bozrah the capital of Edom, a sublime form, as of some mighty hero, advancing with majestic step, and clad in the scarlet robes of a victorious captain. IT.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 23 Awed at the sight, he asks, 1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? This that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the great- ness of His strength?' A voice replies, 'I am He that speaketh in righteousness, mighty to save.' It is the just and upright judge, the terrible avenger, the powerful and saving ally, the triumphant king, the Lord Jehovah Himself. As the sublime form ap- proaches, the prophet sees that His scarlet robes are reeking with purple stains. Again he asks, * Where- fore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-fat?' Again the voice replies to his question. The winepress is the visitation of God's wrath : the purple stains are the blood of slaughtered enemies, trampled and crushed under foot by His heavy judgments. 1 I have trodden the winepress alone ; and of the people there was none with Me : for I will tread them in Mine anger, and trample them in My fury : and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed is come.' This then is the force of the passage. It is a prophetic announcement of Israel's triumph at the moment of Israel's deepest humiliation ; a prophetic denunciation of vengeance on Israel's enemies, when those enemies were proudly triumphing over their 24 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [II. prostrate foe. The chief offender, the bitterest and most insolent foe, is Edom, Israel's brother Edom. In the day of vengeance Edom's punishment shall be the greatest, because her crime was so unnatural, her hostility so uncalled for. Though the horizon is now so dark and stormy, though all hope seems to have vanished, though Israel stands alone among the nations, while her enemies are many and strong and unscrupulous, yet there is One Whose arm is all powerful, One Whose aid is never invoked and never rendered in vain, One Who will silence all insolence and crush all opposition, the never-failing ally of Israel, the Lord Jehovah Himself. This reliance on God alone in the absence of all human aid is the leading idea of the passage. Again and again it is reiterated, ' I have trodden the winepress alone. Of the people there was none with Me. I looked, and there was none to help ; I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me!' And yet in contrast to the feebleness and prostra- tion of Israel, Edom possessed just those advantages which seemed calculated to secure success in her enterprises, and impunity in her insolence. In two most important respects Edom was favourably cir- cumstanced among the nations around. Her position was strong, and her inhabitants were sagacious. ii.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 25 Edom was strong. Her fortresses were almost impregnable with the appliances of ancient warfare. The most famous of her strongholds, the rock-bound city of Petra, the wonder of modern travellers, is only accessible by one narrow gorge, which is easily de- fended. The strength of Edom is more than once celebrated by the Israelite prophets. 'Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rocks,' 'thou exaltest thyself as the eagle, thou settest thy nest among the stars.' 'Who will lead me into the strong city? Who will bring me into Edom ?' But Edom was not only strong, Edom was wise also. The wisdom of Edom was proverbial. When the sacred historian wishes to extol the wisdom of Solomon, he cannot do so better than by saying that it ' excels the wisdom of all the children of the East country,' that is, of these Edomites. ' Shall I not in that day,' writes Obadiah again, 'destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau ?' ' Concerning Edom/ says Jeremiah also, ' thus saith the Lord of Hosts ; is wisdom no more in Teman ? Is counsel perished from the prudent ? Is their wisdom vanished ? ' In this land also seems to be laid the scene of that marvellous book, in which human and divine wisdom are con- fronted, and the perplexing problems of human life are discussed with such profound intuition. The 2 6 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [II. interlocutors of the Book of Job are chiefly, if not solely, Edomites. And still after the lapse of centuries this nation seems to have retained its character. From Idumea came 'that fox,' the second Herod — the crafty son of a crafty father — retaining the peculiar gift of his race, though degrading it into an instrument of licentiousness and cruelty. Against these advantages of Edom combined, against the strength of the strong and the wisdom of the wise, Israel, fallen and desolate, had one hope, one ally only. But her faith in this ally rides triumph- ant over all present disasters and all dark forebodings. The prophet's voice assures her of complete victory ; and the later history of the nation is the answer to this appeal. I have explained the passage thus at length, because from very early times it has suffered much from misinterpretation. It has been supposed that the prophet's words refer immediately to the scene on Calvary; that the figure seen approaching is our Lord Himself ; that the solitary treading of the winepress represents His submission to the Father's wrath endured for our redemption. I think it will be plain from what has been said, that this view does not at all meet the requirements of the context. I think it will be seen, also, that the image of tread- ing the winepress, till the garments of the treader are ii.