Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/sermonsonchristiOOalfo SERMONS CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. LONDON : GILBERT AND RJVINaTON, PEINTEES, ST. John's squaee. SERMONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, PEEACHED IN ON THE AFTERNOONS OF THE SUNDAYS IN THE YEAR 1861-1862. BY HENEY ALFORD, D.D. DEAN OF CANTEEBUEY. LONDON: EIVINGTONS, WATEKLOO PLACE. 1863. TO THE CHRISTIAiS^ MEMORY OP JOHN HAMPDEN GURNEY. When tlie former of these Sermons were preached, I anticipated what has ever been one of my chief pleasures on the publication of a new work, — the sending it to my beloved friend; — the receiving the looked-for letter of thanks, with his warm approbation where he could give it, and his manly and unsparing criticism where he thought me wrong. But he is gone where doctrines need no proof, and thoughts no words to express them. We have lost from among us the living example of his noble character, — of his scorn of party watchwords, and his contempt of the time-serving and the self-seeking. We shall no moi'e hear his generous outbursts of admiration for vi DEDICATION. those who differed from him, — no more be awakened to our own duties by his stern refusal to praise and to follow after the world's favourites. Truthfulness guilelessness, fearlessness, — these were the thoughts of his heart : and as he thought, so he spoke. A good man, a powerful man, a bold man, — he narrowly missed being a great man. But his goodness was often drowned in the voice of his power; and his power was too liable to spring forth at the call of generous impulse, for greatness to be achieved, or high position safely sustained. Himself a rigid Sabbatarian, he once incurred, at the hands of those who cared not to under- stand him, the imputation of opposite sentiments, rather than be party to an over-stated and ill-reasoned memorial. As a preacher, he was, as might have been expected, earnest and even fiery in manner, — unsparing in de- nunciation of wrong, — rising into high eloquence and enthusiasm in fervid admiration of all that is noble and good. But it was in the pulpit that that side of his cha- racter shone so brightly, for which some hardly credited him. His sermons were full of tenderness. He was DEDICATION. VU a great master of description of tlie social affections, and of the softer feelings of tlie individual heart. It was a rich feast of enjoyment, to hear him draw out, in graphic touches, such subjects as the family histories in the Old Testament, or the return of the Prodigal in the New : to trace with him the progress of the softening of the once hard heart, or the kindling of high and noble desires in a character once incapable of them. It was hardly perhaps in a course like that of the present yolume that he preferred bestowing his labour. But the great doctrines of our holy faith, though not often treated of as subjects, were ever present, ever underlying his whole fabric of exhortation and de- scription. His preaching, though seldom what is known as doctrinal, was always essentially Christian. If theological terms were not there, that which they imperfectly strive to represent, was ; and thus the work of building up in the faith was, if not ostensibly, yet perhaps after aU, the more really and safely accomplished. Speaking in human weakness, looking at the blank place left in our defences where he feU, we seem to viii DEDICATION. feel that we can ill spare him ; we cannot tell where to look for one who shall be to London, who shall be to the Church, exactly what he was. But speaking and feeling more worthily, because more trustfully, we are satisfied that his work was done : and that God, who has taken him to His rest, can fill his place with others, whose fitness He knows, but we do not. Thun, Sioitzerland, July 21, 1862. SERMON I. (PEEACHED ON THE SECOND STJKDAT IN ADVENT, DEC. 8, 1861.) SIN AS A FACT. Rom. iii. 23. PAGE All have sinned 1 SERMON II. (PEEACHED ON THE THIED SUNDAY IN ADVENT, DEC. 15, 1861.) THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. Heb. iii. 13. The deceitfalness of sin 13 SERMON III. (PEEACHED ON THE FOUETH SUNDAY IN ADVENT, DEC. 22, 1861.) THE GUILT AND CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. EzEK. xviii. 4. The soul that sinneth, it shall die 28 X CONTENTS. SEEMON lY. (pee ACHED ON CHEISTMAS DAT, 1861.) god's remedy for sin. RomViu. 3. PAGE What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh 42 SERMON y. (PEEACHED ON STJNDAT, JAN. 5, 1862.) THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. Rom. v. 18, 19. As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to con- demnation : even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous 54 SEEMON YI. (PEEACHED ON THE EIEST SUNDAY APTEE EPIPHANY, JAN. 12, 1862.) THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. Gal. iii. 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus .68 CONTEXTS. xi SERMON TII. (PEEACHED OX THE SECOXD SrXDAT AETEE EPIPHANY, JAN. 19, 1862.) MIRACLES : AVATER MADE AVIXE. John ii. 11. PAGE This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory 82 SERMOX Till. (PEEACHED ON THE THIED SrXDAT AETEE EPIPHANT, JAN. 26, 1862.) MIRACLES OF HEALING. Matt. viii. 13. And Jesus said unto the centurion. Go thy way ; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour 97 SERMOX JX. (PBEACHED OX THE EOrETH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, PEE. 2, 1862.) MIRACLES OF PO^-ER. Matt. viii. 27. ^Tiat manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him ? . 108 xii CONTENTS. SEEMON X. (PEEACHED ON THE PIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, FEB. 9, 1862.) PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. Matt. xiii. 3. PAGE He spake many things unto them in parables .... 120 SEHMON XL (preached on SEPTUAaESIMA SUNDAY, FEB. 16, 1862.) parables: THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. Matt. xx. 16. So the last shall be first, and the first last 134 SERMON XII. (preached on SEXAQESIMA SUNDAY, FEB. 23, 1862.) parables: THE SOWER. Luke viii. 15. That on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience 150 COXTENTS. Xlll SERMO^^ XIII. (PEEACHED OX Qn^QrAGESniA SrXDAT, ilAECH 2, 1862.) WHY CHRIST SrFFERED. LrKE xvui. 31. PA&E Then Jesus took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished . . 166 SEEMON XIY. (PEEACHED Oy THE EIEST SUXDAT IN LENT, ilAECH 9, 1862.) oi-R lord's temptation. Heb. iv. 15. He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin . . 179 SEEMON XY. (PEEACHED ON THE EIETH SUNDAY IN LENT, APEIL 6, 1862.) THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. Heb. ix. 11. Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come . . 193 SERMON XYI. (PEEACHED ON THE SFNTJAT NEXT BEFOEE EASTEB, APEIL 13, 1862.) CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 1 CoE. i. 13. We preach Christ crucified 210 xiv CONTENTS. SEEMON XYII. PREACHED ON GOOD FEIDAT, APEIL 18, 1862, ALSO AT ST. MAEY'S, OXFOED, ON EEIDAY EVENING, APEIL 11, 1862.) OUR LORD IN DEATH. John x. 17, 18. PAGE Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father 223 SERMON XYIII. (PEEACHED ON EASTER DAT, APRIL 20, 1862.) IN CHRIST ALL MADE ALIVE. 1 CoE. XV. 12. Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? . 242 SERMON XIX. (PEEACSED ON THE FIEST SUNDAY APTEE EASTEE, APEIL 27, 1862.) THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 1 CoE. XV. 20. Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept 251 CONTENTS. XV SERMON XX. (PEEACHED ON THE SECOND SUNDAY AETEB, EASTEE, 3IAY 4, 1862.) THE HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION. Tixrs ii. 13. PAGE Looking for that blessed hope 266 SERMON XXI. (PEEACHED ON THE THIED SUNDAY AFTEE EASTEE, MAY 11, 1862.) JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. Eoii. i. 17. Heb. X. 38. The just shaU Hve by faith ........ 281 SERMON XXII. (PEEACHED ON THE SUNDAY AETEE ASCENSION DAY, JUNE 1, 1862.) THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORd's SUPPER. John vi. 53. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you 294 SERMON XXIII. (PEEACHED ON WHIT-SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 1862.) THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. Acts ii. 33. Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear 309 xvi CONTENTS. SERMON XXIV. (preached on trinity SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 1862.) THE HOLT TRINITY. Matt, xxviii. 19. PAGE Baptizing theui in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost . . . 319 SERMON XXY. (preached on the first SUNDAY AETER TRINITY, JUNE 22, 1862.) KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE. John xiii. 17. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them . . . 331 SERMON I. (preached on the second SUNDAY IN ADVENT, DEC. 8, 1861.) SIN AS A FACT. Ron. iii. 23. " All have sinned." The Gospel of Christ may be described as a glorious remedy for a disease fatal and otherwise incurable, with which our whole race is tainted. And the first step in treating of the Grospel must ever be to lay open, and make us sensible of, that disease. For one of its most dangerous s}Tnptoms is, that it makes men insensible' I to its own presence : so that the worse a man is afficted with it, the less he knows that he has it at all. And, seeing that the remedy is not one which can be simply taken once and then all will be well, but one which requires long and painful and self-denying appli- cation, a man must be very thoroughly persuaded that he has the disease, and that he is likely to perish from it, before he ^vill take the necessary trouble to be cured of it. Now this disease we call six. And in con- sequence of what has been said you will see, that in B 2 SIN AS A FACT. beginning a course of sermons on Christian doctrine, I must deal first with this fact which lies at the bottom of all Christian doctrine, that all men are sinners. I may be at once met with the question. Who does not know that? Who does not confess himself to be a sinner ? Doubtless, all do this by profession and with the lips. But, my brethren, there is as much differ- ence between confessing with the lips and feeling in- tensely in the depth of the heart, as there is between ' confessing and not confessing at all. " Miserable sinners : " Have mercy upon us miserable sinners." But what do we mean by sinners ? Let us try and lay hold of this — let us try to-day and see what sin means — what " all having sinned " means. When any of us looks out upon mankind, or looks within himself, with ever so little attention, one thing can hardly fail to strike him. It is, the presence of Evil. We at once see that there is a something in the world, and within us, rebellious, destructive, altogether un- welcome, and which we would gladly be rid of. We want harmony among men, harmony in ourselves, for all purposes of human improvement, for all purposes of our own progress and enlightening. But instead of harmony, we find discord every where. From the first, man's history has been a history of going wrong and doing wrong : from the first, our own personal history has been a history of interrupted good and interfering bad. Now observe, I am not at this moment speaking as a minister of the Gospel : I am speaking merely as man, — as a citizeii of the world, as one of you, or one SIX AS A FACT. 3 of any band of men gathered out of any age and any place upon earth. I am dwelling upon what is matter of universal observation. Who can deny this presence and this working of an unwelcome and a hostile element in all human matters ? AVhat deceit will ever enable a man to hide from himself this dark shadow which falls upon the fairest prospects and purest courses in life? AYhat mind looking into itself is not found to confess that there is this night side of its thoughts and ways ? ^s^ow it is not my purpose, at all events not at pre- sent, to say a word about the reason why this evil ever came into God's universe. I am concerned to-day withf^ the fact, and the importance of knowing and acknow- ledging the fact, that it has come into it and is every where present. Some may say— some have said, Conceal the fact, and you will get rid of it. Don't tell people that there is evil in the world ; forget that there is e\'il about and in yourself; and you and they will become good. It may be true, they continue, that there is such a dark spot in nature ; that there are these black shadows amidst the shining of the Face of the universal Father : but gazing upon them is painful and useless : look at the bright side of every thing : believe things to be innocent and right, and infinitely more good will be done than by dwelling on the gloom and so increasing it. This, my brethren, not only has been the published advice of a whole school of writers, — it is also the view taken by many loose and shallow thinkers in every place at our own time. But let me ask you, do you suppose that the unquestioned evil in B 2 4 SIN AS A FACT. universal nature, and in our nature, can be thus got rid of ? " Believe the world to be good, and it will become good," says one of these writers : Believe yourself to be good, and you will become good." I answer. Try it. Try it for a day, for an hour. Then go into your chamber, and take strict unsparing ac- count. And if it is urged that more time is wanted, try it for a year : shut your eyes to all that is bad in the world — to all that is bad in you : refuse to believe, refuse to entertain any suspicion of evil in yourself, or in others, for that time : then retire and trace your path during the time. Does not every man see what Avould be the result ? Do not we aU know, that it would be simply the tale of the silly ostrich over again, which imagines itself safe from the hunter by shutting its eyes, and by hiding him from its own sight ? Do we not see, that such a person would only be delivered up far more and far more helplessly into the power of ^^vil ? No, my brethren : a man who wants to get rid of evil in himself must open his eyes to the evil, not hide it : must not shrink from any pain which the sight may give him, if it also gives him the knowledge, what the danger is, and how to meet it. And he who wants to overcome evil in others, must not shrink from the gloomy and unwelcome task of speaking of it, exposing it, probing its extent and measuring its strength, that so they may be the more deeply and earnestly convinced of its existence, and the more active in combating it. There is then this evil all about us and in us : and we must make up our minds to see it, to recognize it, to SIX AS A FACT. 5 stand face to face with it, and conquer it. ]S'ow here come in two most important remarks.^ This evil is not the only disagreeable thing in life. There are bodily pain, discomfort, misery, common to us and all mankind — nay, common to us and the lower animals. And there is this circumstance about all these, worthy of our present notice. If we can manage to forget them, to flee away from them, to hide them from us, we thereby get rid of them. We need not look at them, nor study their nature. A man who wants to avoid breaking a limb, need not be always gazing on or describing broken limbs : he has but to avoid those risks which might occasion the mischief. A man who would avoid death will follow the ordinary instinct of self-preservation : he would not be for ever studying all the possible ways of dying. Such knowledge is not necessarj^ ; nay, it woidd be an incumbrance and a nuisance. But the man who wishes to avoid evil in this world, must be awake and alive to the forms and accesses of He cannot do without such knowledge : his very safety consists in it. Therefore— and mark the inference as an important one in our progress to-day — evil is a matter of a totally differ- ent kind from bodily pain, misery, or death. Again: evil is not by any means our only injcard source of annoyance and hindrance. You have — I have — every one has — defects, infirmities, in his or her mind and disposition : things of which we would -s^illingly be rid if we coidd : bars to our progress and hindrances to our perfection. But none of these do we look upon as we look upon evil. Let it be she^m that we are dull, or feeble, or inferior to some others, we put up 6 SIX AS A FACT. with, it, we excuse it, we make ourselves as comfortable as we may under the knowledge of it : but let it be once shewn by others or by our own conscience that we have wished, said, done, that which is evil, and we know at once that there is no excuse for it. We may try to shew that we did it inadvertently, or by force of circum- stances ; or in some way to lessen our own share in it : but the \erj labour to construct an excuse shews that we hold the evil itself, as evil, to be inexcusable. Evil itself no one attempts to excuse : all take for granted that it is a loathsome thing, all desire that their cha- racter and their conscience should stand free from it. So far then this evil is something which our nature itself teaches us to revolt from and abhor. We do not, we cannot excuse it ; we cannot contentedly put up with it, we cannot be happy under its influence. Now do not mistake me. Many a man, as we have seen, excuses his share in evil, excuses his evil deed as not being evil, plays the self- deceiver and hides the evil of his ways from himself, abandons his helm and lets himself drift into evil, and so is contented, and fancies himself happy, under e\il. But again, and for all this, the thi?ig itself is sim^^ly a deadly enemy to us, whenever and wherever detected, and exposed as being what it is. No son of man ever said or could say, from his inmost heart, what the great poet sublimely represents Satan as saying, Evil, be thou my good." It requires more than man ever to say this. Well now, my brethren, what does all this shew? Does it not testify to there being a law within us, implanted in our nature, by which evil is avoided, SIN AS A FACT, 7 and by consequence good souglit and desired? And observe that this is true, quite independently of and previous to all circumstances in which a man is placed, all interests in which he is involved. Our abhorrence of e\dl as evil does not spring from our finding it to be hurtful to us : we know that it is hurtful to us, the moment we know any thing. 'The little child for the first time detected in evil, is as much ashamed of it as the experienced and mature man. Now this is ex- ceedingly important : all- important, in our present enquiry. A law Avithin us tells us what is good, tells us, that we ought to be good, to say good, to do good. Mind I only assert this fact. That this law is broken in upon, that it is not always distinctly or properly or efiectively asserted, is nothing to my present purpose. I know all this, and shall have to use it by and by. But I only care now for this great fact, that there is this law : that we all know it, all judge by it, all act upon it as a familiar and confessed thing. All our enacted laws, all our public opinion, even all our ways of - thinking and speaking in words, are founded on there being such a law within man, sanctioning good, prohibiting eyil. Now then it is time for us to ask, when man be- comes, says, acts evil, what sort of a thing does he do ? For that such is the case, is but too plain. Evil thoughts, evil words, evil acts, are but too often to be found in^ the course of all of us ; evil men unhappily abound in every place and society. How are we to look upon such evil thoughts, words, acts, and men ? Are they 8 SIN AS A FACT. necessary? In plain words, is it a condition of our lives that we must enter into compact with evil, as it is that we must eat and sleep ? Certainly not. This is clear from what has already been said. Every protest against evil, every resistance to evil, every victory over evil, proves that evil is not necessary to our being ; that He who made us has made us capable of existing without evil, and all the better for existing without evil. But now let us listen to what follows. True as this is, we must always remember, that this great and blessed state of our being, the freedom from and victory over evil, is not that after which all men are striving. There are all kinds of lower forms of our being, which satisfy men, and in some cases constitute their chief good. One man seeks the gratification of his bodily appetites and lusts : another, the heaping up of wealth : a third, the gaining of power : a fourth, the rising in the esteem of those about him : another again, several, or all of these together: and so, not man's • brightest aim, to be good and pure and calm and wise, but an aim very far below this, is followed by the worse part of mankind always, — by even the best of mankind sometimes. Now, my brethren, every one of these lower and unworthy objects, if followed as an object, does neces- sarily bring a man into contact and compromise with evil. To be bent on gratifying lust, is of itself evil : to amass selfishly, is evil : to promote our own influence and push for precedence, is evil. Greed, intemperance, injustice to others, unkindness, overweening opinion of SIN AS A FACT. 9 self, and a hundred otlier evil things beset every one of such courses of life; every one of such thoughts, words, actions. Now we have advanced, I think, close to our point. When a man Kves such a course, when any one of us gives way to such thoughts or words, or commits such deeds, he is disobejring that great first law of our being by which, as I shewed you, we choose the good and abhor the evil. How it is that men got the wish 60 to go wrong and so to disobey the law of their being, it is not my present object to enquire. But though it is not, I must simply remind you that we Christian believers know how this was ; and more than this, — that our Bibles give us the only satisfactory account that ever was given of it. We know that it was by a taint at the root and spring of our race ; by our first parents using that freedom in which their Creator made them, not to please Him by remaining in good, but to please themselves by entering into a compromise with evil* But I say no more, as to enlarge on this is beyond our subject to-day. Men are (there is no doubt of this) liable, every man is liable, thus to enter into compact with his worst enem}^, evil, in order to serve his present lower purposes. We all do this continually. Now whenever we do this, we sin. ^' All sin,*' says St. John, is transgression of law*" Where there is no law, there is no sin ; wherever there is a law, there he who disobeys that law commits sin. And we have seen that this inward law which teaches us to abhor evil and choose good is broken and set at nought by us all. 10 SIN AS A FACT. We do not choose the good which we know we ought to choose : we do choose the evil which we very well know we ought not to choose. The propensity to do this, the entertaining the temptation to do it, the doing it, all these are sin. Now sin is not, like evil, a mere general quality : it is committed against a person. And there is, properly speaking, but one Person, against whom sin is, or can be committed. There is One who is the source and fountain of all law, all right, all purity, all goodness. And this law of good and evil of which we have been speaking, this above and before all others, springs from that Holy and Just one who hath made us and to whom we are accountable. All sin is against Him : is a violation of His law, is a thwarting, by His mysterious permission, of His holy and blessed purposes with regard to man. All have sinned. And in dwelling on this, the fact, that all men have inherited the disposition to sin, necessarily comes first. And this is no fiction : this is not, as the unbeliever of our day would try to persuade you, an exploded fallacy of a gone-by system ; but it is sober and fearful truth. It is moreover agreeable to the analogy of all God's works in nature and in spirit : a truth, as matter of experience, undeniable by any who is aware of even the most common phaenomena of our nature. And, inheriting this disposition, but with it inheriting also the great inward law of conscience warning us against evil, we have again and again fol- lowed, not the good law, but the evil propensity: in wayward childhood this has been so : in passionate 1 youth : in calm deliberate manhood. We have not SIX AS A FACT. 11 chosen evil ; we have hated evil by our very nature ; but we have followed evil, fallen into sin, by reason of our lusts and our passions blinding us, dragging us onward and downward, and delivering us tied and bound into the power of the enemy whom we naturally shun and detest. We have done this, — we are doing it, continually : we shall ever be doing it more or less, in our manifold weaknesses, our besetting dangers, our abounding temptations. Now then, this being so, what follows ? Can sin be safe ? Can a sinner be happy ? Can a sinful man be gaining the ends of his being ? The full answer to this question does not belong to our subject to-day ; but I cannot and ought not to conclude without slightly anticipating it. Sin is and must be the ruin of man, body and soul, here and hereafter. The born sinner — the tainted child of a tainted stock, living under that taint, with it working and spreading in him and through him, — how shall he be safe ? how shall he be happy ? how shall he ever grow on to good and to a blessed eternity ? Without going any further into the matter to-day, do you not see that this cannot be so? Whoever sins, goes wrong : lays up grief, shame, all that is dreadful, for himself, by thwarting the gracious ends for which God created him, viz. to love, obey, and imitate Him- self, that he may become like Him, and one day see Him as He is. Xo more then at present but this. Ever}^ man's work in life, sinners as we all are, is this : to find out his sins, to confess his sins to God, to struggle with 12 SIN AS A FACT. God's help against his sins, year by year and day by day to gain victories over his sins through Him who overcame sin for us ; to believe in, and live in the reality of, the Atonement which His blood has made for all and every sin. All the glorious process of that which He hath accomplished for us, will come before us as we proceed. But now in this season of Advent, when we are to cast away the works of darkness, I must detain you some Sundays longer on our own need of Him for whose coming we are to prepare ; and shall therefore, by God's help, speak to you on the next two Sundays on the manifold nature of sin, and on its guilt and conse- quences. ]^ow to Him who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, to the Son of God, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory for ever. Amen. SERMON II. (PEEACHED Oy THE THIED SrXDAT !