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 27 drenched with the blood of the crushed grape-clusters, must signify, not the endurance of punishment, but the infliction of punishment. And, if so, we need not stop here to enquire whether in any proper or natural sense our Blessed Lord could be said to endure the Father's wrath when He ended a life of self-devotion by this sublime act of self-sacrifice, which was the fulfilment of His Father's will. Far different is the lesson which the text sets forth. It is the lesson of dependence on God's help, in desertion and loneliness, against enemies the most powerful and sagacious, amid circumstances the most adverse, despite all the calculations of human fore- sight. In some respects we cannot apply the prophet's words to ourselves without limitation or correction. The Gospel has supplanted the Law. The Israel after the spirit has taken the place of the Israel after the flesh. The prophet's utterance expresses the indignant cry of an outraged people demanding justice on their enemies, the indomitable enthusiasm of a nation yearning for the restitution of its national life by the mighty arm of the national and yet omni- present, omnipotent God. To ourselves all men are fellow-countrymen, are brothers in Christ. A larger, more comprehensive, more spiritual conception of God's triumphs is vouchsafed in the Gospel. Our vision is enlarged ; our point of view is changed ; 28 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [n. but the main lesson of the passage — the heroism of loneliness, the trust in God, the assurance of victory — has the same binding force now as then. It may be that the interpretation of the passage, to which I have already referred, has led other Churches besides our own to select this passage in place of one of the Epistles in Passion Week. But, whatever motives may have influenced the choice, it is very appropriate for that solemn season. I do not mean only that, as speaking of a redemption, it may be taken to have a Messianic reference, but that it sets forth the very lesson, of which the scene on Calvary was the most signal manifestation ever held out to a sinning, suffering world. The Passion and Death of Christ were preeminently the victory of loneliness through faith in the power of the unseen God. He, Who had gathered about Him admiring multitudes in Galilee, Who had been accompanied from village to village, and from city to city, by eager and attentive throngs, now at length in the hour of deepest trial, in the face of cruel sufferings and ignominious death, was abandoned by all. Loneliness, entire loneliness, only the more painful by contrast with the crowded audi- ences and the enthusiastic welcomes of the past, was the keenest pang of that painful crisis. In the agony of Gethsemane His nearest and best beloved disciples could not even watch with Him for a single hour. II.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 29 At the moment of His betrayal one and all ' forsook Him and fled.' And so the cruel taunts of the Roman soldiers, the insolent ribaldry of the Jewish mob, the cold injustice of Pilate, the bigoted hatred of Caiaphas, were encountered and endured without one friendly eye to gladden Him or one friendly voice to console Him ; till at length, when His sufferings had reached their climax, and the agony of death was upon Him, even the Father Himself seemed for the moment to have veiled His face, and in anguish of spirit He cried, ' My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' In that awful solitude the triumph over the enemies of God was complete — the triumph over sin, over the world, the flesh, and the devil. For then, when He was all alone, the Almighty Conqueror drew near, with arm upraised to maintain the righteous cause, even as of old He was seen in the prophet's vision approaching from Edom. ' I looked and there was none to help.' ' Who is this that cometh ? This that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength ?' 'I am He that speaketh in righteousness, mighty to save.' And so also it must be with us. Our most heroic achievements, our most signal victories, must be wrought in solitude. With God, and God alone, on our side, we must fight, and we must conquer. There is indeed a solitude, which is due to our own faults, 30 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [n. which arises from a cold or churlish disposition, from our imperfect sympathy, from our indolence or our selfishness. We not unfrequently hear persons com- plain that they are misunderstood or neglected, that no one seems to care for them, that they are very lonely in the world ; when they have taken no pains to consult the well-being, or win the affections, of others. It is not of this loneliness that I speak. But there is also the loneliness of a great moral purpose. A man steps forward as the advocate of some forgotten truth, or the champion of some ne- glected cause. Or he devotes himself to the reform of some flagrant social abuse, or to the amelioration of some degraded class. The truth, the justice, the expediency, of his cause seem to him very manifest. He sets about his work with high hopes. He feels confident of enlisting the sympathies, and securing the aid, of all honest and fair-judging men. He forecasts a complete and speedy triumph. But his bright anticipations soon fade into the sickly light of experience. He encounters prejudice, ignorance, misunderstanding, the inertia of habit and the obsti- nacy of self-interest, secret obloquy and open antago- nism, a thousand unforeseen difficulties lying across his path. Each fresh effort seems to start some new form of opposition. At length, worn out and des- ponding, he begins to ask himself, whether it is worth ii.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 3 I while persevering at so much cost, whether he is bound by any obligation to so vast a self-sacrifice, whether success is not wholly beyond his reach, whether he may not be wrong and others right after all, for who is he against so many ? Then is the trial of his heroism : then is the discipline of his faith. In this hour of loneliness the prophetic vision will be his comfort and stay. He sees the form of the Almighty Conqueror, emerging from the moral confusion of his soul, from the gloom of dis- traction and despair. He feels that, though alone, he is not alone. He knows that his victory is secure. He, Who speaks in righteousness, will maintain the righteous cause. He, Who is mighty to save, will rescue him from the perplexity of his position. ' I looked, and there was none to help ; and I wondered that there was none to uphold : therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me.' I will take one more example. It is not now the loneliness of a great purpose which must be worked out without the sympathy of others, but the loneliness of a sinful temptation, which must be fought and conquered in the secrecy of our own heart. For the struggle with temptation, whatever form our special temptation may take, must be, in most cases and at most seasons, of this kind. The companionship of friends, the experience and advice of wise counsellors, 32 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [II. the precepts gathered from books, may do something : but at best it will be very little. Our own temptation depends too much on our character, has too great individuality, is too much part of ourselves, to be communicated absolutely and unreservedly to others, even if it were right so to communicate it. The fight must be fought in solitude. The combat must be single-handed. Against the subtle disguises under which our foe seeks to ensnare and ruin us, against the sudden surprises by which he would strike us down unawares, against the harassing doubts which tempt us to elude the combat, whispering that expe- diency alone has value and that sin is no sin, against the despair of a protracted and wearisome struggle with our worst self, we must fight alone. Alone and yet not alone. We shall have the consciousness of an Almighty Presence, encouraging, sustaining, strength- ening us ; the vision of the Lord of Hosts, Who triumphs over all opposition, and tramples down all temptation under foot, as the purple clusters are crushed in the winepress. ' I looked, and there was none to help ; and I wondered that there was none to uphold : therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me.' In the lonely championship of right and truth against foes without, in the lonely struggle against temptation and trial within, may this consciousness, n.] THE CONQUEROR FROM EDOM. 53 this vision, be vouchsafed to us — the vision of Him, Who is glorious in His apparel, Who travels in the greatness of His strength ; the consciousness of Him, Who speaketh in righteousness, and is might}- to save. C. S. 3 III. PURITY OF HEART. Blessed are the ptire in heart: for they shall see God. S. Matthew v. 8. Trinity College Chapel, 3rd Sunday after Easter, 1870. An eminent living writer on ethical and kindred subjects, viewing the matter from without, complains of the misuse which Christians make of the moral teaching of the New Testament. He urges with great cogency that it was ' not announced or intended, as a complete doctrine of morals;' that 'the Gospel always refers to a pre-existing morality and confines its precepts to the particulars in which that morality was to be corrected or superseded by a wider and higher.' He therefore condemns that exclusiveness, which refuses to accept any moral lessons except such as are enforced by the letter of the Evangelic or III.] PURITY OF HEART. 