>' ADTE^T, DEC. 15, 1S61.) THE DECEITFULXESS OF SIN. Heb. iii. 13. " The deceitfulness of sin." We are warned, in the passage in wMch these words occur, to beware lest any of us be hardened through the DECEITFULNESS OF SIX. It is to this last quality of sin, as connected with its manifold working, that I would to-day bespeak your attention. I described it last Sunday as one of the worst symptoms of our spiritual disease, that the more a man is affected with it, the less, in many cases, does he know that he has it at all. And herein consists the deceitful- ness of sin : not in making itself appear more important, but in making itself appear less important, than it really is. It is, as we saw, a deadly taint in our nature, ever steahng onward, requiring ever the most active check to be put upon it ; never shrinking back, or declining, as a matter of course, but, on the contrary, as a matter of course always waxing, always flourishing : creeping 14 THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. about our pure thoughts, entangling our good resolves, binding down our holy aspirations ; even until all becomes overborne by it, and confusion and helpless- ness and hopelessness set in, and self is exalted as supreme, and God is forgotten in the chambers of the heart, and the voice of the good Spirit becomes silent, and the darkness of the night gathers round, and the spoiler only waits without, certain of his prey. And mind I am not speaking now, I do not mean to speak to-day, of what men call great sinners, or of what are known as deadly and shameful sins : I speak of us all, I want to benefit all : I speak of the course of sin, its manifold- ness, its deceitfulness, in us who, I will suppose, abstain at least from its outward and grosser manifestations : us, who are not murderers, not adulterers, not defrauders, not false swearers, but who are lovers of self, vain, envious, seekers of applause from men, careless, indo- lent, miwatchful, unfaithful to Christ. It is of the ordinary character of the average Christian man that I speak; in its infirmity, in its capriciousness, in its unwariness. May I be guided to speak aright, and you to judge what I say. It will be plain to you that, in order to deal with such a subject profitably, I must not linger amidst mere general matters, but must enter into particulars, and exhibit sin in some of its various modes of attack and access to us. I must divide our life and its energies into its several departments, and shew how the manifold- ness and deceitfulness of sin beset us in each one of them. And for this purpose the most convenient division will be the most ordinary one. Our vital energy finds THE DECEITFL'LNESS OF SIX. 15 Issue in three great ranges and regions : those of thought, of word, of deed. In each one of these there is duty, and there is fault. In each of them there is the voice of God speaking in our consciences, there is the wiitten law of God guiding, confirming, furthering, that inward voice : in each of them there is in us the constant disposition to set conscience and to set God aside, and to become our own guides, our own masters. Let us then take each one of these in turn, and shew in each, how manifold sin is, how deceitful. Sins of THOUGHT. How best may we place ourselves aright to consider these ? It is not easy to turn inward, and be faithful witnesses to what passes within us. Nothing is so deceitful, nothing so apt to become a delusion, as the taking account of our own thoughts and feelings. Memory cannot copy faithfully the picture which has faded away, but overlays and tricks it out with fresh and unreal colours. What, for example, so utterly empty and unprofitable as religious diaries, experience-records, chronicles of past states of mind, unless indeed traced by a master-hand, and laid down with rare and self-denjing faithfulness ? This very fact shews, how busy sin is in our thoughts : how it is ever waking and watching, and turning even the infirmities of our memory into occasions for itself. In this very matter, how deep is its deceit — how subtle its craft ! Take a more special example. Often we find in such records, often we find in ourselves, a disposition to exaggerate our own sinfulness. All is put down as bad: nothing could be worse. Slight errors are mag- nified into great sins : real sins blackened into unpar- 16 THE DECEITFULNESS OF STN. donable enormities. 0 meekness, we may be disposed to say, — 0 humility ! But pause a moment, and enquire, Is this reaUy so ? When self is both the accuser and the accused, both the prisoner and the prosecutor ; — when again the crime charged is past, and the act of charging it is present ; — when all the discredit is looked upon as belonging to a former and infirm self, and aU the credit as accruing to a present better self, — 0 how strong is the temptation to get at the comfortable inference, I was worse then, but I am better now! How the treacherous self-gratulation mingles even with humility, even with thankfulness to God ! How it lurks in and pervades all such recollections, — from the glorious confessions of the great African Augustine to the flattest memoirs of the most common-place religionist of our puny time ! But we must not stay talking about the difficulty of dealing fairly with our thoughts, though this very difficulty illustrates our subject: we must enter in, and grapple with the difficulty itself. There is no question that our real thoughts can be got at, and their liability to sin justly measured, if we wiU spend time and trouble over it. And it must be remem- bered, that here in public, and in dealing with the matter on a large scale, we are not beset by the difficulty in its full strength : we are not dealing with our individual selves, whom we love, alas, not wisely but too well; we are dealing with our pubKc self, so to speak ; with our whole species of which we are at least somewhat fairer, though by no means infallible judges. And, thus dealing, we may venture to say, that the THE DECETTFULXESS OF SIX. 17 great bui'den of our sins of thought will be found to consist in this, in a want of honest, conscientious adoption and following of what we know to be real and true; — in Scripture language, " an evil heart of unbelief.'' We are not unbelievers : the bare idea is di'eadful to us: we hold and we cling to the glorious doctrines of our redemption : if an hour of trial came, I do not suppose we should desert them ; there would be found, as there have ever been found in Christ's Church, many ready to suffer, some even to die for them. But in spite of all this, it is too often certain that while the man, with his mind and his affections, thoroughly beKeves, the heart ls, to a sad extent, an unbeliever. I mean that in the secret inmost chamber where ideas spring into life, where resolves are formed, and plans matured, the great truths which are believed are not given their due place, nor allotted their proper share. A man thoroughly believes that there will be a judgment of all things I done in the flesh. But how often, in forming his plans and resolves, does he take this into serious account? How often, when called upon to decide on a course of conduct, does any one of us say within himself, How shall I give account of this to Him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead ? Are not our determinations ! much more often principally brought about by considera- tions of a very different kind from this ? Our own inclination, our worldly interest, the opinion of others, aU these are first consulted, and first satisfied : if, when this is done, the path chosen happens to be that of duty and God's will, we are ready enough to take credit for it, and to flatter ourselves upon it : if it turns out to G 18 THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. be another path, we set to work, I am afraid, to invent some compromise wherewith conscience may be lulled into acquiescence. 0 for that clearness of inward vision, which shall ever see the great noonday sun of God's presence shining upon every thought, detecting its errors and prejudices and self-leanings ! 0 for that singleness of purpose which shall be able to labour by that light alone, disregardful of how the work will appear under the dim and artificial candle of human estimation ! There is no prayer of which we have more constant and urgent need than this, — " Unite my heart to fear thy name : '' — make it to be in its life-thinking and energizing, what it is in its reasoning, what it is in its praying, what it is in its confessing, what it is in its teaching of others. Again : a man firmty and without hypocrisy believes in the great sacrifice of Christ for him. He knows he is bought with the price of the precious blood of the Son of God; that he is a baptized member of Christ, and bound to live for Him and to Him. And yet, when we come to motives, when we come to resolves within him, where does this belief appear ? Are our thoughts governed, are they penetrated, are they constrained, by any such considerations? When selfish ^dews spread before us in all their attractiveness, the fertile plains of Sodom tempting us to dwell in them, does the course of self-denial to whiph we are pledged instantly assert its claim — does our eye at once rise to the thorny upward path, and to Him who bore his Cross, and dropped his Blood along it ? AVhen the temper is roused by insult, when the pride is stung by contumely, when the self- THE DECEITFULXESS OF SIX. 19 opinion is buffeted by designed sKglit, and the tyrant fiend of revenge springs to bis feet in a moment, — do our eyes see, or do tbey refuse to see, tbe Spirit of the Lord lifting His standard against bim ? Do we bear, or do we refuse to bear, amidst tbe rising gusts of passion, tbe still small voice ''Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of beart I bave purposely dwelt on tbis particular class of sins of tbougbt, because tbey are tbe most subtle, tbe least guarded against, tbe most seldom beld up for warning : because tbey poison tbe very sj)rings of life itself: because tbey are manifold and deceitful in every one of us : because tbey are ever undennining tbe building wbicb we are raising on tbe one Foundation, robbing us of our full reward, tarnisbing tbe brightness of our future spiritual crown. 0 tbat we migbt eacb of us bave grace to wake and watcb against tbem, and appl}' ourselves in earnest to tbeir removal and cure ! I now come to sins of icord. And bere I sball not speak of bad and unboh" and impure words, — not of evil speaking, lying, and slandering : tbese are open and manifest : if we fall into tbese, we know it, we repent of it ; but I sball speak of sins of word more beneatb tbe surface, into wbicb wben we fall, we do not know it, of wbicb, wben we bave fallen into tbem, we are little accustomed to repent. And I believe sucb sins will mainly be found, as regards our dealings witb men, in stating or not stating tbe very trutb of our sentiments and feelings and beliefs. I am not now speaking of hypocrisy, nor of any wilful and conscious disingenuousness, but of a general want of c 2 20 THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. clear and fearless truthfulness, whicli pervades, it seems to me, the conversation of so many even good and religious persons. The motive for this frequently is, an over-cautious fear of the consequences of what may be said, or its effect upon those to whom it is said ; a sense of the duty of taking a side^ and fancying that this cannot be done without acting the partisan, and supporting that side at all hazards, even to the peril of truth and fair- ness itself. And thus in religious matters difficulties are glossed over, great questions which really agitate men's minds are kept out of sight, institutions merely human are held up as perfect, or their imperfections acknowledged indeed in the general, where no harm can be done, but denied in every particular when the pinch really comes. And so our holy Eeligion becomes a thing upheld merely because it is right and expe- dient that it should be, not because of its own claims to our allegiance : and the Bible is upheld, not with an humble and intelligent examination of its real meaning and undoubted difficulties, but with a blind dogmatic spirit, finding fault with honest investigation, breaking the bruised reed of incipient doubt, quenching the smoking flax of awakened enquiry. Now human nature cannot stand this, either in a man's self, or in others to or of whom he thus speaks. In himself, the con- sequences are deplorable. How many men uphold a rigid formal set of sentiments which in their hearts they do not believe ! How many men are thus living at variance with their own reason and conscience, divided against themselves, and therefore, whatever may seem, of necessity falling into ruin and spiritual THE DECEITFULNESS OF SI>;. 21 decay ! How grievous it is, how sad it has been often in our own times, to see men from whose mouths has gone forth for years the pure language of religious truth, at last making wreck of faith and practice — proved to have been but counterfeits ! And this, not in all cases, but I am persuaded in very many cases, because they never dealt ingenuously and fearlessly with their own hearts and with mankind about them : they professed to be fighting in armour which they had never proved, and so the enemy was too strong for them. "What then?" I hear some one say: "are we never to take the side of God till we can under- stand Him ? till we can penetrate the darkness in which He shrouds himself ? Are we never to confess or to strive for a doctrine of religion, till we thoroughly and clearly see our way into it and round it ?" Nay, my brethren, I said not any such thing. We never can by searching find out God : we must acknow- ledge many doctrines, which we do not understand. All I demand is that we freely and fearlessly confess these to be weaknesses. By all means let us stand on the side of God, on the side of the Bible, on the side of the Church, which we believe to be the best ex- ponent of God as revealed in the Bible : but let this be done humbly, ingenuously, truthfully : not fearing to confess that there are matters regarding God which are as yet dark to us, that there are things in the Bible of which we cannot give an account, that there are infirmities and imperfections even in the best human setting forth of the Church on earth. When 22 THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. will we learn, that the consideration of the conse- quences of what we say is not to be entertained, when j iistice and right require of us to speak and fear not ? When will men come to feel, that the blessed Gospel of Christ never was and never can be the gainer by any false statement, any equivocation, any shrinking from dangerous truth or unwelcome fact? Doubtless it is misery enough to be an unbeliever, even though honest in unbelief; but a dishonest believer is worse and more miserable than an honest unbeliever. And yet how many of the former, it is to be feared, have, in the history of God's Church, stood in high and holy places, and dictated, and persecuted : and how many of the latter might have been reclaimed and persuaded, had they been dealt with more in the spirit of Christ ! If again the effect of this timid untruthful religion be bad on a man's self, much more is it hurtful and fatal on others. The world outside, seeing the ques- tions which it is ever too ready to press on Chi'istians evaded, or insuJB&ciently met, forms its own conclusion, unjust indeed, but hardly to be wondered at, as to the reasons why the Gospel of Christ is upheld by us ; attributes it to the love of our position, care for our emoluments, or mere habit and use, and not liking to see the old faith decay : instead of that which is the real motive even in those who thus feebly advocate it, love to God and to man, and thorough persuasion of its truth. And now let us advance to sins of act and deed : doing what we ought not to do, leaving undone what THE DECETTFULXESS OF SIX. 23 we ought to do. And liere again, being anxious to speak of tlie manifoldness and deceitfulness of sin, I will not deal witli known sins, — plain omissions or flagrant commissions, — but with those which we seldom think of or charge ourselves with. And this being so, it is plain that our attention will be almost entirely confined to sins of omission : as it is in course of these mainly that the attention is set to sleep, and the watchful guard is relaxed, and the standard of positive duty is lowered. One of the commonest omis- sions in the ordinary lives of Christian men' is, tJie neglect of the words of the Master of all Christian men : the disuse of taking into account, as rules of conduct, the injunctions and precepts of Christ. Our lives are mainly spent in obedience to the common con- ventional rules set hj the oj)inions and practices of those about us. Thanks to God, those about us form a community regidated in outward and plain matters by Christian rules : so that men's lives have become, by the leavening influence of Christianity, a decent approximation to the tenor of the precepts of Christ. Still there are many things yet left, in which public usage or opinion says one thing, and the Lord Christ says plainly another : many as to which the world's rule lays down nothing, but our divine Master lays down very much. It is in such matters, I believe, that we Cliristians are continually falling into sin. We think our actions good enough, if they will bear comparison with those of the society in which we move, and of the time in which we live : forgetful that our rule has been prescribed by One who speaks 24 THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. not on earth, but from heaven : that our standard has been set for us in words which shall not have passed away when heaven and earth are no more. 0 that there were in any of us the habit of referring our questioning thoughts at once to His verdict whom we profess to serve ; of guiding our actions simply, humbly, fearlessly, by His precept and His example ! And in order for this, there would be no occasion to run counter in ordinary things to the habits and feel- ings of those about us : if we were earnest like Him, himible like Him, wise like Him, at whatever distance from His perfect example, we should recommend and adorn our unflinching course of Christian duty by quietness, by imobtrusiveness, by consideration for others, by knowledge what to say, and when, and to whom. It is not the busy protester against what other men do, it is not the man who is ever found up in arms against the usages of society, who does the good ; but he who is gifted with sound judgment enough to overlook things indifferent, to join in prac- tices which he himself would perchance not have chosen, if by so doing he may cheer, and bless, and haUow, and leaven, the society in which God has cast his lot. Here again I conceive good Christian men are often led, in our time, into sin. For 0 it is sin, to misrepresent the profession of a disciple of Christ by a morose and unsocial and forbidding aspect ; it is sin, always to be found in opposition, and never in hearty concurrence, when schemes are proposed which interest and please others. If a man's religion be so completely a matter of his own, of keeping himself so THE DECEITFUL^-ESS OF SIN. 25 usually aloof from his brethren, all we can say is that it is not Christ's religion, who pleased not Himself: it is not St. PauFs rehgion, who became all things to all men. An unsocial, uncomplying, indiyiduaKzing life may be very flattering to pride : may serve as a salve to the conscience, and make a man fancy him- self very good and pure ; but there can be no doubt that such a course is a life-long sin, bringing dishonour on the blessed Gospel of Christ, and hardening men's hearts against its influence. It is time to draw to a close ; and the special object which I would recommend to you ^ to-day furnishes me with an eminent example of another branch of sins of omission on the part of Christian men. There are many things which Christ has expressly charged on His ChiuTh as positive and perpetual duties. The care of His poor, the instruction of His little ones, these are of this kind ; and, not least among such, the evangelization of the whole world. Words cannot be more explicit than His parting command, — "Go ye into all the world: preach the Gospel to every creatui-e." Whatever the time, whatever the appearance of things, whatever the state of the Church or the nations, whether hope or fear, exultation or dejection be our present attitude, these words change not : this holy command binds every Christian at every time. And remember the solemn words of Holy Writ — "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." You know, every one of you well knows, that each of us is bound to-day ^ The Third Sunday in Advent is our Missionary Sunday at Canter- bury. 26 THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. to bring to God his contribution, — great or small matters not half so mucb, — to this His Society, by which this Church of England is fulfilling our Lord's behest. You know this. Are you going to do it ? Because if, ha^ang this knowledge, you pass by and refuse to contribute, it is sin — a new stain on your own souls— a new mark against you in that book which shall be opened the next time we all stand together in God's presence. Think of this ; and God gi^e you grace to act ac- cordingly. But, though my time has run out, and I have said what I had to say on my subject, none of you I am sure will to-day grudge me a few words more. I little knew, when I wrote of times of national dejection, what deep occasion we should have for it before that sentence was uttered here. A prince and a great man has this day fallen in Israel. At the very time when the vessel of the state requires most careful guidance, and none can tell what dangers are before her, one of those nearest the helm has been mysteriously snatched away. When none thought it — when it seemed as if unbroken prosperity were almost the heritage of our royal family, — in one night our princely house is fatherless, our Queen a widow. I pause not to-day to draw out the solemn lessons which such an event suggests. The blow is too fresh — the effect too numbing just now. All I say is this : First, pray, loyally, fervently, constantly, for her whose great grief is now uppermost in all our thoughts : and secondly, waken more than ever at this solemn moment to the claim of our national Christian duties. Let not the astonishment of your present grief supersede THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. 27 your zeal for God's work to which, you are called; rather let the softened heart, the stricken spirit, acknowledge God as nearer, His voice as more plainly heard : and in this and all duties to which He summons you, make you more ready to say. Lord, what wouldst thou have us to da ? * SERMON III. * (preached on the FOUETH SUNDAY IN ADVENT, DEC. 22, 1861.) THE GUILT AND CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. EzEK. xviii. 4. " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." The guilt and consequence of sin, — these form our subject to-day. May God give us grace to consider it aright. In order to do this, we must bear firmly in mind one most important fact. Sin dwells in us, — works in us, — prevails too often over us : but sin is not ourselves. Sin is no more a man's self, than the disease is the patient. *'It is not /," says St. Paul, "but sin that dwelleth in me.'* And this is closely connected with what I maintained in the first of these sermons ; that the evil to which we are prone by the disease of our nature is not any thing necessary or natural to us, but something both hateful and hurtful. It is not our nature, but is destructive of our nature. And yet, at the same time, the tendency to evil which leads to sin is so uni- versal, and our nature is so penetrated by it, that to separate man from sin is for man impossible. The THE GUILT OF SIX. 29 taiiit is at our root, and every branch shares in it. It is not a mere act or set of acts ; but a state, a condition of spiritual disease. The new-born babe, who never committed sin, is yet sinful, and it is certain to commit sin, as soon as its faculties begin to unfold themselves. Original or birth-sin is not merely a doctrine in religion ; it is a fact in man's world, acknowledged by all, whether religious or not. Let a man be providing for an un- born child in case of distribution of worldly property ; he will take care to bind him by conditions and cove- nants which shall guard against his fraudulently help- ing himself to that which he is to hold for or to appor- tion to another. He never saw that child : he does not know but that child may be the most pure and perfect of men : but he knows it will not be safe to put tempta- tion in his way, because he knows he will be born in sin, and Kable to sin, and sure to commit sin. Now the GUILT of sin is a very important matter : and if you will give me your attention, you will at once see that the imbehever, who denies the guilt of sin because it is a disease tainting our whole nature, has no ground to stand upon. If God had given us no means of resisting sin : if sin were identical with all our con- victions and tendencies and desires, then sin woidd be equally destructive of our happiness and of our nature as it is now, but there would be no guilt in us personally : no one could find fault with us for falling victims to that which we should be powerless to with- stand. TTe should be objects of pity, not of blame. But how different is this now. We have conscience, ever protesting against sin : the written law of God, guiding 30 THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. and enliffhtenino' the conscience : and more than all that, the great Eedemption which is by Christ, pro- viding a full and sufficient escape from and cure of the fatal disease. 'Now you see, wherein consists the guilt of sin : why it is that though born in sin, and prone to sin, I yet am a guilty creature if I sin. It is because sin is not myself, but my enemy : because I know it to be my enemy. Wherever this knowledge is present, — and it is present in some degree in every son and daughter of Adam, — there is, speaking generally, no excuse for sin : it is known to be wrong, and he- who falls into it is a guilty person. And observe, that in the just govern- ment of God, this guilt varies according to the degree of light and knowledge. The poor heathen, the very savage, has some light of conscience, however dim and insufficient. The Christian has the full light of God's revelation of Himself in the face of Jesus Christ. Be- tween the savage who lives in sin, and the Christian who lives in sin, the difference of degree of guilt is immense. It will hereafter be made manifest in the case of many a Christian, that it would have been well for him if he had lived and died a poor ignorant heathen. It shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment for the lowest and most degraded of our race, than for us, the favoured of God, if we repent not, and serve Him with our hearts. From guilt, we are naturally led on to punishment. If the sinner is guilty, what will happen to him ? Now to any of you who have intelligently followed me, it wiU be plain, that I have not put this question exactly in THE COXSEQrENCE OF SIX. 31 the form in which we must first answer it. It will be evident, that the punishment of sin will not be in proportion merely to personal guilt, but to the mischief which it works on our nature. Our whole nature is diseased and perishing : and if I encourage the disease, and give it opportunity, and way, and power over me, then my punishment will be, not only just retribution for that my undoubted and inexcusable guilt, — but also the consequence, whatever that may be, of the prevalence and history of the dread disease itself. And notice, that in the Christian man this also is a direct punishment for personal guilt. He knew the cure, and he did not apply it. He chose to perish, and he perishes accordingly. But now, you see, two questions rise before us. • What is the consequence of sin, unchecked, encouraged, pre- vailing, pervading a man's being ? This is the first : and the second is, "What have we reason to think will be God's punishment for one who has allowed sin thus to conquer him ? Will it be simply the consequences of the malady, or will it be something else, over and above them ? Let us apply ourselves to the former question. We said in our first sermon, that sin was, entering into evil : — thinking, saying, doing that which is bad. We have simply to enquire then, what is the efiect on us of thinking, sapng, doing that which is bad? Let me ask any one of you, what do you suppose you were made for ? I imagine the general answer will be, or will amount to this : " Our Maker must be good and beneficent, and must have made His creatures to be 32 THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. happ3^ And if He has given us powers and faculties above His other creatures, it must be because He wills that we should aim at, and reach, a higher degree of happiness than His other creatures.'* This reply which I have put into your mouths, is, as far as we are con- cerned, undoubtedly the right one. Grod made us to be happy^ to strive after happiness to the highest reach of our faculties and powers. Well, now let me ask again ; How do you suppose that happiness is to be attained ? Is it to be a happiness gained by the pampering of the body, by giving scope to the lower appetites and passions ? If so, why were we endowed with reason, and conscience, and desires after higher and better things ? Go a step further : — Is it a happiness to be served by the indulgence of present temper and feeling, — by the lust of wealth and of power, by serving a man's own narrow interests, and earthly purposes? If so, again, how is it that such present indulgence constantly and proverbially does not bring with it happiness, does not bring satisfaction; but the man who gives way to it is ever casting it aside as worthless, ever seeking something beyond it ; and the man who goes on for years giving way to it becomes at last a miserable disappointed creature, a burden to himself and all around him? Surely this cannot be the way to happiness. And if not, what is ? Is it not this, — to flee from evil and seek good ? Is not the man who does this as a principle, as a habit, is not this man every where and at all times the happy man ? Has he not a happiness which the world with its varying circumstances cannot touch : which outward and seeming THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIX. 33 misery cannot deprive him of: whicli survives in tlie midst of desolation, of persecution, of sickness : whicli is not diminished but increased by that which to other men is the height of misery, the approach of death itself? And if this be so, if to depart from evil, if to fight with and overcome sin, be the way, and the onl}' way, to real happiness, what do you suppose is the consequence of evil cherished, sin practised and followed, sin overcoming the man and leading the man captive, and triumphing over him ? What can it be, but misery and ruin ? Look at its course ; watch its progress. Let us try to enliven a dull but necessary argument by setting an example before you. Some matter is proposed to a man which he knows to be wrong — knows to be sinful. But it is very tempting ; it will serve his interests ; it will add to his means ; it will increase his comforts ; it will help his family after him. He stands at the parting of the two ways : duty, with toil and privation, with humble means for many a year ; sin, with ease and competence, with worldly plenty and worldly consideration. One thought, nay not a thought, an intuition, a flash of irresistible light, tells him in a moment which path he ought to choose. But he hesitates, he parleys with the enemy, he looks twice and thrice, and he makes up his mind : he grasps the present advantage : he casts away the pro- test of conscience, and the dread verdict of the certain future, and he adopts the sinful course. Now the question for us is, what has this man done ? what has happened to him ? First, he certainly is not a better man ; he is, in our common language, a worse D 34 THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. man than he was before. And what meaning is there in these words, a worse man ? 0 what is there not, that is miserable, that is deadly to all health, that is fatal to all happiness ? His sin has put him further from good : he has descended a step from God and from happiness. And what is the consequence, I ask again ? What further is in store for him ? Can he rest where he is? Having made this compromise with evil, can he say "Just thus much I find necessary to my comfort, | to my advantage, and here I will stop ? I cannot have the full field of goodness for my course — I have barred myself out of part of it, but within the limits whic£ remain I will be a good man?" Ah, my brethren, this may not be. Many and many a sinner tries it ; jealously fencing round his reputation, taking credit fori all that he does or says that looks like good, keenly re- senting any charge on his fair name. But alas, he who lets in evil into his practice, is letting in a wild ocean to which no man may say "Hitherto and no further."! He is a worse man. Not only part of his good is gone, but all his good is marred, is poisoned ; his heart is no longer simple, it is divided; he is become a hypocrite, | an actor of a part before men ; he has a dark corner which he does not want the world to see into, — a locked closet at the door of which he keeps watch with fear and trembling, lest any discover its contents. And if this before men, 0 what before God? Ah, my brethren, when and as long as a man makes an agreement with evil, fosters evil, lives by evil, there is no more God for him ; prayer, praise, the sacraments, God's word, God's house, God's ministers, God's people^ these have aU THE COXSEQUEXCE OF SIX. 35 become for Mm nauseous tilings, unwelcome reminders whence he has fallen : for appearance sake he goes to * church, he even presents himself, sad to say, at the Table of the Lord, — because if he did not, neighbours would question, friends would drop off, customers would forsake him ; but he hates all such things ; and he hesitates not, when he thinks himself safe, and worldly- interests not at stake, to unburden his pent-up thoughts by shewing his hatred. The fact is, he has chosen that God shall be his enemy ; and he cannot bear to face the terrible fact : and so he wants to forget Him, and not to have the thought of Him ever making him miserable. And from this to the life of the scorner and blas- phemer there is but a very short step, and one which few can resist taking. Almost all such characters among us, almost all those who are bold against God, questioning His word, despising His ordinances, are not men whose unbelief is their misfortune, an unhappy turn of mind, or a conscientious form of doubt : they are ever, it is true, ready enough to take refuge under this : but almost all of them are men whose unbelief has become a miserable necessity to them by reason of their choosing to live in and to live by sin : so that a professed imbeliever of correct life is a very rarity in nature. But whether in profession or not, in heart the sinner is an unbeKever and a hater of God. And then further ; how does this state proceed, sup- posing it unrepented of? Life is full of new tempta- tions, ever arising : and in such a life, the enemy who has gained one victory is not likely to relax his assaults : he who consents to sin, draws on him sin, as Holy D 2 36 THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. Scripture has it, with a cart-rope : conscience, once over- borne and silenced, speaks fainter next time, fainter still the time after, soon scarce audibly, after a while not at all. And so the sinner becomes hardened in his sins, more and more lost to true inward shame, less and less able to disentangle his feet from the net thrown round him : to conceal one sin, others have become necessary, and more again to varnish over those, until to stir without sinning has become well nigh impossible : he has to ask leave of evil, to let him speak or act at all. So life speeds on, and Kfe's end stands before him, and the new and final state has to be entered. God, whom he has so long striven not to know, is unsought by repentance. He goes out of the world as he lived in the world ; and what is his state then ? Eemember we are confining ourselves at present to the mere consequences of his sinful life, irrespective of any actual infliction of divine wrath. What is his state, do we ask ? what can it be, but what it was here, only with every deceit laid open, and every door of hope shut ? God he hated and fled from ; and the joy of that state is the shining of God's countenance : what has he to do with that ? Good he deKberately refused : the delight of the blessed is to be purely good, to do nought but good, to bask in the beams of His light who is Good itself; what has he to do with this, or with them ? What can the inward state of such a soul be but an enduring and living death ? Did we ever reflect on the terrible meaning of those words, ETERNAL DEATH ? What is more dreadful to us here, than the process, the act, of bodily death ? The THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 37 great relief from our thouglits of it is, that it is sliort : it is the anguish of an hour, or of a few hours ; or if it is prolonged to a day, or more than that, the announcement is terrible ; " two days djdng " — we shrink from the very i mention of so distressing a fate. And why ? Why, but because it is a time of sharp agony and fierce contention j of hostile powers in man's expiring frame : life struggling ] to continue, decay holding its own, and increasing its • domain ; the soul in dire apprehension, or at least in un- known conflict ? And if this be so, if the prolongation of bodily death even for a short time be dreadful, what must be the eternal death of the soul — all its mar- vellous powers, no longer dulled by the world and the flesh, at wild variance with one another ; self-accusa- tion and remorse for ever inwardly working, conscience no longer to be silenced, but speaking too late, — all the elements which should have contributed to hap- piness made, by the poisoning power of sin, ingredients in inefiable misery ? And there is no reason to think that state on the other side to be a passing one, as this is, or to be a preparation for another ; every thing tells us that it is final, prefaced and determined by this present condition of trial. Sin here, earns death there ; not annihilation, not a change into some further state, but the never-ending break up, and confusion, and unspeakable terror, and dismay, and dejection, and despair, of the guilty and corrupted soul. We have however yet another question to ask and answer. Such are the consequences of sin in a man : so destructive, so irreparable, so final. But is this all ? Are these natural consequences of sin the whole 38 THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. punishmeiit wliich it will bring ? If it consisted merely in acts done against our own happiness, this might be so : but recollect a moment what sin is. We explained it, after the Apostle St. John, as being hwisgression of God's laic. Now can we suppose that a just and almighty Lawgiver would make laws for His creatures which He knows to be for their welfare, promulgate them with all the subKme mani- festations of His majesty, as of old on Sinai, — or with those of His infinite love, as by the mouth of Him who spake as never man spake, — can we suppose that He would do this, and then leave mankind, if they broke His laws, simply with the risk of the conse- quences upon them, as if those laws had never been thus made known ? Is no penalty due to that God whom all sinners offend ? Nor are we left to answer this question by our own speculations. God has again and again declared, that He will punish the sinner : that there are special punishments prepared for all who live and die in sin : punishments to which all the consequences of the sin itself, bad as they are, are as nothing in proportion. Holy Scripture exhausts the most terrible images in language and thought to make this clear to us. But first, before them all, the plain words of our text demand our consideration, as announcing a punish- ment for sin, which is to be coextensive with its guilt : viz. that of DEATH. There can be no doubt that bodily death in its present form as existing in our race, is the punishment of our sin, — the consequence of our sinful state, Whether we have any right to carry this THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIX. 39 further, and to say tliat death would not have come into the world at all but for man's sin, is yery doubt- ful : Scripture gives no authority for such an idea, and the appearances presented by nature are against it. But as now inflicted on all mankind, we are expressly told that death is the punishment of sin. There can indeed be little doubt that man, as he came from the hands of his Creator, was liable to death. This the Apostle Paul clearly shews us, when he de- clares that the first man was "of the earth, earthy:" this argimient, and the propriety of the words " Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return," apply just as much to man before his sin as after it. But from a hint given in the third chapter of Genesis, it would appear, that had man remained pure and upright in Eden, the mysterious use of the tree of life would have wrought in him immortaKty and raised his body out of the power of decay. From this use however he was specially excluded on account of his sin. ''Lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever," a guard was placed which barred his access to that tree. So that death in us, with all its preceding evils, disease, weakness, pain, terror, and all its succeeding miseries, mourning, lamentation and woe, is the special punishment, by God's own declaration, of our sin. We are sinful: therefore we die. And from this portion of sin's punishment, no son or daughter of Adam is exempt. So entirely and of course is the whole of our nature subjected to it, that He who took that nature on him free from sinfulness either transmitted or personal, yet 40 THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. took it with this penalty attached to it, and became subject to all the approaches of death, and finally to death itself. It will come before ns further on in our course to shew, how He by His death took the curse out of bodily death, and made it to us as nothing to them that believe in Him : it may be enough now to mention the blessed fact, and that by way of contrast : that we may be better able to declare that on them who live and die in sin, on the unbelievers in Christ, and the unworthy members of Christ, Death still re- tains all his hold and inflicts all his terrors. To them, death is not only the dissolution of the body, but the eternal misery of the soul : the state of the abiding wrath of God, from which there is for them no escape. Thus much, my brethren, are we bound to believe, thus much to impress upon you, as to the consequence and punishment of sin. And all this is the deserved lot of every one among us ; though by God's infinite mercy in Christ, which we have yet to unfold, it will be the actual lot only of those who refuse His ofiers of grace, and prefer the service of sin to His service. The progress of that wonderful Redemption which He has wrought out, will open before us in that which we have to say on the morning of the approaching great Christmas Festival. Meantime let us earnestly lay to heart the deadly nature, and the grievous peril, of sin. Our Collect to-day teaches us to confess that " through our sins and wickedness we are sorely let and hindered in running the race that is set before us.'' May we not only say this to-day and during the week, but may we every THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIX. 41 one of us deeply feel it : by searching and knowing our own peculiar faults and infirmities, by watcbing and prating against tbem, by ever lining closer to Him whose bountiful grace and mercy can alone help and deliver us. SERMON IV. (PEEACHED ON CHEISTMAS DAT, 1861.) GOD'S REMEDY FOR SIN. Rom. iii. 3. " What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, con- demned sin in the flesh.'* We have advanced thus far in our statement of Christian doctrine, or rather of the introduction and preliminaries to Christian doctrine. We have laid down the sinful- ness of our whole nature : the manifoldness and deceit- fulness of sin : the guilt and eternal consequences of sin. So far we have spoken of the disease : to-day we deal with the remedy. Our text will furnish us in this matter with safe and sufficient guidance. It tells us of a way in which sin could not be cured : and of a way in which God has brought about its condemnation and cure. Now remember how we have been treating sin throughout : as a taint, a disease in our nature, destruc- tive to it, but pervading the whole of it, so that it is all sinful, all guilty, all perishing : so that it has absolutely god's hemedy for sin. 43 no power to renew itself unto good or to cast out evil from itself. The witness of conscience it lias : the help of God promised, and youchsafed, we believe, even in ignorance and degradation : but this is not of itself : this depends entirely upon and flows from that Redemp- tion of which we are to speak to-day. Behold then man, guilty, helpless, lost. And what do we now hear of? How first does God manifest himself to him ? VTe now first hear of a law being revealed to him. But it might be said, of what use can a law be to one who has no power to obey it ? The answer is very simple : to teach Jiim that he has no power to ohey it. This was the use of the law given on Sinai. We have already seen, that one of the most fatal symptoms of the disease of sin is, a man's unconscious- ness of its presence. The sinner goes on imagining all is well ; saying peace, when there is no peace. And in this ignorance he would live and die, were there not something to bring out and detect sin within him. This office the Law performed: by the Law is the knowledge of sin. But the Law had, and could have, no power whatever to overcome sin, nor to enable any man to contend with sin ; any more than a command to rise up and walk could have on the man laid helpless on a bed of sickness. And this is what is meant in our text, when it is said, that the law was weak through the flesh. Its only organ of acting was, the weak, powerless, helpless flesh of man: that flesh which is infected and penetrated by the taint of sin. And let us stop as we pass by, to remark, that this same must be the case with all human systems of morality, all rules 44 god's remedy fok sin. for good conduct, all discipline and codes of law : they have not, and cannot have, any power whatever to renew human nature, or to help it to overcome sin. Sin reigns in spite of them : nay sin has reigned most, and most fatally, where they have been best know, and most deeply studied, and most implicitly trusted to. All of them are just what their far greater example, God's revealed law, was ; and that is, merely a means whereby sin might be brought to light and known : means whereby the sinner might be rendered inexcusable, the proud heart might be crushed down, the dry and tearless eye might be filled with tears of repentance, and the sinner, hardened and careless before, driven to fly to God for mercy and pardon. But here comes in a question which requires an answer, and to answer which will materially further our enquiry. " You tell us," it may be said to me, " that the law on Sinai, that every moral law, whether in the conscience, or in man's writings and declarations, was given just to prove man guilty, and to drive him for mercy to God. But you know, and we know, and this Christmas Day reminds us, that it was not till four thousand jears after man's fall, that God's grace and mercy was revealed to mankind by the Redemption which is in Christ. Do you mean to tell us, that the great God of compassion and goodness, who alone knew the way in which this dread disease of sin could be healed, allowed men to go on in their disease all this time without that cure, contenting Himself with making provision that they might know their guilt, and, know- ing it, perish in it?" 'No, my brethren, nothing of god's eemedy for six. 45 the kind was tlie case. This Eedemption by Clirist, which first began its real course on the stage of this world about four thousand years after tbe creation, was no mere worldly course of events then first brought about : — no happy discovery then first made ; it had been fixed in the divine counsels, and its glorious efiects anticipated in God's infinite loving-kindness, before the world began, before man's sin was ever committed. Nay, all creation, the whole of this visible universe, is but a part, but a trifling portion, of this great divine scheme of Redemption. Every thing ever created, every thing that ever happened or shall happen, all these are simply elements in, contributions to, the glorious issue of the mediatorship of our Blessed Lord. All things are by Him and for Him : by Him the universe holds together. And accordingly, we beheve that there never was a time, in the history of man's sin and of God's deahng with it, when there was not opened to man a way of pardon and peace with God, through a Hedeemer to come, or present, or having come. The antediluvian church, the Patriarchal church, the Jewish church, — these were in the direct track of that ray of light from above, which was to shine ever more and more unto the perfect day. By sacrifices, by types, by prophecies, the great Re- deemer to come was made known to them as God saw fit for them, as they could bear and profit by the know- ledge : at no time was access to God, and reconcilement, and pardon, denied to the sinner. Before the flood, Enoch walked with God, Noah was perfect in his gene- rations, and preached righteousness : before the law, Abraham's faith was counted to him for righteousness, 46 god's remedy for sin. Jacob wrestled with. God and prevailed, and, dying, waited for His salvation : before the Gospel, Joshua determined that as for him and his household they would serve the Lord : David, amidst grievous weak- ness and sin, sought pardon and found it, and was the man after God's own heart: Hezekiah walked in all the ways of the Lord, turning not to the right nor to the left : Simeon waited, in the light of the promise of the Holy Ghost, for the consolation of Israel. And if we turn to the other nations of the earth, though the picture of man's delinquency is dark and gloomy enough, though, our knowledge of their state and oppor- tunities is but scanty and surrounded by difficulties, yet the argument of the Apostle in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and other expressions here and there dropped in Holy Scripture, enable us safely to affirm, that God left not himself without witness even amongst them : and that nowhere and at no time has it been true, that man has been abandoned by God to live and die in his sins. This reply has prepared the way for entering on the further portion of my text, which, indeed forms our proper subject to-day. The Law, — any law, — could not save man from sin. But God has done what the law could not do. He has sent One into the world, whose express object, as testified by the very Name given him, is, to save his people from their sins. He sent One into the world :— and who was this ? That it was no mere son of man, must be evident at first sight : any and every such, person would be born with the taint of sin on him, powerless to save himself, to say nothing god's kemedy for six. 47 of others. Eyerv such, person -svould be a mere unit in manhood, bounded by the limits of his own responsi- bilities, and unable to transfer any thing or pass it on to another : so that even suppose he could save himself, that would be all. The same objection would apply to any created being whatever : and this besides, that the combining our nature with any other nature, however exalted and angelic, would not do for us that which was required to be done : no angelic being has, or can have, righteousness of his own : every such one stands by diATiie grace imparted, may fall by grace rejected. No such Saviour could suffice for us, or could save us from our sins. Then what did God ? The language of our text is very important and explicit on this point : "He sext His 0^\^' Sox.'' There is here a peculiar and intended emphasis on the words His Ow^. Angels are sons of God : ice are said to be sons of God : but neither angels nor men are God's oicn sons ; for that imports, of His very natm-e and essence, very God begotten of very God, — eternal as Himself,— equal to Himself. There is but One, there never was but One, of whom this term can be used. That One was in the beginning : before creation existed : ia union with God, and himseK God. But the particular respecting Him with which we are now more immediately concerned is, that God sext Him IXTO THE WORLD. The qucstiou, ivhen ? is readily an- swered : as on this day. The event was one which hap- pened, and was recorded, like any other in the history of our earth. In Bethlehem, a town of Judsea, a place which may even now be visited and seen, a child was born, 48 god's remedy for sin. wliom we and all Christians believe to have been, and to be now, this Son of God, — God's own Son, — the Saviour of mankind. Important as the fact is, it requires Kttle dwelling upon by me : because it is so plain, so well un- derstood, so universally known. But the question, how He was sent into the world, is one which does require dwelling upon : because on the rightly answering it de- pends our soundness in the Christian faith ; — depends the fulness of our joy in believing, depends the firmness of our trust, and the acceptableness of our obedience, and the progress of our sanctification, and the measure of our heavenly glory. According as a man does or does not apprehend rightly the Christian doctrine of our Blessed Lord's Incarnation, depends it, whether his belief will yield him full consolation in his daily want of pardon and grace, in his daily struggles with sin, in the solemn hour of death, and in the decisive day of judgment. So let us endeavour earnestly to lay hold on the truth revealed to us in this aU-important matter. God sent His owa Son into our world : how ? Our text tells us one most essential particular. It was in THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH : of THE FLESH OF SIN. The form in which He appeared in this world was this form of ours. He was made man. That flesh of ours, which had become tainted with sin, prone to sin, sure to commit sin, — did He take that on Him? Now observe the words of our text, and remember well what has been before said in these sermons. Eemember how earnest we have been to impress upon you, that sin is NOT OURSELVES I is not OUT nature, but is something fatal and hostile to our nature. The Son of God took god's remedy for sin. 49 on Him OUR nature ; became very man. He there- fore took on Him our Flesh ; for this tabernacle of flesh and blood is necessary to the nature of man, and none is full and very man, but those who bear it about with them. But sin is not man: sin is not necessary to our nature : sin is destructive of our nature : sin is the very negative of our nature. And for this reason, and by a reason also inherent in Himself, on account of His absolute and perfect holiness and purity, the Son of God did not, when he took our nature, take sin with it: did not, when he entered into our fJesh, enter into sinful flesh. His flesh was our very flesh : it had the same attributes, the same necessities, the same pains, the same liability to death, even as had Adam before his sin: but sin it had not. He looked like sinful men : was of the same shape and form : mingled in their crowds, conversed with them, felt for them, wept when they wept, suffered as they sufier, died even as they die: but He was not sinful man, nor was His flesh sinful flesh. In Him was no sin. But our text tells us, that besides sending Him in the likeness of sinful flesh, of that flesh which had become pervaded by sin, God sent Him into the world FOR SIN. Sin was the reason why He came ; the errand on which he was sent had regard to sin : " He was sent," says St. John, "to take away our sins:" "He himself," said the Prophet Isaiah, "bore our sins:" "He who knew no sin," says St. Paul, "became sin for us." Now this taking away our sins He accomplished by two great things which He did : by His life, and by \ E 50 god's remedy for sin. His death. Tlie Apostle Paul puts this very plainly and clearly before us : "If," he says, "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved through His Life.