35 Apostolic writings. ' They contain and were meant to contain,' he repeats, 'only a part of the truth; many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the recorded deliver- ances of the Founder of Christianity.' I think that few who have thought over the subject will deny that this statement contains an important truth, though they would wish that the form of expression were somewhat modified. Cer- tainly our Lord and His Apostles do assume an existing code of morals, more or less imperfect. They could hardly have done otherwise. So far as this code satisfied the demands of the highest truth, they held it unnecessary to dwell at length on lessons which were already adequately taught. It was to those points in which it failed, in which any code built merely upon the requirements of society must necessarily fail, that the first teachers of Christianity chiefly directed their attention. And if we would truly understand their meaning, we must place our- selves in their position, we must assume what they assumed, and not attempt to build up their super- structure without any regard to the foundation on which it was laid. To take an instance of this; the duty to the State, as the writer, whom I have already quoted, observes, 3—2 36 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [ni. and as is well known, 'held a disproportionate place' in the ethical teaching of the ancients — so large a place indeed as to be even dangerous to the moral growth of the individual. It is no wonder therefore if our Lord and His Apostles say but little on this subject. What they do say however, shows, as clearly as words can show, that they recognised in all their fulness the claims of public order on the subject. The restlessness of the Jews in Judaea found no countenance in the teaching of our Lord; the rest- lessness of the Judaic Christians in Rome was de- nounced in the language of the Apostle of the Gen- tiles. 1 Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's' — this is the answer given in the one case. 'Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers : the powers that be, are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God : and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation' — this is the strong rebuke administered in the other. If therefore politics, strictly so called, do not occupy any space in the sayings of our Lord or in the writings of the Apostles, it is not because their claims are ignored, but because it was rather the ethical function of the Gospel to deepen the founda- tions, and enforce the sanctions, of morality generally; and only so far to deal with individual elements, as III.] PURITY OF HEART. 37 there was some great and signal deficiency in the existing moral standard. The remark, to which I referred at the commence- ment, appears to me to be of great importance ; and it is the more weighty, because, though having a high apologetic value, it proceeds not from a Christian apologist, but from an external observer, who criticises the ethics of the Gospel with at least a dispassionate freedom. The fact is that in applying the ethical teaching of the Gospel to ourselves, and indeed throughout the whole domain of Christian practice, we must give free scope to our Christian consciousness. In other words, for regulating the details of our conduct, we must refer to our moral faculty, as refined and heightened by the teaching of the Gospel ; we must not expect to find a special precept to meet every special occasion. We must trust to the promise of the Spirit, w r hich Christ has given to His disciples. The pregnant maxim of S. Paul, penetrating as it does into every province in which human judgment can exercise itself, is nowhere more important than here: 'The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.' Act on the literal sense of one of our Lord's precepts delivered in this Sermon on the Mount, from which my text is taken, 'Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain,' on all occasions, and 38 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [ill. you will bring confusion on yourself ; but receive such precepts as they were intended to be received, as parables or types of the right temper of mind, as corrective of the self-assertion, on which human morality can put no adequate check, which it even tends to foster — in short, take the kernel and not the husk of the precept — and you will produce harmony in your moral being. I spoke of duties to the State as being assumed rather than enforced in the moral teaching of the New Testament. But it is obvious that this principle of tacit assumption may be and must be applied much further. There are many other valuable elements of morality, on which the Gospel does not lay any special stress, simply because the teaching of common life enforces these with sufficient distinctness, and they therefore do not need such external support. There are some virtues, which a man learns to practise in self-defence. There are others, which society exacts as a condition of membership, having learnt by experience that it cannot hold together without their general recognition. Of the first kind are courage, self-reliance, the assertion of one's own rights, the sense of personal dignity. In these re- spects the danger is generally on the side of excess rather than of defect ; the tendency is to mere self- will, mere self-assertion, to a stubborn resistance and III.] PURITY OF HEART. 