** The whole process of this wonder- ful matter — how His Death reconciled us, how His Life saves us, will come before us, please God, hereafter: to-day we are concerned with the first step, leading on to both : His Incarnation — His being born into our world. What then do we see in the event of this day ; in that event which fills every Christian heart with joy, in spite of adverse circumstances, — in spite of national mourning ? We see this eternal and holy Son of God, becoming man. Let us take care that we get a right apprehension of this. That clear and most valuable confession of our faith which we have used this morning, will guide us aright. "The right faith is that we believe and confess, that our Lord J esus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man : God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds : and man, of the substance of His mother, born in the world: perfect God and perfect man : of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting : equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead : and inferior to the Father, as touching His manhood. Who although he be God and Man: yet He is not two, but one Christ (i. e. not two persons, not two Christs, but veritably and only one Person and one Christ) : one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh : but by taking of the Manhood into God"— that is, when he united the Godhead and the Manhood in god's remedy for six. 51 Himself, becoming God and man and still remaining one Person, He did it, not by sinking, as it were, tbe Son of God into the Son of Man, becoming a human Person and ceasing to be a divine Person : but by the very opposite : by continuing to be the divine Person which He was from all eternity, and into that divine Personality taking the nature of Man. And then the Creed in its next verse further explains the same by saying, " One altogether : not by confusion of sub- stance " — not by mingling together in a confused manner that which constituted the Godhead and that which constituted the Manhood : "but," it goes on, "by unity of Person : " by the divine Son of God entering, with all His Divinity entire, into our nature : taking it on Him, as St. Augustine excellently says, " from the very highest boundary of the rational soul down to the very lowest boundary of the animal body." Now, my dear brethren, let not these considerations seem to you dry refinements of technical theology. They are, I assure you, far otherwise. They are state- ments of great doctrines, on which rest the very founda- tions of our Christian life : and I could not make to you this year what I am very anxious to make, a full and clear statement of the doctrines which form the faith of the Church of Christ, if I did not thus try to lay them out and explain them. It is only left for us now to shew, how thus the foundation is laid for the Redemption of our race and its restoration to righteousness. The Son of God has become Man : our nature is united to the Godhead. A new and righteous seed is implanted in it : a second E 2 52 god's remedy for sin. and perfect Head is granted. The first Adam was tried and fell : but this new Adam shall be tried and shall gloriously conquer. The first Adam, being created liable to Death, lost by sin the means of escaping death, and bound it as a lasting curse on himself and his posterity : the second Adam, also born liable to death, was pleased to become obedient even unto death for our sakes ; thus condemning sin, the cause of death, in our flesh. The first Adam brought the penalty of his sin on us, the Head on the members : the second Adam sufiered the penalty of our sin for us, the Head for the members. Whosoever belie veth in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life : for to believe on Him is to be united to Him, and to do as He has done, and to go where He is : and He did not perish, but rose up out of death, and was glorified, and when He had by Himself purged our sias, sat down at the right hand of God. It is His Birth into our world which we celebrate to-day. It is the day which the church has set apart as the Birthday of Christ. It is for us a day of joy, as it ought to be. Shall we not rejoice, that our deadly wound is healed — that there is pardon and peace pro- vided for the guilty sons of men ? And it need not be surprising to any, that this our joy is not confined to devotional exercises of prayer and praise, but spreads itself over our social life, and is, even by faithful Christian men, celebrated outwardly and visibly, in mirth and gladness peculiar to the season. To forbid such manifestations, would be surely to forget that He who took our whole nature upon Him, came to bless it god's remedy for six. 53 not in one part only, but altogether : came to make our desert rejoice and blossom as tbe rose : and to hallow even those bodily recreations and enjoyments which sin has polluted and marred. To keep Christmas by excess and licentiousness, is to profane it, and to insult Him whose birth we profess to honour : to shew ourselves to have no part nor lot in Him who was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. But to keep it in peace and good-will and hearty thankfulness, gathering our families about us, and making what cheer we may, to keep an English Christmas, open-hearted and open-h earthed, this is not to dishonour Him, but to do as He would have us, who rose as our day-star, that we might walk in His light ; who left us His words and triumphed for us, that our joy might be full : at whose birth angels from heaven sung peace on earth among men of good- will. With such joy as this no deep religious feeling need be inconsistent, no time of prayer need be incongruous, no note of praise discordant : with such joy as this not even times of national grief need interfere. For is it not this day's birth which has taken the sting from death ? is there not to-day, even for the bereaved and weeping, the joyous cry, Unto us a child is born, imto us a son is given is not this the da}^ above all others which calls back again, and places by our sides those who have gone before us ? which fills up the gaps in families, and brings round us our long-parted friends ? the day which carries our thoughts onward to that great second birth, when He who sitteth on the Throne shall make all things new ? SERMON Y. (PEEACHED ON SUNDAY, JAN. 5, 1862.) THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. Rom. v. 18, 19. "As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemna- tion : even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Two things are to be noticed in this text, before we proceed to consider the subject of it. First you will observe tbat in our bibles the words "judgment came " and " tbe free gift came " are in italics, that is, are put in by the translators to fill up the sense, but do not form any part of the sacred "Word. The verse more simply stands, " As through one trespass, the issue (or efiect) was unto all men to condemnation, even so through one righteous act the issue (or effect) was unto all men unto justification of life." And secondly, that the mamj^' si^oken of in the latter portion of it, are clearly the same as the " all men '* in the former, the word being used only by way of contrast with the word one,'' and not as meaning a different set of persons from that spoken of before. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAX. 55 We may now ask, what it is that the text tells us. Here we have two things set over against one another ; trespass, righteous act : one man's disobedience, one man's obedience : all men made sinners, all men made righteous : an eflfect upon all imto condemnation, an effect upon all unto justification of life. Now that which we have to treat to-day, Christ's OBEDIENCE, AND ITS EFFECTS, is a Ycry important sub- ject : important to our soundness in the faith, and to our answering the unbeliever, and to our own purity and our own comfort in believing. May God guide us to consider it aright. We address God in our Collect as having made His blessed Son to be circumcised and obedient to the law for man. We take that undergoing of the ordinance of circumcision as an example, as the first and chief example, of our Lord's becoming obedient to the law. And rightly : for though it was not originally of the law, as we shall see further on, yet it was the law's first command when a man came into the world ; and without obeying it, the whole life would have been an act of disobedience to the law. He entered on his course of obedience to the law by this act. So that we need not to-day fix our thoughts on that ordinance any further than as it brought the Lord into the state of being mder the law and obedient to the law. But first, WHAT law ? Not, the universal moral law of conscience : this He had as Man, had in its highest and purest form as Man without sin : in unclouded cer- tainty, in undeviating equity, in uninterrupted action. When He was made man, He was rendered subject to 56 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. this law, and needed no outward rite to introduce him into its dominion and obedience. Again then, what law? The answer is plain. A certain code of laws given on Mount Sinai to the children of Israel. But why should the Son of God humiliate himself for u^ in this peculiar manner, so as to become subject to that law and not to any other ? In order to answer this, remember to whom and for what purpose, that law was given. It was given to a nation chosen out from among the other nations of the earth by God, that they might be a people of his own — the selected vehicle of his revelation of Himself to mankind. And the purpose of its being given was, we are expressly told, to bring about the knowledge of sin ; to detect, as we heard in a previous sermon of this course, and make men aware of, their guiltiness and helplessness in God's sight. Mind, — and this is a most essential point for us to-day, as you will presently see, — this law was not given to bring any man to salvation : as I then tried to make plain to you, no law could do this : much less could this one, which was but an imperfect manifestation of God's holy will, — holy, just, and true as far as it went, but going only a little way : not helping man's weak- ness, not revealing God's love, not shedding abroad God's Spirit. Now all this which I am saying is not meant by way of going over old ground again, to prove that by the works of the law shall no flesh be saved in God's sight : this we know : but it is in order that we may the better and the more clearly see, what it was that our Saviour did, when He became obedient to, when He fulfilled THE RIGHTEOrSNESS OF 0^'E MAX. 57 that law for man. Now look at it in tkis way. Tliis law was not, could not be, for salvation to any man. Did then, could then, our Blessed Lord work out salvation for us by keeping this law? Most clearly not. We sometimes hear it said, that His perfect righteousness j was found in his fulfilment of this law of Moses, and I that His righteousness, as thus formed and wrought out, is imputed unto us. But I cannot find such a doctrine either in Scripture or in the belief of God's church. There is a doctrine which sounds something like it, and might be mistaken for it, and on which I shall have a good deal to say by and by : but which is not, and is very far from being, the same. But let us for a moment imagine that the matter were so : that Christ's fulfilling of all the Mosaic law in all its requirements constituted His perfect righteous- ness before God, and is made ours by being imputed to us. Well — what follows ? Why, two most unsatisfac- tory results. First, the righteousness thus obtained is formally not of the kind we want. We, all mankind, we Gentiles, were never bound under the law of Moses : Gentiles were never invited to put themselves under it, nay they were expressly excluded from its obKgations and its benefits. So that, according to this view, Christ did for us what we were never bound to do for ourselves : and more : Christ justified Jews only. And secondly_, this righteousness is not, essentially and in itself, of the kind we want. We want something far above and beyond the ordinances and provisions of the law of Moses. That law crept in, was introduced by the side, as the Apostle says in the verses following my text, for a 58 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. j lower and a special purpose, to persuade of their guilt that people to whom the Redeemer was to be sent, and by its types to keep their minds fixed on Him and His futui'e work: but we want what it could never give, even had a man obeyed it to the utmost ; transformation into God*s image ; new creation in the power of purity and love ; the inspiration and indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. The righteousness in which our Redeemer must be perfect, and which by his Death and Resurrection and circumcision and gift of his Spirit He must make ours, is something infinitely above and more glorious and heavenly than this law of carnal ordinances, this law given by Moses. It was not by fulfilling the law of Moses that our Blessed Lord became our righteous- ness. He did fulfil it indeed : not one jot or tittle of it was neglected or passed uncared for, because every part of it was given by divine command, and by the media- tion of angels, and men appointed by God : He did fulfil it : and He fulfilled it for man. But His fulfilling it was not our righteousness. What was it then ? How does Holy Scripture ever speak of it ? Why simply thus ; as a taking out of the way — cancelling, annulling, of that law. He ful- filled it, and made an end of it. He was the end of the law with a view to righteousness. It has lost its power as regards us who are in Him. And it did thus lose its power, the day that our Blessed Lord was fastened to his Cross ; He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his Cross. This marvellous completion of the work does not form our subject to- THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE ZMAN. 59 day : it mil come before us, God willing, hereafter ; but tbe great preparation for that completion does come before us to-day and thus early in our course. And we shall be led to speak of it in several of its forms and manifestations ; among which one is, this keeping of the limited, special, Mosaic law of ordinances and precepts. Let us then now look at this observance a little more closely, '\yhat was it, in itself ? and what was it, for us? In what consisted its necessity, its fitness, its usefulness for mankind ? What was it in itself ? It was careful, precise, un- deviating, complete. From his eight days old circum- cision to the Passover the night before his Sacrifice, our Lord made a point of not falling short in any thing, but walked in all the commandments and ordinances of his Father blameless. Then, it was necessary for us. In the course of God's arrangements for the salvation of man, the Eedeemer could not and must not be born a Gentile. The Jews were the people set in the bright line of the revelation of God to man. To them be- longed the law : this is much to our purpose : but, which is much more to our purpose, to them belonged the promises and the covenant of faith with Abraham, in fulfilment of which promises, and in the discharge and line of which covenant, this very Redeemer was to come. The terms and matter of these promises and covenant absolutely required that our Lord should be a Jew. And what was a Jew ? One born under the law of Moses. As a Jew, condescending to take our nature in that particular form and under those special circumstances, our Lord became personally bound to 60 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. tke obseryance of this law. Had He not observed it, He would not have been the spotless One in all the will of God: He would not have Himself stood accepted with our nature perfect and acquitted in the sight of the Father : and we should not have been accepted in Him. So that thus He kept the law for man : not that man might get righteousness by that kept law, which right- eousness it could not give, whether Christ kept it, or any one else kept it : but that He who was to be the righteous Head of our nature, might fulfil all right- eousness. And so, when He came to be baptized by John His forerunner and His inferior, and John was preventing Him, He replied, Suffer it to be so now ; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. And I entreat you, in fixing in your minds the verities of the Christian faith, to remember this clearly and well ; that it was not on our Blessed Lord^s fulfil - ment of the law that our justification in God's sight by His righteousness depends, as some would try to per- suade you. This is only in one, and that a partial sense, true: that law indeed lay in the course of His own personal work : in the course of working out that perfect Righteousness which when complete in Him is reckoned for ours, and wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. Now to-day's subject, the Circumcision, will carry us a step further yet in the direction of the great doctrine given out in our text. The ordinance of circumcision, as stated just now, was not first given when the law was given.. It was not of Moses, but of the fathers, declares our Lord Himself. And St. Paul teaches us, in THE KIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. 61 a passage read for the Epistle to-day, that Abraham re- ceived it as a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had being yet uncircumcised. So that our Lord not only obeyed the law for us, and entered on that His obedience, in this the first ordinance of the law, but by it He also entered into and complied with the terms of that covenant of faith which God made with Abraham centuries before the law was given. Js'ow this covenant was of a far higher order than the law : for remember how St. Paul compares the two in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, and proves the promise and the covenant greater than the law. It is of that promise that we are the inheritors, and by that covenant that we look for God's heavenly kingdom, and not by the law at all. And now just consider what that covenant is, and what were its pro- mises. It was imiversal — " In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed : " faith was its very entrance and condition — " Abraham believed God:" justification was its firstfruit : "it was counted to him for righteous- ness:" sanctification and renewal in holiness were its conditions also — " God said to Abraham, I am Almighty I God — walk thou before me and be thou perfect." i\.nd into this covenant and condition did our Blessed Lord enter for us by this ordinance, and all his life through He continued to fulfil it : He walked by faith in his heavenly Father : He walked before Him and was perfect : not in the law only, with which we have no immediate concern : but in God's higher and better covenant of faith, which is our covenant and condition also. 62 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. But there is more tlian this yet behind : nor have we yet reached the wide stretch and universality of the assertion in our text. The law of Moses, which our Blessed Lord fulfilled, was, so to speak, a narrow and prescribed path or groove of obedience : and even the covenant made with Abraham was in a special line of descent and with limited ordinances of obedience, how- ever much in character, and duration, and ultimate extent, superior to the law. But the obedience of the One Man must reach beyond either of these : it must be as wide in its extent and efiect as the disobedience of the one man had been in former times which had brought death on all our race. By means of that, death spread through unto all men, for that all were sinners. There was, as our text says, a conse- quence resulting to all men from that one offence, Adam^s disobedience. And so is there, as it also says, a consequence resulting to all men from that righteous act, Christ's obedience. What, even to those who are not in the covenant of faith, not in the line of Christian ordinances, not in the fold of Christ's church? Yes, my brethren, even to them : or else God's word in our text cannot be true. As all men are partakers of the detriment occasioned by Adam's sin, so all men are partakers of the benefit occasioned by Christ's right- eousness. First Why ? and secondly. How ? And to the first I answer. Because Christ is the righteous Head of our whole race : because His obedience was not limited to the law, nor to the covenant with Abraham, but was perfect, entire, universal : because that obedience of His THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAX. 63 was carried iiifinitely further than any code of precepts could order, than any conditions of a covenant could prescribe. A^Tiat does St. Paul say ? Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient even as far as unto death." Obedient, even UP to death. Why this is no mere obeying of law. No law ever ordered a man to die, as one of its duties. We shall saj more of this another time ; but you see even now how infinitely the bounds of the Lord's obedience for us transcend those of law and coyenant. He came to do God's will : not His revealed will merely, but His entire and perfect will : not His will as a Jew only, but His will as Man. Standing in the centre and stem of our Humanity ; with all its duties, all its dignitj', all its blessedness upon Him, He carried out all that the Almighty Father ever intended it to do and be : He brought it through trial and temptation and suffering, spotless, blameless, perfect : He, being not a single individual man self-contained and limited, but being God, the Son of God in man, the second and righteous Head of our nature, undid in it what Adam did, planted righteousness in it which it had not without Him, and jfinally carried it up through Death and out of the grave to God's own throne, where He at this moment is reigning as Man, in your nature and mine, having obtained eternal redemption for us. And, my beloved brethren, now come we to our second enquiry about this matter of the effect of one man's obedi- ence on all men. Sow does it affect all men? You may , say to me, Do you mean to tell us that a poor heathen who has never heard of Christ, that a hard-hearted 64 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN, sinner in Christendom who will not have Christ for his master, that such as these are affected by the righteous- ness of which you have been telling us ?" I can only answer that my text tells it you ; and it is not for me to question what Christ's Apostle says, but to endeavour to understand it for myself and to explain it to you. There certainly is an effect produced on every man living, by Christ's finished work of righteousness. Let me make this plain to you in one or two ways. We all believe in the certainty of a Resurrection of the dead : that all men with their bodies will one day come up out of their graves : the just to the resurrection of life : the unjust to the resurrection of judgment. Well : why is this ? why shall this be ? Go to one of the most solemn chapters of the Bible, and read the reason. Hear how St. Paul proves it. It is, and shall be, just simply as a consequence of this obedience of the man Christ J esus of which we are speaking. His death was the crown of that obedience : His resurrection followed on that obedience, because on Him personally death, the conse- quence of disobedience, had no lasting power ; and because He rose, all shall rise. Here then is one such effect upon all men, good and bad, Christians and heathens, believers and unbelievers. But I will tell you another and a more notable effect of the obedience of this one man : even your existence and mine ; the fact, that we are in the world at all. If it had not been for this obedience of Christ, foreseen and graciously reckoned as belonging to our nature, the race of man must have come to an end at the time when Adam sinned. " In the day thou eatest thereof. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE MAN. 65 thou shalt surely die," was tlie word to him of God who cannot lie nor repent. And why did he not die ? why did he not cease to be? why did the holy and pure One who cannot abide iniquity, tolerate him any longer? Simply because of the Blood of Jesus Christ which taketh away the sin of the world : because of that Lamb, slain from before the foundation of the world in God's gracious purposes. And the power of the same blood, — the atoning virtue of that obedience, crowned by the propitiatory sacrifice of His death, — is the simple reason why you and I are alive before God at this mo- ment. The blessed and glorious Son of God has recon- ciled God and man ; and by His obedience this effect has come upon all men ; that, though sinners, they live and move and have being in the presence of a God who hates sin, just because Christ is the Head of their nature ; because Christ in that nature obeyed God to the utmost ; because Christ died and rose again and is at God's right hand in heaven. And there is yet another effect which this obe- dience of Christ has had upon all men. It has brought them all within the blessed range of the promises which are in Christ ; so that there is now QO longer any distinction in this matter between one Qation and another, or one man and another, but Christ among you, the hope of glory," is preached to ill the world, — to learned and unlearned, bond and free, lew and Gentile. But this part of my subject will aaore properly come before us next Sunday, when we jhall have entered the season beginning to-morrow F 66 THE RIGHTEOL'SNESS OF ONE MAN. with the Epiphany, or Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. I must not however conclude my present sermon without reminding you that there is a meaning for us in the circumcision of our Lord, touched on in the Collect, and deserving our serious attention. What He did and submitted to for us, not only had its own value as a part of His working out of our redemption, but also in every case was our example, by some sense which it bore, having a reference to our spiritual state and duties. And this ordinance was one typifying the cleansing of the faithful soul from all uncleanness. "Grant us," we pray in the Collect, *'the true circum- cision of the Spirit, that our hearts and all our members being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will." Just as this ordinance was the first and necessary step in our Lord's obeying of the law for us, so is that which it signified, the cleansing of our hearts and bodies from all im- purity, the necessary condition of our serving God and obeying His holy will. Only the pure in heart shall see God. Though the effect of Christ's obedience passed upon all men, and brought all men near to God, only those who, turning to Him with their hearts, perfect holiness in His fear, are made partakers of the divine nature, and inherit the blessedness of justification unto life. Let us, now we are beginning the duties and the faith of another year, cleanse our hands and purify our hearts : let us prove ourselves God's peculiar people, by being zealous of good works, and enemies of all im- THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF OXE MAX. 67 purity, all untruthfulness, all serving of Him deceit- fully and in a worldly spirit : that so our obedience may be, if not up to the measure of, at least after the pattern of Christ's obedience : simple, earnest, pure, self-denying and self -for getting : the blessed and ac- ceptable fruit of faith working by love. F 2 SERMON VI. (PEEACHED ON THE PIEST SUNDAY AFTEE EPIPHANY, JAN. 12, 1862.) THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. Gal. iii. 28. " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." We have advanced thus far in our statements of Christian doctrine. Our race is universally tainted with, the disease of sin, and guilty in God's sight. But it has pleased Him, of His infinite mercy, to provide a remedy as wide and universal as the disease. The eternal Son of God has taken our nature upon him, and in it wrought out on our hehalf a perfect obedience, even up to the point of suffering the penalty of the sin of mankind. On this His work, anticipated as com- plete in the divine counsels, we asserted that the very existence of this our world depended, and that He does at the present moment, and ever, uphold all things in the sight of the Father by virtue of the eternal redemp- tion which He has wrought for man. Now our subject to-day, naturally suggested by the THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 69 Epiphany^ or Manifestation of Clirist to the Gentiles, is a very simple, but a very instructive and edif\ing one: the fact that, in the offer made to us of the acceptance for ourselves of this redemption and all its manifold blessings, there is absolutely no difference be- tween one man and another, but all have a right to it alike, all are alike invited to share it, all have common capacity for receiving it. ^Tio, you may say to me, does not know this ? Why preach us a sermon about so plain and acknowledged a fact ? I answer, because it was one of the most won- derful revelations of God to man when it was first made, however plain it may seem now : and also, be- cause, however plain it may seem now, thousands of those who think it so plain, do not understand it, do not feel it, do not act upon it. First, it was a most wonderful thing, when God revealed it to mankind. All the ages which had passed since the Creation had been putting wider and wider difference between man and man, — between nation and nation, between men's bodies, and between men's souls. One nation was God's people, worshipping they knew what, in communion with the Father of Spirits, walking in the light of conscience and of revelation : another was building altars to the unknown God, bowLug down to images graven by art and man's device, but at the same time acute and trained and instructed to the highest power of the human intellect: a third had iilmost cast off all religion, but had taken for its acts the governing of the world and the humbling the haughty, and ruled far and wide with its laws and its 70 THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. arms. Then again, one man was miicli more diflferent from another than we know any thing of under the more equalizing influences of modern times ; the con- queror and the vanquished, the master and the slave, the learned and the unlearned, — there was a far wider gap between these than there ever can be under the power of enlightened Christian public opinion, by which all have rights, all have instruction, — and injustice, and cruelty, and grossness, can hardly abound among us. But that a remedy for the evil of the world should be proposed which would suit equally all and each of these, — which could be taken alike, and taken in the same form, by the despot and his bondsman, by the master and his slave, by the learned and ignorant, by the Jew and Gentile, — this was the wonderful thing which had never been revealed to man before ; and much trouble and time it cost, before man could re- ceive it. First came the difiiculty about Jew and Gentile. The conflict about it raged long even in the apostolic church itself. It required a heart as fervid, and a spiritual sight as keen and single as that of St. Paul, to see the truth at once, and unflinchingly to maintain it, even against Apostles, when they wavered and dis- simulated. How dijficult must it have been for one born and bred a Jew, ever to take in the truth that he was to have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, with a man that was born and bred and remained a Gentile ! How almost impossible to make such an one ever to bring himself to allow, that the Gentile, without ful- filling any one requirement of the law, was yet to be an THE rXIVERSALlTY OF THE GOSPEL. *71 heir of God's covenant promises in their highest sense, just as much and as completely as he himself, a cir- cumcised Jew, an Hebrew by descent inheriting from Abraham ! We can little imagine the widening of the view, and enlarging of the heart, and breaking down of prejudices, necessary before such a truth could be taught to a man. We cannot even de^'ise an example in modern times which should teach us this. Every thing about us tends to widen our view, to open our hearts, to diminish our prejudices : but every thing around them tended to shut up their hearts, to narrow their view, and to fortify them in every adverse feeling. One week, they saw the Gentile taking part in his abominable idol rites ; the next they might be called on to pass to him the kiss of peace as a Christian brother. It was the first great trouble in the infant church : a trouble which divided even holy Apostles asimder, and which some think was ultimately the cause of the persecution to death even of St. Paul himself. And the difficulty, though it began here, did not by any means end here. It is natural to us to build up barriers of division between bodies of men and between individuals. The selfish heart is ever insulating itself, and its set, from other persons and other societies. If there were no more proof than this that Christianity came from God, the very fact of such an announcement being made as that in my text, would shew that some influence was at work in it which was not from man alone ; some Spirit which was wider than man's thoughts, deeper than man's sympathies ; which over- leapt aU distinctions raised by time and place and descent 72 THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. and circumstance, and referred men's practice for its rule to the primal truth, that God had made of one blood all nations on the earth. And let me notice before I come tOj and in coming to, the treatment of this great truth for our own times, what a fundamental and all-important principle it has ever furnished for the working and influence of the Church of Christ in all ages. What has been the one thing which has ever made the Christian Church the benefactor of mankind, — the advocate of justice and of mercy, — the enemy of the oppressor, the friend of light and the upholder of freedom ? Why is it, that wherever she has not been this, she has decayed and corrupted ; — wherever she has taken up the part and done its work, she has energized and prospered ? Is it not simply for this reason, that the sacred doctrine, that all mankind are one in Christ Jesus, lies at the very corner of the foundation of her fabric wherever she is built up ? that without it her message of mercy falls powerless, her proclamation of truth is a delusion, the God whom she preaches is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ? Her errand can only prosper in the broad sunshine : — she requires for her healthy breathing the whole wide I atmosphere of the world : — limit her, and she becomes paralyzed : set boimds to her, and her voice sinks to a whisper : confine her to a privileged set, to a national form, to the habits of one or another age of men, and she ceases to be the Spouse of Him who is the Head and Husband of our entire humanity : put Roman before Catholic, put Eastern before Catholic, put An- glican before Catholic, and you contradict your own THE rNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 73 words as you speak, and nullify your own deeds as you act. The Churcli of Christ is catholic, is universal : over all, in all, belonging to all, fitted for all : all things to all men, as was he who wrote of her in our text : taking into herself, halloTvdng by her influence, trans- forming for good, all men's temperaments, all men's ajTnpathies, all men's energies : not too narrow for the mightiest of human powers to work in, not too vast and stately for the meanest to find place and honour : limiting none, despising none, degrading none, ex- cluding none. E-ound her course, through the ages, have sprung up all the blessings of civilization : her path has ever been marked by the soft verdure of the kindnesses of home, the fresh shade of the courtesies of society, the fair trophies of science, the bright blossoms of art. When she has awoke to the purity and holiness of her mission, with her have awoke the exploring eye of discovery, the searching efibrt of in- vention : when she has made an onward step, with her have advanced the powers of mind over matter, and love over hatred, of peace over contention : it was she who knit up at first, it is she who has healed when threatened with severance, the bonds of intercourse among nations ; and all because of this, that she is the fulness of Him that filleth all : — because she is founded on Him in whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free> there is neither male nor female : but all are one in Christ J esus, the Head and Saviour of all. But though all this is so, and though we thank God for it, and many of us live in the strength and hope of 74 THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. it, how little it lias been understood in ages past — how little is it understood even now ! What a record of the forgetfulness of this great principle has ever been the history of Christ's Church ! How its blessed effects have broken forth and spread, not because of, but in spite of, that which men proposed and intended ! Let man set up a principle, and work according to a rule of his own making, and the great tide of God's providence rolls on, and the barriers which are thought so strong are swept down and carried away before it : but let God set up a principle of His, and let men counter-work it as they will, it shall prevail : working under the surface, till the surface heaves with it, and it comes uppermost, and asserts itself in spite of us all. And so it has ever been in the history of Christ's Church. Men have attempted to change its character — to profess conformity to it without acknowledging its; principles — to get gain out of it while it should lie. dormant and be merely a decent outside ; to crush i down the truths they daily confessed in their creeds, and hinder the efforts which they prayed for in their prayers ; but blessed be God, notwithstanding their efforts, and by the very means of their efforts, the holy cause went on and the truth prevailed : the sowers sowed evil seed, but God transformed it to good ; and while they thought they were doing their work oJ effective repression. He was doing His work of surei. and safer advance. i And how stand we now, my brethren, with regard tc this foundation principle of the Gospel and Church o: Christ ? Have we thoroughly made it our own ? Is i tl THE UXIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 75 one of those tilings which we take most completely for granted in our thoughts of ourselves and others— of our Christian state and work in the world ? Are we satis- fied, after all these centuries, and all these conflicts, and aU these proofs which God has given, that there is neither J ew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female : but that all are one in Christ Jesus ? Alas, would that we were ! Let us try the matter by some of its plainest consequences, and judge of our- selves accordingly. First, if the Gospel is wide enough for all humanity, and embraces it all indiscriminately, then does it not at once seem to follow, that it should take up into itself, and hallow, the whole, and not a mere part of the being of each of us ? JS^ow in connexion with such a result as this, what think we of Christ and His salva- tion ? Is it not notorious, that most of us, that Chris- tians in general, regard their religious Kfe and their ordinary life as two distinct things — say in fact in an impossible sense the sajdng, " Give to the world the things that are the world's, and (not therefore but separately) to God the things that are God's" — as if all things were not God's — as if our whole Kves, our whole being, body, soul, and spirit, were not bought with the blood of Christ, and His of right by that purchase ? The error runs through the thoughts and actions of modern Christians to an extent which we hardly sus- pect. Our Hves are divided into two inconsistent and incompatible portions : we try to be two persons — reli- gious on our Sundays, at our times of devotion, on our sick beds, —and worldly aU the rest of the week, and of 76 THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. % the day, and of our ordinary time. Many and many a man, who would be offended not to be thought a good Christian, never dreams of acting, in his common re- solves and determinations, from simply Christian mo- tives, — because Christ has commanded, or has forbidden, this or that. Now He who came to fill our whole nature with Himself and His grace, will not submit to be thus limited to a small share of it. He must have it all or none. " Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." It is as much a sin against the universal spirit and power of the Gospel, to limit it to one part of our own lives, and exclude the remainder, as it is to limit it to one part of mankind and shut out the rest. We know nothing of its transforming power, or of its efficacy to supply all the wants of humanity, until our own lives with their energies and interests are carried on in that power, and draw, according to their daily need, out of that efficacy. But again : all are one in Christ Jesus* The most ignorant, the most degraded, the most remote from the abodes of that grace which the Gospel gives, are just as capable of receiving and growing by it, as we who have been born and brought up under its outpouring. Where then is the hindrance to their doing so ? Why have they not long ago heard of this universal Saviour and been informed of their privilege and claim to be His ? Who is in fault ? Not God's Providence, which has cast our lot on days of such wonderful dis- covery and facility of intercourse with distant nations, that a messenger may go to the ends of the earth now i THE rXIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 77 n less time and with less risk than we once could visit ;he distant parts of our native land : not God's loving- ^indness, which so wonderfully preserves to us the blessings of peace, that His work may not be hindered ; vhich from year to year showers His bounties on us, illing our hearts with food and gladness. 'No, neither )f these, — but our own worldliness, and want of zeal and lelf-denial ; our fear of the scorn of the idle and foolish [vorld about us, which laughs at Missionary enterprise, md questions Missionary success, and so tries to keep he Gospel of Christ from asserting and carrying out ts universal kingdom among men. If we really be- ieved this universality, this oneness in Christ, as we )rofess to do, we should not be content, as we now are, vith a list of religious Societies for home and foreign nissions, every one of them struggling for existence rom year to year ; the poorer among us would not be ■ontent to let the wealthier do all the work of the ^'hurch, but would cheerfully claim their share of it : he wealthy would not let a few do the work of the rhole body, but would eagerly \ie with one another in lastening on the glad result. We do not, my brethren, )resent to God or to the world the aspect of a nation rhich believes in this universality of Christ's church nd kingdom. Compare any one of our great public ommercial enterprises with the whole of our puny fForts for Christian missions, and we painfully gather rhat I much fear is the truth in general, that this teople is thoroughly convinced of the nature of the hings of this world, but has no such conviction of the eahty of its faith. On the one side we see enthusiastic 78 THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. eagerness, active competition, thousands and million^ poured along almost any proposed channel, with oj without prospect of large remuneration : on the othei all is dead as winter, silent as the grave ; interest barelj kept up by meetings too often without any life in themj leaving for the most part on the heart a painful sens* of unreality and hypocrisy : parades of names in sub- scription-lists, all cramped with the dreary uniformity of the conventional pound or guinea ; in too many caseii names of persons without heart for the enterprise, with out interest, without love, without expectation of result We serve the world by stirring personal energy, by un bounded hope, by endless contrivance : we excuse our selves from serving Christ's Kingdom by delegating ou: blessed part in it to a lifeless mechanism, from whicl our persons and our sympathies are alike absent. ( beloved, these things would not be so, did we know eacl for himself, did we know, as a church and nation, thi fulness of the power of that Salvation which the Sa viour of all men brought into the world for all men. But one more lesson springs from the truth in m^ text— and that is a lesson of kindliness, of charitabl feeling, of allowance for one another. If Christ' Gospel is this wide and universal remedy for our sin j and miseries, it is so not by crushing all men's charac ters into one prescribed form, but by adapting itsel . to, and taking into itself, every variety of human cha racter, with its defects, its weaknesses, its points whicl are unwelcome to society, and contemptible in the sigh of man. It has been said, and not imtruly, that th' most accomplished man of the world is he who has bes THE L-NIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 79 learned to hate and to despise. Direct!}" opposite to this is the character of the accomplished disciple of Christ. He is the man who has best unlearned how to hate and despise his fellow-man. And I know of no consideration so effectual to this end, as those which spring from this great doctrine of the universal suffi- ciency of Christ's Gospel. Only let it present itself in this light to us. The weakness which you see in your neighbour's character, which makes you estimate him so cheaply, and regard him as so worthless in the world, is perhaps the very holding- ground for the anchor of a faith which keeps him firm in the truth, and which you yourself do not possess. And again, the yery eagerness to seize on faults and to take the unpleasant view of things, which makes your neighbour so disagreeable to you, may be but the rough outer shell of a precious centre and heart of a character which loves righteous- ness and hates iniquity. The surface may be ruffled and irregular, but it may be only a broken and imper- fect representation of the great ground- swell of truth and holiness, stirring the depths of the character. O who that knows himself, will not rather rejoice that others are not as he is ? It is, my brethren, because we do not know how wide and large and all-embracing Christ's Spirit is, that we are always tymg it down to rules and frameworks, and one or another form of human character, when we ought to be thankful for its mani- fold operations, glad that it lays hold of and fills and sanctifies every anxiety, every want, every special ten- dency of our common humanity. We need a large infusion of this Spirit of Christ which wrought in His 80 THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. holy Apostle, before we can properly teach, properly hear, properly feel, on such a subject as this of our text to-day. We need it in our Church life, we need it in our social life, we need it in our individual life : for unless a man be penetrated through and through by it, he has it not worthily at all. Finally — if this Grospel be thus adapted for all, offered to all, sufficient for all, then is that person inexcusable who, when it is offered, has not accepted it in its power. My brother — my sister — you are sinful, guilty, perish- ing. You have that in you and about you which will ruin you for this life and for eternity : you have not that in you, or within your grasp, which will rescue you from this ruin. But here is a remedy. Here is a divine and all- sufficing Saviour ; — j^ours, thank God, by right of your humanity which He took upon him, and in which He has satisfied God for you ; — nay more, yours by the profession of your baptism, and your mem- bership of His Church. If you will not believe in Him with heart and practice ; — if you will not have Him to reign over you ; — if you will not come to Him that you may have life, 0 where can the blame lie but with your- selves ? God has done His part : the Father sent the Son ; the Son obeyed, and died, and pleads in heaven for you ; the Holy Spirit is ever striv^g with you in your consciences, and in the ordinances of the Church, and by my voice here : the Church has done her part ; she brought you near to Christ, and washed you in the font of the new birth ; she taught you all that a Christian ought to believe and know for his soul's health ; she offers you the rich Feast of her Lord's Body and Blood, THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL. 81 iud holy ordinances without number. All has been ione, all is ever being done, except your own part. 0 delay no longer : but accept in the depths of your leart, and in the fountains of your life, this universal ind all-sufficing Saviour : take up and fulfil the holy challenge of the Apostle in oui' Epistle this day, chosen DV the Church as a fit conclusion from the rich blessings )f the Christmas season — from God's loving-kindness in ia\ing spared us yet another year : — I conjure you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that re present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accept- ible to God, which is youi' reasonable service." G SERMON VII. (PEEACHED ON THE SECOND SUNDAY AETEE EPIPHANY, JAN. 19, 1862.) MIRACLES : WATER MADE WINE. i John ii. 11. I " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested! forth his glory." ' It is very instructive, particularly when any course of teaching like our present one is undertaken, to notice the way in which the Church has chosen the passages of Scripture which are to be read on the different Sun- days. I told you, that in our series of doctrinal sermons I should follow the great events of our Lord's life as brought before us by the Church. Now let us observe what she has done for us about this time of the year. We have passed the nativity of Christ : His circum- cision : His manifestation to the Gentiles. Last Sun- day the Gospel contained the narrative of the only event recorded as having happened during His youth. On that I did not preach to you : both because I had once treated it fully before, and because I had already MIRACLES : WATER MADE WIXE. 83 said so much on the perfect manhood of our Lord, which that wondrous story most concerns, j But now let us obserye the six following Sundays, I beginning with this one, the second after Epiphany. To- iay we have for our Gospel the miracle of the water j :urned into wine : next Sunday, the healing of the .eper and of the centurion's servant, which occur to- gether in Matt, viii, : the Sunday after, the three niracles of the stilling' the storm, the casting out the levils at Gadara, and the destruction of the swine, vhich also occur together in the same chapter. Then I m the next Sunday, the fifth after Epiphany, we have he parable of the tares of the field : and missing the ixth, which occurs but seldom, and has a peculiar ubject of its own, on Septuagesima Sunday we have .nother parable, that of the labourers in the vineyard : I nd on the next, Sexagesima, that of the Sower : the text Sunday to that introducing the solemn season of jent with a Gospel pointedly announcing our Lord's ufierings for our sins. Thus we have before us, as there are this year five 'Undays after Epiphany, three Sundays of miracles, and hree of parables. And this circumstance will guide le in choosing our subjects for those Sundays. Our Blessed Lord's Person is the great centre of all 'hristian doctrines. According as you do, or do not, 36 clearly who He is, and what was and is His work, ou will or will not be sound in the faith, and led on ) true and blessed belief in the other great verities of [is religion. I shall need therefore no apology for evoting these six Sundays to the subjects thus pointed G 2 84 MIRACLES : WATER MADE WIXE. out to us; three to our Lord's miracles,— three to His parables and discourses. May God guide me to speak, and you to hear, that which is according to His will, and the mind of His Spirit. We are then to speak of Christ's miracles. And first, what is a miracle ? This is a most im- portant question : for on the right answer to it depends whether we understand or not of w^hat use Christ'j miracles were when they were wrought, and what pur-, pose they are intended to serve for us now, and for the Church to the end of time. A miracle is an interferem with the common course of nature by some power ahovt nature. Thus an earthquake or a volcanic eruption if not a miracle, because it is a result, though an unusua result, of natural causes : a comet is not a miracle, because it is, though a rare thing in nature, yet brough' about by no di\T.ne interference, but occurring in th( course of nature herself. Divine interference might exal either of these into mii-acles, by specially announcing them as sent for a purpose : as the prophetic voice o Samuel did thus exalt into a miracle the thunderstom in the wheat harvest, when he foretold it as a sign o God's anger for Israel's sin. The healing of a diseas' is not a miracle, if brought about by ordinary means although we know that God's blessing must be given oi those means ; but it is a miracle, if it is produced by j word, or a touch, and would at once shew that he wh< did it possessed some power greater than that of nature and of man, nature's servant. Some poicer greater I said : and I said it purposely : for all miracles do no come from God: some come from God's enemy an( MIRACLES : WATER MADE WTNE. 85 )urs, the deyil, and from his agents and subordinate )owers. The magicians of Eg}^t were able to perfoim he same miracles as Moses, up to a certain point : and ve have it from the lips of our Lord Himself, that the bitichrist of the latter days, when he shall appear, hall shew signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if it were )0ssible, even the elect of God. St. Paul also speaks of he same Antichrist as ^' him whose coming is after the I rorking of