39 disregard of the feelings, the weaknesses, the claims of others. Of the second kind is honesty, which, though antagonistic to a man's natural selfishness, is yet imposed upon him by the imperious law of the community in which he moves and on which he is dependent. Such virtues as these the Gospel does not ignore. On the contrary, it assumes them as the simplest elements of a moral life. And no denuncia- tions are more severe, than those uttered by our Lord against the religious leaders of the people, who notwithstanding their lofty pretensions had not yet mastered these first lessons of morality. But it is not on such points that its efforts are concentrated. The rough teaching of common life would supply what was needed here. The pressure of social con- straint would exercise a discipline, the more effective, because constant and inexorable in its demands. This class of virtues society could understand and could enforce. BuL beyond and above these lies a whole region of moral life, on which social restraint, whether as law or as public opinion, or in any other form, exer- cises no effective control at all. And it is just here that the Gospel interposes to supplement and to superadd. If you analyse the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, you will find that it is almost wholly addressed to supplying this defect. Its moral 40 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [ill. aim may be said to be twofold; first, to inculcate the value of motive as distinct from the outward act, the realisation ; in short, to teach that for the individual himself the goodness or the badness of his conduct is wholly independent of its actual effects, and springs from the inward intention, and from this alone ; and, secondly, to emphasize the importance of certain moral elements, to which no appreciable place was assigned in the prevailing ethical code of the day, and which were, and ever are, in imminent danger of being trampled under foot in the race of life, unless borne up by some higher sanction — such as humility, forgiveness, patient endurance, sympathy with poverty and weakness, and the like. Thus the Sermon on the Mount is preeminently corrective and supplemen- tary in its ethical teaching. It is necessarily so. It was addressed, not to the dregs of society, who needed to be instructed in the first principles of morality, but to the disciples, who certainly accepted and practised the best moral teaching of the day, who were destined to be the salt of the earth, and who therefore must aim at a more perfect standard. And, if you turn to the Beatitudes, you will find that they, one and all, refer to those moral qualities, of which as a rule society takes no cognisance, and to which it offers no rewards, either because it deals only with external acts and cannot reach motives, or III.] PURITY OF HEART. 41 because these qualities in themselves are the reverse of obtrusive, and do not press their claims or clamour for recognition. It is on those who suffer patiently and unrepiningly for the right, on those who are gentle or forgiving towards others, on those who are forgetful and depreciatory of self, on those whose study it is to cleanse and purify their hearts, with whom the pursuit of righteousness is a passion, who hunger and thirst after it, impelled as it were by a strong inward craving to follow it on its own account, and regardless of any advantages in the way of reputation, or of influence, which it may accidentally bestow — it is on these, and such as these, that the blessing is pronounced. Of these Beatitudes, the one which I have taken for my text most strikingly illustrates what has been said. 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.' It is just here that social morality is signally defective. It will enter its protest against the more flagrant violations of this duty, because they tend to disturb social order, and to introduce confusion into common life. But of purity, in and for itself, it shows in many ways that it takes little or no cognisance. It shows this by the uneven measure of justice which it deals out to the two sexes, by the stern inexorable punishment of such sins in the one, and the almost complete impunity which it 42 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [ill. offers to the other. It shows it by its worship of the memory of some famous character, brilliant perhaps in literature or in politics, but profligate in life. It shows it by its lavish favours bestowed on some social idol of the day, whose only claim is a winning manner or a brilliant