Satan with all power and might and lying 'renders." Mere miracles then are no proof of a divine jaission, but only of some power from heaven or hell luperior to that of man, and of natiu-e in her ordinary I rorking. I shall have occasion to return to this point again by nd by, and to say a good deal upon it. Meantime one :eneral remark must be made here in the outset. It rill be plain to you that any one who beKeves in a per- onal Author and Governor of nature, will have no ifficulty in beKeving in miracles. The same Almighty 5eing who made and upholds nature, can interfere, whenever it pleases Him, with the ordinary course of ature, which He has Himself prescribed. To say that le cannot do this, is to deny His almightiness, and onsequently His existence. To say that He never will e pleased thus to interfere, is manifestly foolish and resumptuous in the extreme : we cannot set bounds to lis purposes, nor tell beforehand how He may be pleased 3 accomplish them. It does not follow, because we ave never witnessed an unusual exertion of His power, aat such never take place. By the same argument we light refuse to beKeve any wonderful thing which we f 86 Miracles : water made wine. have not ourselves seen. Then again, every one who believes in the existence of spirits and powers of evil must allow that they exist and act only by permission of God, and for mysterious purposes of His. And the trial of our faith and obedience is certainly one of those purposes. There is then no antecedent difficulty in believing that miraculous powers are granted, or have been at certain times granted, to these evil spirits, to exercise the faith of men: and Scripture positively assures us that such is the case. Whenever a man refuses to believe in miracles, one of two things must be the case : either, believing the possibility of miracles, he does not think the evidence enough on which the miracle is sought to be established; or, disbelieving their possibility, and thinking no evidence sufficient to establish them, he must, if he be consistent, also dis- believe the existence of,— or the continued government of the world by, — an Almighty Creator and Upholder. We, while we believe the evidence of the Scripture miracles to be sufficient to prove them to be facts, take the former course, with regard to the recorded miracles of the Saints of the Church of Eome, and to those which she from time to time reports in our own days : we beKeve well-attested miracles, but we do not believe these, which we find will not bear the test of a search- ing examination into their facts. The unbeliever takes the latter course, when he refuses to receive the miracles related in Holy Scripture, on the ground of its beiQg impossible or improbable that they should have hap- pened. I say, the unbeliever ; meaning he who rejects Christ and Christianity : for it is clearly impossible to MIRACLES : ^VATER MADE WIXE. 87 receive Christ as the Saviour, and not to credit those very works to which He constantly appealed for the truth of His mission. But now it is time to return to the more interesting matter which we just now left. If there are good and bad miracles, — miracles of divine goodness, and miracles of lying spirits, — one thing must be very plain to us : viz. that by miracles alone no man can be proved to be sent from God. He may be proved to be sent either from God, or from God's and man's enemy : but miracles alone will not determine which. And now we have come to the point as regards our blessed Lord Himself. Our enquiry to-day, on which we wish to gain some information for ourselves, is. What were our Lord's miracles, as regards their place in His great work ? They held a very important place, but they did not hold the chief place, in the evidences of His mission. He often appeals to them in proof that He came from God : but He does so in a peculiar manner, and one very instructive to us. He himself actually at one time had to reply to the charge that he wrought them by Satanic influence. " This man casteth out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." And the way in which He answered the accusation is most instructive. He did it, not by appealing to the greatness, or even to the beneficence of his miracles alone, but by asserting that if it were so, Satan would be divided against himseK. Our Lord was his well- ^ known opponent, — the man of truth, the man of purity, the man of God ; whose meat and drink it was to do God's will ; and the idea of Satan working by means 88 MIRACLES : WATER MADE WIXE. of this man would imply that Satan was his own enemy, and therefore could not stand, but must have an end. And this is just the course which our Lord ever took with regard to His miracles. You will find it in St. John's Gospel most plainly set forth. There the Evan- geKst's purpose e^adently is, not merely to relate the events as they happened, and the discourses as they were delivered ; but so to collect and group them toge- ther that they may best illustrate our blessed Lord's purpose and method of manifesting himself to men. And you will ever find Him in that Gospel insisting on this point in all His conflicts and controversies with the Jews, — that His life was holy and blameless ; that He was a good man, and spoke good, and did good, and shewed them good. This was the great and firm basis on which Jesus rested for the acceptation of his ministry and mission ; that none could con^dct him of sin ; that He was like God, and of God. And now came in His miracles ; not as chief proofs, but as proofs in aid, of this pure and holy life and mission. They were won- derful works ; they were suspensions of the course of nature : this shewed Him to be one endowed with super- natural power. He turned water into wine : — He spoke and the winds were silent : — He commanded diseases with a word. So far the power might be from above or from beneath. But, coupled with his holy and blameless life, and his love for God, and obedience to God, these works of power took another character, and became signs, St. John's usual word for them; signs whence He came : they could have but one source, — the}' could not be from Satan ; He could not be a magi- MIRACLES : WATER MADE WINE. 89 cian, in league with the powers of evil : — they were proofs that He was what he asserted himself to be, — from God, and the Son of God : — they became, when viewed together with the consistent and unyarying cha- racter of his teaching and life, most valuable and deci- sive evidences to his Messiahship. " 'No man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him," said the Jewish Eabbi to Him : " the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me." But besides that our Lord's miracles came in aid of His spotless and holy life to prove Him the Son of God, they have a distinct and most important meaning and teaching of their own. This will be best introduced by for a moment comparing them with the thousands of reported heathen and middle-age miracles which have been reported in history and legend. ^Vhat was the meaning and import of all these ? ^Yhat good did they do ? AYhat result came of them ? Can any in- struction be got from them, or is any meaning for men's souls concealed beneath them ? But with every one of our Lord's miracles, this is otherwise. They are full of goodness to the bodies and souls of men. Each of them has its own fitness as adapted to His great work, and to the wdll of the Father which He came to accomplish. Each one tends, in its place, as St. John says of this one in our Gospel, to manifest forth His glory : shews forth some gracious attribute, some deep s}TQpathy : testifies to Him as the light, or life, or consolation, or sustenance, of man and man's world. Let us take 90 miracles: water made wine* general instances, whicli we shall be able afterwards to follow out into particulars, in the miracles which are brought before us in the Gospels for these three Sundays. Sin is, as we have seen, the great disease of our nature, which this divine Saviour came to heal. Bodily- disease is not only a type, it is the consequence of sin. So that when our Lord puts forth His hand to heal, or speaks the words which are followed by healing. He is forwarding, at the same time that He is prefiguring and illustrating. His healing power for the whole world, for men's bodies and souls alike : when He raises the dead. He is conquering Death, the result of sin, and He ' is giving a foretaste of the day when all that are in the grave, shall hear His voice : when He feeds the five thousand or the four thousand in the wilderness. He ' himself teaches us that He is not only doing a bene- ficent act to men's bodies, but is teaching them that He is the Bread of life for their souls : when He casts out devils in relief of the peculiar spiritual affliction of that time. He is teaching us that He came to destroy the works of the devil. Some of the miracles are acted parahles : similar lessons of instruction are conveyed by them to those which at other times He expressed in his teaching. We have a notable example of this in the miracle of the withering fig-tree, in which He sets forth to us, in connexion with his well-known para- ble, the barrenness, and the punishment, of unfruitful Israel. So that our Lord's miracles form a precious and most important body of proofs of his holy mission and h* MIRACLES : AVATER MADE WIXE. 91 Sonship of God : and not only this, but they come powerfully in aid of his discourses, in setting before us the truth of his divine Person and "Work. We know his Power by them ; we are assui'ed of his Wisdom and his Love. The faithful soul, in its wants and its weaknesses, finds these testimonies to his loving-kind- ness a rich treasure-house of personal comfort. I will devote the rest of my sermon to considering how this is so with regard to the class of miracles to which that in our Gospel to-day belongs. That class is a very remarkable one. And it is espe- cially worthy of note, that our Lord should choose a miracle of such a character with which to open his whole course of supernatural working. For it is one in which we have not the healing of disease, not the aboHtion of death, not the freeing men from any of the plainer and more obvious consequences of sin, but the supply of a want which was not a need, the ministering to mere festive joy, not to destitution and distress. It may at first sight appear strange that such a miracle should be selected by our Lord as one especially cal- culated to manifest forth his glory, and to cause his disciples to believe on him. There is then all reason why we should closely examine it and try to discern its worthiness for such a place and office. Our first observation shall be this : that whereas other of our Lord's miracles concern some particular portion of human infirmity, or divine power and mercy, we might well expect this one, which was to begin and head them, to convey a lesson of a more general nature respecting both ourselves and Him who wrought it. 92 MIRACLES : WATER MADE AVINE. And such indeed it does convey. We see Him here as the true source of all joy and happiness : we see Him in his highest and most blessed influence on man and that which belongs to man. For He came, as we in- sisted last Sunday in preaching to you on the uni- versality of His Gospel, to heal and elevate and bless our whole natui^e, in all its wants, all its employments, all its joys. And what is it that we find Him here doing ? The holy estate of marriage was instituted of God in the time of man's innocency. It is an institution still in full force among us, and dating from before the time of the first ravages of sin. Sin indeed has abused it, and counterfeited it, and interfered with its blessedness : but for all that, its own holiness and purity, and capa- bility for blessing and elevating humanity, still remain for those who use it aright, in the faith and fear of God, and in holy forbearance and love. What occasion then so fitting for the Son of God to shew his divine power of blessing and hallowing humanity, as that of a marriage ? He might have entered the abode of sick- ness and healed mth a word, as often afterwards : He might have stood over the bed of death and called back the parted spirit : each of these miracles would have had, as each ever has, its own deep and blessed significance : but we may venture to saj, that neither of them would have spread so wide, or risen so high, in its manifestation of the Redeemer's glory, as did this one. Those would regard more the means whereby the great work of Redemption was to be accom- plished,— the healing of sin, the overcoming of death : MIRACLES : WATER MADE WIXE. 93 but this shews us the blessed work completed, and in its most glorious result. " These things speak I to you that your joy may be full." This was the tendency of his discoui'ses, and of the writings of his apostles : — and thus, in ministering to the fulness of human joy. He is going further, and shewing more completely the glory of his Incarnation in our nature, than if He had ministered to human sorrow, — because under Him and in His Kingdom, all sorrow is but a means to joy, — all son'ow ends in joy. Ye now therefore have sorrow," He says to His disciples of their orphan state in the world : " but I will come and see you again, and ye shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." Take yet another 'view of this miracle. The gift which our Lord bestowed in it is ever used in Scripture, however it has been perverted by man's e^il and sinful lusts, as setting forth to us the invigorating and cheer- ing effects of the Spirit of God on man's heart. " The Lord will make a feast of wines on the lees well re- fined :" — Come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price : "—these are the prophetic repre- sentations of the rich blessings of the Christian cove- nant. And so our Lord, in opening His treasm^e of these rich blessings, does so by imparting the lower gift, the type of His better and more lasting bestowal. And St. John has thought it worth while to record, that the wine which He bestowed was the best of its kind, as all His gifts are better than any other gifts : as His works of nature and His works of grace are ever the best and the noblest, marvels of skill and mercy :— for He doeth all things well. 94 MIRACLES : WATER MADE WINE. All this was manifesting forth. His glory, and the character of His work on earth : and so it was, when He turned water into wine, the baser element into the nobler, the weaker into the stronger. For thus He ever does with all that is merely ours, when He comes with His transforming power and His heavenly grace. By that power the weak becomes strong, the earthly becomes heavenly, the transitory becomes abiding and eternal. It is He alone who can turn the mere flashes of human joy into a holy and steady flame which even the grave shall not extinguish : He alone, who can change the sorrow of the world, which worketh death, into godly sorrow, which bringeth forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness : — who bestows the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- ness. But more manifestations of His glory yet remain behind. He did all this simply by His own creative power. And the process was hidden from human view. In the vessels, or in pouring from vessel to vessel, did His power in a moment work that wondrous change, which is yearly during a whole season wrought by Him in nature, when the moisture of the earth is taken up by the vine, circulates as sap in the branch and the bud and the bloom, becomes ripened into the juice of the grape, — and yet more, being by man's labour gathered, pressed, fermented, put by, after years mellows into the good wine. He, who commonly creates by means and secondary causes, can do without them when He will ; will do without them, when it pleases Him, in the briuging about of His great purposes. MIRACLES : WATER MADE WIXE. 95 Yet again. There is something in the very order of His course here which is instructive to us. " Thou hast kept the good wine until now," says the ruler of the feast. Ever His best, last : — not even His best first, as the world, anxious for present shew, present effect, care- less about the distant future. It is not His way to be very gracious at first, and then to cool towards His people : to invite them to Him, and then fall back from them : His mercies are new every morning : He giveth more grace, — grace for grace : and evermore those who baA^e Joved Him longest love Him best, those who have served Him longest can tell most of His loving-kind- aess. He keeps His best until last. Never, till we sit iown in the Kingdom of God, shall we know the ful- jaess of joy which is in His presence, and the pleasures «vliich are at His right hand. There none will be dis- ippointed : every one will know and confess that He tias kept His best bestowal, till body and soul and spirit fvere ready to be filled full with it. But lastly, all this He will do, not at our time, but at Sis own. See how His blessed Mother urged him for- wsltS., being cominced in her own believing heart that He could and would do, what He eventually really did. But mark the reproof which even she earned from Him — " Woman, what have I to do with thee ? mine lOur is not yet come." And so do many of us, my Drethren, without haK her faith and clearness of insight nto His purposes, often urge Him forward for our own 3ase or consolation, or as we fancy, for His greater ind speedier glorification : but the same answer awaits IS, — if not from His Kps, yet from His Pro\idence : we 96 miracles: water made wine. shall be thrust back, and kept standing without and disappointed of our earnest wish, till His time is come : and then, but not till then, will He help us, and clear us, and justify us, and save us, and glorify us : — then when we are fittest, — then when His will is ripest, — then, when it is best. Such, my beloved, are some of the lessons to be learned, some of the rich consolations to be drawn, from this one miracle of our Blessed Lord. Notice the effect in our text : — His disciples believed on Him. 0 may this same result be produced on every one of you. You have heard in these sermons of your deep need of Him, — of His eternal Godhead, — His grace in becoming man for you, — and now to-day of His glory as manifested by His miracles generally, and by this one in particular. And to what purpose shall 1 have spoken and you have heard these things, unless some hearts here be brought to receive Him for their Saviour and Lord : to trust in His power and mercy, to thirst for a share in His glory ? Go and think of Him, and pray to Him, and serve Him : strive by prayer, by obedience, by patience, and hope in believing, for more of His spirit and His like- ness, that one day your vile body may be changed, by a far more wonderful miracle, to be as His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. SERMON YIII. •BEACHED OS THE THIED SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY, JAX. 26, 1862.) MIRACLES OF HEALING. Matt. viii. 13. I And Jesus said unto the centurion. Go thy way ; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour." ROM the consideratioii of the nature and use of our lessed Lord's miracles in general, and the example of lat first great miracle of turning water into wine, we 3W come to speak of those which have a more particular laracter. And the Gospel to-day brings before us two ' these, the cleansing of the leper and the recovering of le centurion's servant, both belonging to the same class : lat of the healing of disease. In order to understand the bearing of these on Chris- an doctrine, let us first enquire, what disease is : what ace it holds with, reference to the office and work of le Redeemer. That it does hold some important place, evident, from the great number of His wonderful orks which had respect to the healing and removing H 98 MIRACLES OF HEALING. of it. Disease, then, is simply tlie beginning of death. It is, in its various forms, that part of the dark proces- sion of miseries consequent on sin, which ushers in the dread executioner of the primitive sentence, " Thou shalt surely die.'' So that He who came to abolish death, and to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel, might well be expected, among his wonderfu] works performed in confirmation of this his mission, to heal diseases. For He would thus be shewing the great restoration which He came to efiect in our whole nature : the health, and life, and vigour, which accompany Hif presence, and His touch, and His word. And He wae not content with healing every sickness and disease among the people : He even exerted his power over th( king of terrors himself, and His voice was heard by th( spirit of man in the realms of the departed, and He wat obeyed. All these miracles form one great class, and that b^ far the largest, of those which our Lord wrought oi earth. And the lessons taught by them are manifold. There is first the plain fact, that the Son of man cam< not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Hov familiar this is on our tongues, but how little do W( really think of it in our secret hearts ! Many are th( works related of him : why should by far the greats, number of them be miracles of healing ? Was then nothing more important to do in the world ? One o the bitterest enemies of Christianity in ancient times Julian the apostate, denied that our Lord ever did an; really wonderful works : "He only cured a few sic] people in villages like Bethsaida and Bethany." Why MIRACLES OF HEALING. 99 if our Lord had been pleased, He could have done works which would have struck with terror every caviller at His Gospel. But He mainly confined himself to these, wrought on obscure persons, and in obscure places, be- cause He wanted, not to be glorified of men, but to teach and bless and console His people to the end of time. And when we see Him thus laying out the precious days of his ministry, and inspiring his Evangelists to write these accounts of his works of healing, and providentially preserving the books in which they are related down to these latter days, we ought to feel thankfully convinced that He came, and wrought his works, and had his Gospels written, to help us, to heal us, to make us sound and happy, and to -prolong and cheer our lives, not to bring misery and fear and weakness of purpose and terror of death among us, as some would have us believe. What a comfort, my brethren, this might be to us, if we would but think ever of Him thus ; as of one waiting to heal and to bless ! How would pain be lightened and sickness patiently borne and death lose its terrors, if we always saw His hand stretched forth to heal us. His ' form standing by the sick bed, or walking on the waves of affliction, and saying to us " It is I, be not afraid ! " It may however be said. But He does not do this now : we are left to bear our pains and troubles without Him. Not indeed without Him, for He is ever thinking of 3very one of us : but in part, the remark is most true. He did not come into our world to work miracles, to beal diseases, or to raise the dead. There were thousands of sick in Judaea and Galilee during His ministry, who never saw His face nor partook of His healing power : H 2 100 MIRACLES OF HEALING. of all that (lied in those three years, He raised but three, that we are told of. He came into the world to do that far greater work of which these were but the signs and tokens ; — to put out and abolish for ever the great disease of our nature ; — to put away the sin of the world. And this He has done once for all, and is ever applying the blessed fruits of His work to the members of His Church. It was to shew you His gracious mind in doing this, not to lead you to expect bodily healing or raising from the dead, or to murmur, because such blessings are now withdrawn, that I dwelt on the consolation which these His miracles may afford us. Another lesson which His wonderful works teach us, and which we deeply need, is, the importance of these our bodies, in the great process of Redemption. It is a very common mistake to imagine that the saving of the soul is to be the great object of religion. Nay, religion itself is called the interest of the soul : and by many Christians the body is as little regarded as having any share in it, as if it were to be left behind in the grave, and a blessed eternity would be passed without it. Yet nothing can be more contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture, than such a way of viewing the subject. In Scripture Christ is called the Saviour, not of the soul, but of the body : that for which St. Paul tells us the whole Church of God is waiting, is, the redemption of the body : when the same Apostle has finished the great argument concerning salvation by grace through faith in the Epistle to the Homans, he beseeches us by the mercies of God to yield, not our souls, but our bodies, a living sacrifice to God : when he warns the Corinthians MIRACLES OF HEALING. 101 against sins of uncleanness, lie says, '^Know ye not that," not your souls, but your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost And the one distinctive doctrine of Christianity, by which it was different from every other religion in the world, was, not the future Kfe of the soul : this was known to Jew and to heathen long before : but it was, the resurrection of the body : that all men should come out of their graves with their bodies ; and that the entire man, body, soul, and spirit, should live for ever in bliss, or endure for ever in woe, without separation or diminution. Our modern religion is become far too spiritual — far too much a matter of thought, and opinion, and inward feelings and experiences, and this has led men to unite it so little with their common lives, and make it a matter of such convenient secrecy and mystery, that they may do and say just what they please in the body, "without their religious profession being affected by it. And another result of this so-called spiritual view of religion is, that in treating of the heathen abroad, or the far worse heatben at home, those who hold it will almost forbid, or at any rate depreciate, the attempt to better their bodily state b}^ civilization, by sanitary improve- ments, by elevating arts and kindlier habits ; and tell us we must care for their souls first, if not only. To all such views I conceive our blessed Lord's own practice is our best as it is our most decisive answer. He preached the Gospel of the kingdom : but while He did it, He went about doing good : — heaKng the sick, giving sight to the blind, making the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, restoring the withered limb, and the uprightness 102 MIRACLES OF HEALING. of the bowed-down frame. These were the ways in which He prepared men for His Gospel, and in which He has taught us to prepare them : not by putting it in contrast to all our blessings, but by making it the crown and topstone to all our blessings : not by giving out that health, and spirits, and the use of our senses, and the in- formation of our minds, and the decencies and courtesies of life, are all bad, and religion only is good ; but by ourselves feeling, and telling others, that all these are good, very good, — rich gifts of our merciful Father, — but that faith in Christ, obedience to Christ, is better than all of them, best of all of them ; — and Christ Him- self the gift of gifts, — God's unspeakable gift. The next remark which I have to make on this class of our Lord's works will of necessity introduce us to the particular character and features of the former of those related in our Gospel to-day. The remark is, on the typical import of these healing miracles, as pointing to the Lord's power over the diseases of our souls and spirits : and the miracle which best illustrates this is the cleansing of the leper, with which our gospel begins. It can be no new thing to you to hear, that this disease of leprosy was chosen for notice in the ancient law, and a special set of enactments made concerning it, not for any sanitary reasons, but purely because it was taken as a type of man's great disease of sin. Although one of the most loathsome and terrible of bodily plagues, it was not contagious : — there was no fear of its spreading from man to man. This would be plain, by merely ob- serving that in cases when it could not be helped, the leper was employed in high offices : in cases which were MIRACLES OF HEALING. 