address, whose life is utterly and hopelessly corrupt, in whose heart impurity has gathered around it other demons hateful as itself, selfishness, cruelty, deceit, meanness in all its forms (for impurity always will seek such alliances for protection and sympathy), whose conduct has de- graded and ruined many an individual soul, and by their ruin steeped whole households in misery. Of purity of heart social morality does not and cannot take any account. For purity of conduct indeed it professes a formal respect; but not here does it bestow its favours and its rewards. And in fact no reward, which the world has in its power to bestow, would be at all adequate to meet the case. Material advantages — wealth, pleasure, re- nown, popularity, influence — these are its best and choicest gifts. But purity of heart seeks not these. Purity of heart breathes another atmosphere, lives in another world, exercises other faculties, pursues other aims. And commensurate with its aims is its reward . — not a substantial reward as men regard substantial, but yet very real, because alone satisfying, alone III.] PURITY OF HEART. 43 lasting, alone independent of time and circumstance. To the pure in heart, it is given to stand face to face before the Eternal Presence — the veil which shrouds Him from the common eye being withdrawn, and the ineffable glory, which none besides may see, stream- ing upon them with undimmed splendour. Theirs is the indwelling of the Spirit, that doth prefer Before all temples the upright heart and pure. To them is vouchsafed in their journey through life the presence of the Holy Thing moving with them night and day. In the strength of this presence they ride onward Shattering all evil customs everywhere; until they reach their goal and Heaven receives them into its glory; and they are crowned as kings Far in the spiritual city. * Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God.' And will not even the limited experience of many here witness that such a quest so rewarded is no mere poetical fiction, no idle play of the imagination, but an eminently deep religious truth, of great practical moment to us all? Have you not felt, that according as you have allowed any sullying influence to stain your heart, and to dim its purity, just in the same degree your spiritual vision has become clouded over, 44 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [ill. the scales have thickened upon it, and the Eternal Presence has withdrawn Himself in a veil of mist, and you have looked in vain and have not found, and your greatest, truest joy and comfort and hope has vanished from you ? Was it deceit ? Was it selfish- ness ? Was it pride ? Was it impurity in a stricter sense, indulgence in tainted thoughts or indulgence in forbidden deeds ? Cannot you trace the process, if you will give it a moment's reflection, how the cloud gathered and darkened, till the light is wholly shut out, except that now and then in your clearer mo- ments it flashes in upon you with a painful brightness, piercing through the screen of clouds and revealing to you the depth of your degradation and loss ? Or on the other hand can you not bear witness, how each stedfast determination to put away the accursed thing, each renewed effort to cleanse and purify your heart, has brought with it a fresh accession of light, has given you a keener vision of the spiritual world, has removed a film from your eye and a load from your spirit, has brought you joy and lightness of heart, because it has placed you nearer to God and to the glory of His presence? And, if this is so ; if this intimate knowledge of the highest truths is vouchsafed, not to acute powers of reasoning, not to vast stores of information, not to critical sagacity or theological attainments, not to III.] PURITY OF HEART. 45 poetical genius or scientific culture, not to any or to all of these, but to purity of heart alone, then surely this should be the one paramount aim of our lives, which we should pursue with the unswerving zeal and enthusiasm of a master passion. If the task is great, the reward is great also. A stern and rigorous self- discipline is the first condition of success. This in- deed is not a fashionable doctrine. It is the fashion of the day to assert the claims of individual liberty in extravagant terms, and yet to ignore, or almost ignore, self-discipline, self-renunciation, without which the liberty of the individual becomes intolerable to him- self and to society. Remember that the most perfect self-command is the truest freedom ; that the Apostle of Liberty himself sets the example of keeping his body in subjection. Do not therefore be led away by any commonplaces about liberty ; but assert your legitimate command over yourself and keep it. The discipline which you enforce upon yourself is a thousand times more effective, than the discipline imposed from without. Provide yourself with healthy occupations. With healthy recreations for the body, if you will ; but, still more, with healthy studies and ideas for the mind ; and, above