103 lerfectly hopeless, lie was, even by the law, relieved rom many of the restrictions laid on his fellow-sufferers, ,nd was allowed to mingle in the haunts of men. The rhole treatment of the leper, his separation, the multi- ude of precautions taken concerning his examination nd his cleansing, appear to have been imposed by the aw to set forth the impurity and loathsomeness in Tod's sight, and the difficidty of removal, of the deeper md more fatal spiritual disease of man. It was fitting hen that the Lord should exercise His power of healing )rominently on the leper, and should leave us an ex- Dress record of his grace and power in dealing with his disease. It was just as He had ended that great liscourse known to us as the Sermon on the Mount, — :hat discourse in which He describes himself as come lot to destroy the law but to fulfil it. Having exhibited :his character in his teaching, He descended from the mountain, great multitudes following him. As He was sntering a certain city a man met him full of leprosy. With a wonderful simplicity combined with strength of faith, falling down before him he cried, " Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." We may observe that long before this Jesus had made circuits in Galilee, teaching and healing. So that it was no new thing that the leper was announcing ; — no new thing that the Lord did. But this Evangelist, who loves to set forth the kingly office and majesty of Christ, was directed to put this miracle in the very forefront of those recorded by him, doubtless because it was so direct an appeal to our Lord's wiU and power, and because that appeal was so plainly and undoubtingly answered by Him. For 104 MIRACLES or HEALING. He does not say, Go pray to God who alone can heal thee He does not reply, as Joseph did, "It is not in me : God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace : " nor as Peter did to Cornelius, " Stand up, for I also am a man : " but He at once claimed and proved what the leper asserted him to possess, by the open and imme- diate exercise of it. He put forth his hand, and touched him : thus Himself by imputation partaking of our un- cleannesses, — for whosoever touched a leper became himself unclean. Moreover He said " I will : be thou clean." My brethren, what an assertion of power, what an exertion of it is here ! He will : of His own authority and of His own good pleasure He doeth that which is done. And the same mighty will which in our miracle last Sunday had silently and without expression changed the element of water into the juice of the grape, and had superseded the slow work of human manufacture and the ripening processes of time, now by a spoken word purified the tainted juices of the body, annihilated the loathsome traces of disease and decay, and re- created that frame which His power had originally made. Immediately his leprosy departed from him." And, if we come to consider the miracle in its deeper import, 0 what is leprosy of the body, loathsome and fatal as it was, to the ruin and decay of man's soul by sin ? We hear indeed, that the wretched persons who were thus afilicted carried about with them a living death ; that the body under its influence lost its sensation part by part, and dropped into decay and dissolution : but does not all this happen more dreadfully and more hopelessly MIRACLES OF HE.ILING. 1C5 to the victim of sin? When the heart hardens, the pure affections become polluted, the will enfeebled, the judgment impaired, personal freedom of action lost owing to the bondage of long prevalent exil habit, what is it but a leprosy of the soul, — the sign and the pre- cursor of eternal death ? ' Yet if out of this depth of misery the sinner turn to Him who healed the leper, not doubting, but receiving with simple faith His power and will to cleanse him, then has the Lord taught us by this miracle, that He can and will heal and cleanse : not indeed now by a touch, nor in a moment : this kind cometh not out thus : but as surely, as graciously, as com- pletely : by the gradual means of grace, by His word and His ordinances, and the purifying influences of His blessed Spirit, renovating him as the flesh of a little child in the new life unto God. Let us now turn to the lesson prominently taught us by the latter of these miracles, in our gospel of this day. I say nothing at present of the secondary instruction to be derived from the remarkable faith of the centurion, who was a Homan and a heathen : I am in these ser- mons more concerned with that which has respect to our Lord Himself, as testimony to us of the doctrines regarding His Sacred Person. Looking then at this only, our lesson is, the absolute command which He has over all diseases as His servants, going and coming at liis bidding. The faithful centurion compares Him to the captain of a great army, having soldiers under him ind at his beck. He himself knew something of this, being one whose position required him both to obey ind to command. That obedience which he pelded 106 MIRACLES OF HEALING. to his tribune or his general, that obedience which his subordinates j'ielded to him, the same obedience the painful disease of his favourite servant, the same obedi- ence all diseases, would jield to Christ. And this again is not treated as a fond and superstitious \iew of the matter : our Lord does not take him up and explain to him how the fact really stands by depreciating His own power or limiting it. But he turns and says to those around him, Yerily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.'' And then to the cen- turion, " Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." "And his servant was made whole," we read, " in the selfsame hour." Now doubtless this narrative does not relate to us the same fact as that occurring at the end of John iv., and there stated to be our Lord's second miracle after He was come from Judaea into Galilee : any one may be- come convinced of this by carefully reading and com- paring the two. But it is remarkable, that the two, the healing of the nobleman's son and this of the centurion's servant, have one particular in common, lying at the very root of the character of the miracles. In both, the healing is wrought without any contact, without our Lord even being on the spot : in one, in the same town, but far from the centurion's house : in the other, at the distance of Cana in Galilee from Caper- naum, about twenty- five of our miles. In the cleansing of the leper, as in so many of His works of healing. He establishes a communication between Himself and the person healed, — " He put forth his hand, and touched him:" there is a lesson for us in that: — the life and MIRACLES OF HEALING. 107 lealth which come from union with Him. In this niracle, He speaks at a distance and the efiect follows : md we may learn from that too : He is absolutely naster of all : — near or far, present or apparently ab- ;ent, on earth or in heaven, by his word or by his ook or by his will, or entirely as He pleases. He can md He will cleanse and purify and save. It is that we nay rest on Him, wait for Him, lie content in His lands, that these miracles, these signs of His power md love, are given us : that we may imitate the faith 7hich He praised, and the earnestness of supplication 0 which He was pleased to yield : that we may bring :11 our diseases to Him, all our troubles, all our cares. ' If thou wilt," is no longer needed now : the manger 1 Bethlehem, the subjection at Nazareth, the temptation n the wilderness, the agony in Gethsemane, the cross •n Calvary, the ascension from Bethany, all these declare ' I will." He triumphs to help us : He reigns, that we nay reign with Him : He intercedes, that our faith may I lot fail. What more can invite us? What more can issure us ? SERMON IX. (PEEACHED ON THE EOUETH SUNDAY AFTEE EPIPHANY, FEB. 2, 1862.) MIRACLES OF POWER. Matt. viii. 27. " WTiat manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?^' This is our third sermon on our Lord's miracles as illustrating the doctrines of His sacred Person and office. And we have to notice in it another class oi those wonderful works, not indeed wholly distinct from those which have already come before us, but distinct in their leading features and character. The two j miracles in our Gospel to-day are emphatically in- stances of His Power. Not that the power shewn in turning water into wine, in cleansing the leper, in healing the centurion's servant, was one whit less than that exerted in the stilling of the storm, and in the casting out the legion of devils at Gergesa : but that in the former miracles. Love and Mercy seem to stand out as the prominent features, whereas here, above all other things, the sense of almighty Power is carried irresistibly into our minds as we read. And such seems WIRACLES OF POWER. 109 ;o have been the impression made on the beholders in ;ach case. The men in the ship exclaimed, ''What nanner of man is this, that even the winds and the ea obey Him?" The Gergesenes besought Him to apart out of their coasts ; — fearing the presence of •ne so mighty, and whose might had been shewn in a aanner working them worldly loss. We will then treat these miracles to-day mainly in bis light — as proofs of His poa\ter : but not only so — re will also take up and turn to account such other icidental lessons from them as occur by the way while proceed. Our Lord had been all day speaking that great series f parables, opening with the parable of the Sower, .'hich we find in Matt, xiii., five chapters after this I which our narrative occurs. It would appear, that t. Matthew does not relate these events in their order, 'or we are positively told by St. Mark that this liracle took place on the evening of the day when all lose parables were spoken. Our Lord was wearied it with the long day's teaching, probably in the heat id glare of the beach of the lake. We see from the inute and beautiful touches in St. Mark's narrative, )w the multitudes had been for some days pursuing 'im about, eager for His teaching and healing, till .at frame which, though it bore the Divinity, was ?elf limited and liable to exhaustion, was well nigh ushed with toil : tiU his near relations, seeing His isparing exertions, came out to lay hold on Him, inking that He was beside himself, carried away by If-sacrificing enthusiasm. "Let us cross," He said 110 MIRACLES OF POWER. to his disciples, *'to the other side of the lake.' They embarked in the boat, probably Simon Peter's which He commonly used, other small boats also a( companying them. St. Mark adds, "they took Hin' with them in the boat as He teas,'' without any pre paration, perhaps even too weary to take refreshment They spread for Him in the stern the cushions com monly used on the rowers' benches, and, exhausted a' lie was. He laid him down, and slept the sleep of th weary. I have enlarged on this scene, that we ma; have the whole blessed truth of the matter vividl; before us. Behold him in his humanity ; — handl him in your thoughts, and see that it is He himsel] This is indeed no pretended man; no god in dis guise, as the heathens sometimes fabled of in thei legends. Nay this is a veritable human frame, worj out with toil: not a form assumed for an apparitioi of thirty years on earth, but the form, as indissolubl; united to the Person of him who bore it, as this o mine, and these of yours, are united to each of m And observe, that in its union, it is very man : nol except at special times when He pleased, lifted up t! superhuman capacity by the indwelling Godhead, nc ordinarily able to endure without fatigue, to subsi^ without food, to renovate itself without sleep : but a was necessary for the Bearer of man's infirmities, fc the Sympathizer with man's troubles, for the grea Consoler of all who need consolation, like his brethre in all things, with one only most necessary and mos teaching exception. And so He sleeps on : and the oars plash regularl MIRACLES OF POWER. Ill in tlie falling twilight, till at length one quarter of the sky gathers darker than is wont, and suddenly there bursts down on the inland sea from its bordering vaUeys one of those squalls of wind, well known as the chief perils of all lake navigation. The tempest quickly, in those confined spaces, lashes the water into fury: the little vessel labours among the breakers, which begin dashing over her sides, and she is soon rapidly filling. Still, the weary passenger sleeps. So, and yet not so, did Jonah sleep in the sides of the ship, when he was fleeing from the face of God: for there may be deep sleep of different kinds. One may be calm in danger from apathy or unbelief, and another from blessed faith and reliance. Shall we not say of this Sleeper, that his slumber was deep and undis- turbed, because it never had been broken by the start of guilt, or the working thoughts of terror ? Shall we not feel that the beautiful words of our Poet are true of Him only, — "He feared no dauger, for He knew no sin ?" Such was the manhood of the Lord in its infirmity and in its perfection : ia its weakness, and in its strength. But meanwhile the disciples are filled with terror. Their boat is beginning to sink : and He, who they blew could save them, is all unconscious of their ji common danger. They awake him with something of ifl reproach: "Master, Master, carest thou not that we perish?" It is not as it was to Jonah, "Awake, thou deeper, and caU upon thy God:" they know thus 112 MIRACLES OF POWER. mucli, that He has power to save them: but they wonder that that power should not have been exerted before it came to this. Their call to Him is variously- given by the Evangelists ; as above, — or as in the gospel for this Sunday, "Lord, save us: we perish;" or as by St. Luke, "Master, master, we perish." "The sense is the same in all," says St. Augustine; " in all, they wake the Lord, and beseech Him to save them ; nor is it worth our while to enquire, which of these contains the actual words said to Christ rather than the others. For whether they used any one of these three expressions, or some other words which none of the Evangelists has related, but amounting to the same verity of meaning, what has it to do with the matter in hand?" It had been well, if these re- marks had always been borne in mind by those who compare the gospels one with another; they would have ensured its being done more in the freedom of the spirit, and not so much in the bondage of the letter. The Lord is not slow to answer to their cry, though He reproaches them as being of little faith. They who had seen so many of His wonderful works, and who knew the love which He had for them, should have known also that He was not one whose power could be in this manner taken at a disadvantage, or whose care for His own could be thus defeated. But none of us, my brethren, can say that their conduct was not natural. I fear we all are of little faith : for I am sure we should all have done likewise. In the account in St. Matthew's gospel, this rebuke of His * MIRACLES OF POWER. 113 comes before the act of power : in St. Mark and St. Luke, it follows it. T\Tietlier it went before or fol- lowed, the certainty that it was given, and the lesson in it for us, are the same. But now let us fix our attention on that which was done : for surely we are reading a narrative which stands alone in the history of our world. This man who, but a moment since, was fast asleep from weari- ness, rose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ' " Peace^ be still." We all know the efiect of a sudden lull in the raving of the storm : the perfect peace which seems to take the place of the war of the elements : the sense of thankfulness and surprise with which we look abroad into the stillness. What then must this have been, when it was the instantaneous efiect of the command of a human voice? "There was a great calm." 'No ordinary calm : not as usual after the cessation of a tempest^ the waves still tossing with their disquiet, but half- appeased ; but the lake became as in the calm of the breathless noon, — it instantaneously put on the glassy surface of the misty morn, or the long level lines of the solemn twiKght. As before, in the Lord's first miracle, nature was silently endowed with powers not her own, — her slow processes anticipated, — ber ordinary requirements superseded : so now, at His spoken word, her own powers are suspended, and their 3xercise forbidden. And as in that case imagination fails to trace the procedui^e of the creative act, so here Df the repressive. We hear the wind, and cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth : but He knows : the necessity that there is for the air to rush hither 1 114 MIRACLES OF POWER. and thither, filling up its void places, — where this exists, and why. He has it all in his thoughts: and what He commands. He works also. It was not in sober reality, as the wondering shipmen expressed it : the winds and the sea were not animated beings, who heard and obeyed, so that He should have no part in that which was done, but to command it ; — far other- wise : it was all His doing. He who spoke was present in the far-off mountain passes whence the winds issued forth : He made the gathering eddies stand still, and stanched the pouring mist. The result was seen, the workmanship was hidden. He worked as God ever works : His ways were in the vast deep, and His path in the tracldess air; the great cahn, the accomplish- ment of that which was done, was the least thing that was wrought ; was but the token, that God had passed by, and nature was silent. And so, my brethren, we have our blessed Lord in His weakness and in His strength: in His weariness as man, and His unwearyingness as God : in His tired sleep, and in His unslumbering watchfulness. "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him Turn we now to another aspect of His glorious Person and office. " They came to the other side, into the land of the Gergesenes." It was a land of lime- stone cliffs, pierced, as not uncommonly, into hollow caves, which were used in that country for the burying- places of the dead. Dwelling in those tombs, dis- puting possession with the wild beasts of the wilder- ness, were two creatures scarcely human, though MIRACLES OF POWER. 115 bearing the forms of men. On one of these wretched ones is our attention specially concentrated. Terrible indeed is the description of him by the EvangeHsts : "AYhen He was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, and no man could tame him, no not with chains ; because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him and the fetters broken in pieces : neither could any man tame him. And he wore no clothes ; but always night and day he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.'* Was ever description more wild and fearful ? And as it is the most dreadful of its whole class, so let us take it as a t}^e of the whole class, and ask ourselves, what was this which is here spoken of — this possession by evil spirits ? And observe, that I am not now going into the general enquiry, which is a very wide one ; but am asldng the question with a view to our Lord Himself — His truth. His mercy, and His power. I may simply then and in a word say that whoever believes in Him at all, must also believe in the existence and agency of both good and evil spirits. For it is again and again certified to us both by His words and by His actions. There is no getting over this, or explaining it away. If such men as these, and the rest on whom his miracles were wrought, were not possessed by devils at all, but were only madmen, — and if He, in what He said and did, was only coun- I 2 116 MIRACLES OF POWER. tenancing a popular delusion, why then I say, all trust in Him and in His words, is gone : He was no true Teacher, no pure and sinless Saviour : for He must haA^e acted and spoken dangerous and blasphemous falsehoods. I speak thus strongly, to shew you how * vain is the attempt to separate these cases from Him- self and His teaching. Reject them, if you like : but you reject Him with them. Doubt and disbelieve, if you will, the existence of an unseen spiritual world about us and in us ; but in doing so you doubt and disbelieve Him by whose Holy Name you are called, and to whom you owe all you have both here and hereafter. Well then, with this caution, we will speak as we believe, and simply assume the fact as certain, that these men were, or rather this man,— seeing that the second bears no prominent part, — was the wretched victim of possession by devils, the peculiar disease and burden of that age of the world. Evil spirits had entered into and taken possession of him. They used his voice, his thoughts, his limbs, for their unholy purposes. He was not his own master, but their slave. And this miserable state gave rise to a sort of double personality, not altogether unknown, be it observed, to those even now who study the more desperate forms of insanity. In this condition, while the man sometimes besought for deliverance, the demon broke in with his super- human confessions that Jesus was the Son of God ; "We have this latter feature in the history before us The evil spirits know the Son of God: and througl the voice of their victim they pray Him not to tormeni MIRACLES OF POWER. 117 them before the time. They know His lordship over them — they know that a day is coming, when He wiH adjudge their everlasting doom. Among the doctrines regarding His Person, notice this well. He is Lord of heaven and earth and hell : — of the evil spirits, as well as of His holy angels : — and He is their judge, and will pronounce their sentence in the end. And now, for I deny it not, we come to matters of detail, strange, and passing our comprehension. The request on the part of the devils that they might not be sent out of the country, — or not into the deep, — but into the swine,— the permission given,— the destruc- tion of the herd, — all this has time out of mind fur- nished ground of cavil to the unbeliever, and of reverent question to the enquiring Christian. But what wonder if we find ourselves out of our depth, when introduced but for a moment into the spirit world, of which we know absolutely nothing by any research or experience of our own ? Eather should we receive such notices as these as each lifting some portion of the veil which hides that world from us, and teaching us by analogy how to think and judge of it. For instance, we are at least informed by this narrative, that certain evil spirits were then suffered to abide, tempting men, in certain portions of the earth : we see that the grosser animal nature, as well as that of men, is able to receive their attacks and incursions : — and we gather that it pleased our Lord, for reasons no doubt understood and sufficient at the time, to permit this to take place, and to destroy the swine in the waters. Among such reasons at once occurs to us this :— that the fact may have 118 MIRACLES OF POWER. furnished more perfect assurance to the restored man himself, and to the neighbourhood around, of his com- plete deliverance : and as it has well been said, what wonder that He who ordains that myriads of animals shoidd daily be slaughtered for the sustenance of men's bodies, should on this occasion have permitted the destruction of a few, for the better health of their soids ? But let us now turn to another and a very different spectacle, to him that had had the legion, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. 0 blessed result ! blessed, in the fact itself ; blessed, in the lesson which it echoes onwards through the ages of Time. Yes, my brethren, even thus it is that every one of us must fare at His hands, if we would be healed and live. We, thank God, have fallen in other times than those. His blessed Gospel, next to His holy Presence, has won its way on earth. He subdued the enemy for us— He saw him as lightning fall from heaven ; and the softening and humanizing influences of his descended Spirit have followed. But there is a Satanic possession of which the world is not rid, and never will be, till He comes to judge it. We were all born in sin, and children of wrath ; and though in Christ's church we have become the children of grace, yet is the old Adam not thoroughly driven out ; yet is the law of sin still found active in our mem- bers, and furnishing material for our spiritual enemy to work on : — yet are we in that divided state, that the good which we would do, that we cannot : and the evil which we would not, that we do : even yet is the MIRACLES OF POWER. 119 best of us in that condition which forced from the great Apostle that exceeding bitter cry, " 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" Who, but He that rebuked the winds and the waves, and there was a great calm, — who but He that changed the fierce demoniac into a humble disciple, — He of whom the Apostle spoke, when he replied to his " who shall deliver," with I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord ?" 