all, with healthy affec- tions and sympathies for the heart. Seek what is healthy in all things : seek what is fresh and simple and transparently pure and guileless. Avoid all 46 TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. [ill. taint of corruptness. Experience has taught you how difficult it is to dislodge a corrupt idea from your heart, when it has once found a place there ; how will it recur again and again, even though your better nature revolts against it and you give it no encouragement. There is a fatal vitality about such elements of corruptness. You can recall what is noble and elevating only with an effort ; what is sullied and degrading will present itself unbidden to your thought. The law of the moral world is ana- logous to the law of the physical. Disease spreads apace by contact ; health has no such spontaneous power of diffusing itself. Therefore it is of vital importance to shun any tainting influence, as a plague-spot : to shun it in your intellectual studies, and to shun it in your social life. To cultivate self- control, to give yourself healthy employment, and to avoid corrupting associations — these three are con- ditions of success in the great quest to which you have bound yourself. But another still remains. Cultivate your spiritual faculties by prayer and meditation. The higher parts of our nature, because the most subtle, are also the most sensitive. If our intellectual capacities become enfeebled and ulti- mately paralyzed by neglect or misuse, much more our spiritual. Here again I appeal to your own experience. Can you not bear witness how very III.] PURITY OF HEART. 47 soon carelessness and indifference in spiritual matters tells upon your spiritual nature, how very soon a torpor creeps over it, if you neglect your daily prayers, or if you go through your religious duties in a perfunctory, heartless way ; how very soon your whole view of things changes, and you begin tacitly to ignore the importance of spiritual life, perhaps half-consciously to argue with yourself that it may be a mere delusion, an idle fancy, after all ? It is just because our spiritual nature is so highly wrought, that it will not suffer any trifling or any neglect. A true instinct leads the poet to represent his pure and blameless knight as laying his lance against the chapel door, and entering and kneeling in prayer, when he starts on the quest which is rewarded with the Eternal Vision of Glory. Do this, and you will not fail. You will dedicate to God the sacrifice which pleases Him best — the freewill offering of the freshness and purity of early manhood : and He in turn will vouchsafe to you the one blessing which is the fulfilment of your truest aspirations, the crown of human bliss — the vision of Himself in unclouded glory. * Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God/ IV. TWO SOWINGS AND TWO HARVESTS. Be not deceived ; God is not mocked; for whatso- ever a man soweth, that shall lie also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap cor- ruption ; but he that sowetJi to the Spirit shad of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Gal at iax s vi. 7, 8. Trinity College Chapel, 24th Sunday after Trinity, 1871. It may be a matter of question, what moral defect in the Galatian Church was prominent in S. Paul's mind, when he wrote these words, and what there- fore is the exact link of thought which connects them with the context. Are they aimed at the niggardli- ness of those, who refused to provide proper support for their spiritual teachers, or to extend their alms to a distant Church suffering from the effects of famine? Or are they rather directed against others, who iv.] TWO SOWINGS AND TWO HARVESTS. 49 vaunting themselves as spiritual, and professing to subordinate the letter, the ritual, the law of ordi- nances to a higher principle, yet nevertheless through carelessness and self-indulgence were sinking into lower depths of license than those whom they branded as 'carnal?' Whatever may have been the immediate motive, it is clear that the words have a wider application, and cannot be confined to any one development of the fleshly mind. This then is the great principle, which the text enunciates. It extends the law of cause and effect, which in the physical world is a matter of common observation, to the domain of the moral and theo- logical, from which men, whether professedly worldly or professedly religious, from diverse motives and by manifold subterfuges attempt to exclude it. It declares that certain courses of action, certain modes of life, entail certain inevitable consequences. It pronounces this to be true in the region of human life, as in the region of external nature, that 'while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not cease;' true that men do not 'gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles;' true that, where tares only have been sown, ears of wheat will not be gathered into the garner. I need hardly remind you with what persistency and in how many various forms our Lord and His C. S. A 5