0 Thou Stiller of the tempest. Thou Conqueror of the enemy for us, hear us, and save ! In all time of our tribulation : in all time of our wealth : in the hour of death and in the day of judgment, good Lord, deliver us. SERMON X. (PEEACHED ON THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTEE EPIPHANY, FEB. 9, 1862.) PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. Matt. xiii. 3. " He spake many things unto them in parables." In considering and applying the sacred Doctrines re- lating to our blessed Lord's Person and office, one of the chief sources of our knowledge must of necessity be found in His own discourses. He Himself said to the Jews, "I am, that which I speak unto you." He is His own best expositor. Now in studying His discourses, one peculiarity cannot fail to strike us, which they have even amongst the say- ings of inspiration itself. All these sayings are equally true, but they are not all equally deep and manifold in their meaning. Some sayings, for example, of the Apos- tles, are very simple and plain, and clearly have but one reference, which every body can perceive. Then again, if the Apostles' sayings are difficult to understand, it is very often a difficulty of this kind : do they mean this, or do they mean that ? or, out of three or four possible mean- PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 121 ings wliicli shall we take ? And one man understands them in one way, another man in another way ; or perhaps in the course of time some laborious student hits upon a meaning which all agree upon afterwards, and so the difficulty is solved. I do not mean to say that such is always the case with the sayings of the Apostles : but it is beyond doubt their general cha- racter. If we now turn to the sayings of our Lord, here again we meet with many which are very plain and simple, and with many also which seem difficult to understand : but, easy or difficult, they all have this about them, that they are inexhaustible in their depths of wisdom, and in their applications to man and to man's world. In the one case, the divine treasure was in earthen vessels : in the other, in a heavenh^ In the one case, the Holy Spirit spoke by those who were limited in their powers and knowledge, and He adapted His divine inspiration to their himian characteristics, and styles, of thinking and writing : in the other He spoke by One to whom the Spirit was not given by measure : who knew all things from the beginning ; and to whom, even in the emptying of His glory, to V7hich He submitted Himself in his humiliation, aU the realities of things lay open. And hence too it is that, while we speak, and tridy, of the peculiar style of writing of St. Paul or of St. John or of St. Peter, no Dne ever thought of attributing a sti/Ie of speaking to 3ur Lord. Our very feelings shrink from such an 3xpression ; which is no mean test of its being an improper one. The reason is, that His sayings are the very expressions of endless and fathomless truth ; in 122 PARABLES : THE TAKES OF THE FIELD. human form indeed, — spoken with the tongue and written with the pen, — but spoken as man never spoke before,— written, when written down, as faithful re- membrances of what He said, and unmodified by the individual style and character of those who recorded them. And pursuing the same thought, it is interesting and instructive to note, how the holy Evangelists have been guided to follow their individual bent, not in composing, but in choosing among, the discourses of our Lord : St. Matthew, who loves to write of Him as the King, and of His Gospel as the Kingdom of the heavens, giving us more those discourses which set forth his glory and majesty ; — St. Luke, who presents Him to us as the gracious and immortal Saviour, giving us mostly discourses full of his rich mercy and loving- kindness ; — while St. John, whose object it is to set Him before us as the fulness of light and sustenance and life to man, as coming to his own and rejected by them, but as loving and loved by his disciples, follows his great scheme regularly onwards, by recording for us those discourses in which all these points are one after another brought forward. After what has been said, another matter regarding our Lord's sayings naturally comes to our thoughts. He who knew all truth in its purest and hoKest forms, — what ivas His method of teaching ? Let us first ask, whom had He to teach? And the answer is. He had various classes of persons, very differently affected towards Him, and very differently endowed with power to understand Him. First, there would be his own disciples, willing indeed to listen to and appreciate FAKABLES: THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 123 what He said, but mistaken in their view of that which He came to do, and quite unable as yet to take in any explanation of it. Then there were the common people, variously disposed ; — for the most part hearing Him gladly, but dull of comprehension, and ready to be influenced by his enemies. Then there were these last, the Scribes and Pharisees, learned in the outward science of the law, eager for his halting, ready to catch hold of and press to the utmost against Him any thing falling from his lips which should at all violate their formal and superstitious maxims of interpretation and practice. How should the Allwise one, in his humiliation, and condescending to be as man among men, proceed in one way of teaching for all these so widely differing hearers ? Should He lay before them naked spiritual truth, such as in the unfathomable depths of his o^tl divine Being He contemplated ? Alas, to say nothing of what those hearers were, — what human ear could hear, what human soul could bear it ? Should He anticipate the teaching of the Spirit who was to come upon the Church, and set forth the mighty doctrines of atone- ment for sin, of justification by faith in Him, of sanc- tification by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost ? Again, should He declare himself the fulfiller of the types of the law — the Lamb of God that taketh awa}' the sin of the world ? Who among them could receive these things ? When we hear, late on in his course on earth, that His very disciples questioned among themselves what the resurrection from the dead should mean, we may weU imagine how hopeless, in the ordinary human methods 124 parables: the tares of the field. of teaching, it would have been to introduce topics of this kind among his audience, before He had been Hfted up on the Cross, — had risen from the tomb, or had sent down His Spirit from the Father. Once more ; — should He become the stern and lofty moralist, and lay down to them the eternal limits of purity and of vice ? Doubt- less this was his office in a sense ; and this He has done as none other ever has ; but if it chiefly moulded the form of his discourse, how were they to be gained to this teaching ? He came to teach all, as He came to bless all, and to die for all. How many, think you, among those He addressed would have gathered round him to listen to the purest and truest of moral dis- quisitions ? He, remember, was not one set to teach by institution of man's device : one sure of an audience, and privileged to be dull : He came with a mission higher than that from men, to seek and to save : He was to draw men with the words of interest and sym- pathy ; — to attach them, so that they would rise up from their occupation, leave their fishing and their tax-gathering, and go after Him. Again then, what method of teaching did He choose ? How did He produce the wonderful efiects of which we read ? Before we fully answer, let us take into account one more circumstance very essential to be remembered. Never man spake like this man. Doubtless it was a spirit-penetrating and heart-stirring thing, to sit and hear that Teacher speak. 0 what it must have been to look but for once on that brow, cahn as the evening sky ; to hear but one saying uttered in that voice, whose every tone sunk with gentle persuasion into the very PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 125 depths of the being ! Well might the Lord Himself say to His disciples, Blessed are the ejes that see the things that ye see, and the ears that hear the things that ye hear." Still we know how variously even ex- cellencies of speech and manner are interpreted, ac- cording to the feeling towards the speaker. What one enjoys and feels in his heart as simple earnestness, another turns away from and loathes as affectation : what one finds attractive, is repulsive to another. And doubtless so it was also in the case of our blessed Lord himself : His enemies, in order to remain his enemies, must have had their minds poisoned against him ; and even his divine benignity, and his loving wisdom, can only have exasperated them more from time to time in their predetermined enmity to him. It was when this spirit of implacable hatred first began to manifest itself, when the Scribes and Pharisees began to ascribe to the influence of Satan our Lord's gracious miracles, that He saw fit, in his wisdom, to adopt that peculiar method of teaching of which my text speaks. " He began to speak to them many things in parables." And what is a parable ? I am not going to lay down all the distinctions which separate it from the fable, or the proverb, or the allegory : this has been excellently done by those who have wiitten on the subject : but I will only say, bearing these distinctions in mind, that a parable is a fictitious story intended to convey spiritual truth, and is of a nature such that it is always taken from what might be actual life among men. Its form is grave, as its purpose is serious. It enters into the relations -of life, — father and son, husband and wife, 126 PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. master and servant, king and people ; into tlie opera- tions of agriculture and commerce, the pursuits and wavs of living among men, their differences, and their affections. In the highest sense of the word, but One Person could ever have worthily taught in parables, and that One was the Creator Himself. For it is re- quired in such a story, that it should enter into the deep spiritual meanings which lie under all the rela- tions and employments of life : and who knows these but God only ? A mere man might make the parable fit the truth here and there : his applications of his tale might be doubted, might be criticised : he is commonly obliged to take a lower form for his instruction, and to put it into the mouths of unreasoning beings, as in the fable ; thus leaving the region of reality, and missing all the deeper purposes of the other. But when our Lord spoke the parables in the Gospels, He himself tells us that He did it with the view of their carrying vari- ous shades of meaning, according as men's hearts were or were not disposed to receive, or capable of appre- hending them. They were in fact in this respect just what that world of beauty and truth is from which they were taken. The child rejoices in the flower that he has plucked: its gay colours delight him, its sweet: scent is pleasing to him : the botanist makes the same flower a study, and classifies it, and examines its struc- , ture : the moralist, and the poet, and the painter, also I claim it for the uses of instruction and of art. And so it may be with the parable. First there is the*simple i story, which may interest even the heart of an intelligent child. Which of us is there that does not remember PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 127 his fresh interest when a father's or a mother's voice first told him of the sower going forth to sow, or of the lost sheep, or of the prodigal son, or of the wise and foolish virgins? Nor is this the case only with the young at one time of their Kves : it is so with the simple and half-educated all their lives : — with often this exception, which will lead us on to the next step in those that hear, — that ever and anon some real event in their own lives, some joy or sorrow,— some overflowing of mercy, or some bitter drop of anguish in their cup, — seems to bring out new meaning from that which they fancied they knew before. As with the ^olian harp that has long sounded one chord only in the gentle breezes of ordinary life, at times like these the strong wind of God's Spirit rushes over the strings and awakens new and higher harmonies, unheard before. And if this is so with them, what is it -^dth those who love to think, and to weigh, and to delve into the deeper senses of those wonderful revelations of truth ? Evermore by them are the Lord's parables seen in many and shifting lights, evermore are they heard speaking to them new and rich counsel as their need requires. None have ever exhausted their depth, none tiave ever so discovered their reference and connexion, that there are not new references and new connexions left for others to discover. Not unfrequently, as for instance in the parables of the unforgiving servant frho had himself been forgiven, and of the good Sama- ritan, great Christian doctrines lie beneath the surface )f their tale : sometimes, as in those of the wicked hus- Dandmen and of the barren fig-tree, they are pregnant 128 parables: the tares of the field. witli prophetic meaning which, time shall bring out : sometimes again, as in those of the lost sheep, and of the rich man and Lazarus, they open to us glimpses into the unseen and unknown world : still more fre- quently, as in the great first parable of the sower, and in that of our gospel to-day, they describe to us the state of the Church of God, in the world, and at the end of the world. And as we study each of these, and place it in new lights and connexions, more and richer meanings continually open to us, and will do so as long as we are in this realm of imperfect and still to be completed knowledge. With these remarks before us, let us spend the re- mainder of our time in considering the parable which is contained in our gospel to-day ; that of the Tares of the Field. It forms, as we well know, one of the most important of our Lord's parables. Of itself it would take this rank, owing to the great and world- wide interest of its subject : and its importance is in- creased by its being one of those of which the great Teacher Himself has vouchsafed to give us a full and minute interpretation. First let us notice what the parable is about. It is, a likeness setting forth to us the kingdom of the heavens : — by which name the Christian dispensation, or the state of the Church of Christ on earth, is generally, known in St. Matthew* It represents to us a field, which is explained to mean the world ; — and a man who has sown good seed in it, who is said to be the Son of man, i. e. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Saviour. This exactly agrees with what our Lord Himself tells us of PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 129 His Gospel ; — that it should be preached before the end, in all nations. This preaching He himself began ; and in His strength, and by His commission. His Apostles and those who have followed them have carried on, and still are carrjdng on. And that which is sown, the good seed, is the word of God ; — the good news of the Holy Gospel. No one need be surprised, that this very seed should be said in the explanation to be the children of the kingdom, i. e. the true servants of Christ. For it is here, as in the parable of the sower : when the seed has fallen into the soil, and taken root, it becomes the plant, transforming the soil into itself: so that they into whose hearts the seed is dropped, when the seed ^ows, become themselves the plants which that seed produces. The main principle of life and action which vve follow, is not part of us : we are 2)art of it ; and it is :he root and centre of our being. Thus then, and with :his purpose, the good seed is every where dropped by :he Great Sower and His servants. But this is not the only sowing that takes place. The jower of the good seed has an enemy. His enemy came vhile men slept, and sowed the seed of noxious weeds )ver the field. This wicked act is an exercise of malice lot without example even in our own times. I have ayself known such a thing wilfully done, and made the ubject of legal damages. Now notice the doctrine herein contained. This nemy, our Lord expressly tells us, is the devil. /Vhile men slept, — not, while the Son of man slept, — rhile, not the Great Head of the Church, who never lumbers, but they who were His infirm and imperfect K 130 parables: the tares of the field. ministers, slept, — came this enemy, this arch-enemy of God and man, and sowed his evil seed. I told you last Sunday that if you believed in Christ at all, you must also be prepared to believe in a spiritual world ; — in good and evil spirits, both employed in us, and around us. And observe here His own distinct assertion of this : — of the good by and by ; — of the evil here. These children of the wicked one, — these tares that spring up in the field of the Church, are the sowing of God's enemy, the devil — of him who is ever counterworking the blessed work of the Son of man and His agents. Nothing can be more plainly declared as a truth for us by our Lord than this. But we proceed. When the wheat came up, and put forth its fruit, then appeared the tares also. And now comes the difficulty felt by the servants of the owner of the field ; " Didst thou not sow good seed ? Whence then came the tares?" And so it ever is and will be in the Church. The Gospel is good ; its preaching is good; the ordinances and sacraments are good; good seed is sown, and Christ sows it. And yet how is it, that evermore in the Church there are multitudes of bad men, unholy men, unbelieving men, growing among good men, looking like good men, partaking of all the rich privileges of membership of Christ? How, and whence, came they ? Hear the Lord's answer : " An ENEMY hath done this." "They are the children oi THE WICKED ONE I " nouc of Christ's sowing : no growtl out of the sacraments and means of grace : no result oJ men trying to be righteous overmuch : nothing of the kind : but distinctly, and as matter of fact, the result o: PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 131 the devil's work counteracting Christ's work. And yet silly shallow men, with all this taught and forewarned them, stand and look on upon the Church, and in the spirit of an unbelief they have not the courage to pro- fess, whisper about, AVhat is the use of all this stir about the Church, — all this praying and preaching and sacraments and ordinances ? We don't see that men are made much better by it : we can point out as bad men among Churchmen, even among ministers, as any that are found in the world outside." And suppose you can. Did He who foimded the Church, and who saw aU her course before Him, ever lead you to expect other- wise ? Nay, has He not here expressly told us it would always be so ? That this is no excuse for the sins of Churchmen, we see by the awful end of the parable ; but it is an accounting for what will ever be found in the Church, — the mixture of good and bad men. But we now come to another feature. The servants are not only surprised, but offended, by this state of things : scandalized, that their lord's field should grow evil weeds with the wheat : " Wilt thou then that we leave our work and go and gather them up?" Now this question represents the mind of a very large party in Christ's Church in all ages. Its acts are stamped on her history : and not only so, but they are among us in our own time also. Make the Church pure, say they : count those only the Church, who are converted to God, and live by faith in Christ : let us have a close commimion ; none it our Table, who answer not to our test. 0 how pre- v^alent is this spirit ; not among one party only, but k2 132 parables: the tares of the field. among all parties : and how busy it ever is in men's hearts and practices. But let us hear the answer. He said unto them, " Nay : lest while ye gather together the tares ye root up with them the wheat also.'' Memorable and blessed words ! How do we know, how does any man on earth know, the good from the bad, so as to be able to say, as between two men of outwardly correct life, which is, and which is not, a servant of God ? What folly it is, as well as sin, to make the use of certain religious words and phrases, or the use of certain devotional practices or postures of outward reverence, the test of inward spiritual good in a man ! What hypocrite cannot put on either of these, as much as may be required of him ? And is not every age full of sad examples of hypocrites who do, and end by bringing open disgrace on the party which adopts them ? Eut look on the other side. " Lest ye root up the wheat with them.'' How many genuine servants of God have been discouraged, dejected, robbed of their hope, and perhaps of their faith too, by this narrow and unchristian zeal! "He is not one of us: his words and gestures and religious practices are not otirs : there- fore he does not belong to Christ." This is what our religious leaders and writers on either side think and say every day. And what is the effect ? Discourage- ment, coldness of hearts, deadness to Christ's work, general distrust of one another. But what does oui Lord command? "Leave both to grow together til] the harvest." Feed both, love both, anathematize none PARABLES : THE TARES OF THE FIELD. 133 exclude none : make tares into wheat if you ^yill, but destroy not Grod's wheat by making it into tares. For there is not the slightest fear that any tares will ever be gathered into God's barn at His harvest. Yex not and fret not yourselves. He knows His own ; He knows those who are not. At the season of the harvest, He will say to his reapers, ' ' Collect first the tares and bind them in bundles in order to burn them.'' " So," our Lord tells us, " will the holy angels go forth at the end, and will collect out of His kingdom all the causes of offence, and will cast them into the furnace of fire : there shall be the great weeping and gnashing of teeth." Let not us then anticipate that final separation, but rather take care above all things that at that time He find us bringing, or having brought forth, good fruit to His praise. Blessed are they who shall be thus found at His coming. For He who is all mercy and grace, and who spoke this parable, not to denounce judgment, but that place for repentance would be given to all, ends it with gracious and joyous words : ^' The a shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." SERMON XI. (preached on SEPTTJAGESIMA SUNDAY, FEB. 16, 1862.) PARABLES : THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. Matt. xx. 16. " So the last shall be first, and the first last.'* These words occur botli at tlie beginning and at the end of the parable which forms our gospel to-day. They are as it were the burden, or refrain, of it, carry- ing with them its point and its moral. The parable is one of those which convey to us im- portant lessons of Christian doctrine. It, like our last, that of the Tares of the Field, gives us a representa-' tion of the whole course of the divine dealings with mankind. And also like that last, it brings out one particular point in those dealings for our instruction. In this case that point is the one expressed in oui text : — the independence, in God's judgment of men. of all our human estimates of priority of claim oi superiority of deserving. He is not accountable tc us for His bestowals of His sovereign grace : He does PARABLES : THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 135 what He wills witli bis own ; whether nations or individuals, we are the clay and He is the potter, to make one vessel to honour and another to dishonour : God putteth down one and setteth up another : He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and none may call Him to a reckoning. Now these may be difficult doctrines ; they may be even to some disagreeable doctrines ; they may be doctrines not safe in every one's hands, nor desirable for any of us to be always thinking about : but they are Christian doctrines, constantly and solemnly urged upon us in Holy Scripture, and therefore not to be missed out in any statement of Christian doctrines, such as that in my present course of sermons, — destined as they certainly are by Him who has revealed them, to exercise, when soberly stated and humbly thought on, a salutary effect on our hearts and lives. ; With these introductory remarks, let us approach the parable itself. Now perhaps of all parables, this one depends the most for its being rightly understood, on a full knowledge of the circumstances which led to its being spoken. For it forms a direct commentary on a question asked of our Lord, and on His own answer to that question. The circumstances then were these. A rich young man, who had enquired of our Lord what good thing he should do to obtain eternal life, had gone away disappointed, on hearing of the sacrifice of his worldly substance which was required of him. Our Lord hence took occasion to speak of the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven : adding, in reply to a question of the Apostles, 136 PARABLES : ^ Who then can be saved that with God all things were possible. Then came the enquiry which led to our parable being deliyered. Peter, who was ever the forward spokesman, framing in words, and boldly utter- ing, the thought which was do.ubtless on the minds of the rest, rejoined, " Behold, we have left all things, and followed thee: what shall we have therefore?" And then our Lord, with that simple truthfulness which ever presents both sides of a matter, without fear or bias, first announces to them the pre-eminent great- ness of their own reward — their sitting on twelve thrones in the new state of things, judging the twelve tribes of Israel ; — and not only this, but He also pro- claims the general law of his heavenly kingdom, that every one who shall for His sake leave brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, shall receive many fold as much, and shall inherit eternal life. So much for the positive promise ; w^hich, re- member, no opposite doctrine can ever modify or explain away ; and which nothing in the following parable must be understood as contradicting. Now however we come to the other side of the divine dealings. " But," our Lord adds, " many first shall be last, and last first.'^ Let us see how we should have understood this saying, if the parable, with its con- necting words, " For the kingdom of heaven is like," had not followed upon them. I suppose we should have understood them somewhat after this manner. We could not have imagined them for a moment to mean that God's dealings would be imcertain and capricious,] or" that any who were really first, in sacrifice or in i THE LABOURERS IX THE VIXEYARD. 137 service, should be by Him accounted last in His final apportionment of reward ; but we should have so in- terpreted the word "frst/^ as to secure for it a mean- ing of this kind, — that these persons, many of whom would turn out to be last in the end, imply those who think themselves first, or whom men think first, or who on account of any seeming advantage appear to have prior and greater claim than others, — who really are first, at a certain time, and for certain reasons, but are not first on the whole, and at the end. Many of these, our Lord says, will discover in the end that their claim is nothing ; — or that it has been marred by some fatal set-ofi* against them ; and they will have to take their place among the last ; will be least in the kingdom of heaven, or even excluded from it: — among the last of all, whose lot will be then adjudged. And on the other hand, in interpreting the other clause, "and the last shall be first,'* we should take the word " last " with the same caution, — and under- stand it to mean, those who think themselves last, or whom men account last, or who from any apparent shortcoming, of time, or birth, or place, or circum- stance, appear to have served God at a disadvantage •as compared with those others. Many of these again, our Lord tells us, wiU find at last that their place is not where they humbly placed themselves, nor where men placed them, nor in proportion to their manifold disadvantages, but far better than so : — among the first, and most honoured, and most richly rewarded. Such, I suppose, would have been our understanding of these important words, if the parable had not been 138 PARABLES : spoken. Now this understanding of them the parable is intended to make surer and deeper and clearer : while at the same time it opens to us, — as does every illustration spoken by our divine Teacher, — other and new truths as to God's dealings, which we could not have known without it. It begins with the small but most important word "for,'' rendering a reason for that which has just been said. It shall be so, because God's kingdom, — His way of proceeding with men — His bestowal of grace and work, with a view to a great final award, and that award itself, —is like the following account of what might be human, every-day transactions. And the account is this ; taken, as we shall afterwards see, not ■ for example of what is right, but to illustrate the great truth just spoken in this case. A householder, — a man, that is, occupying an estate i or farm, — goes forth in the early dawn to hire labourers ' into his vineyard : the vineyards, in that country, being the principal portion of cultivated land, as the corn- field or the hop-garden might be with ourselves. And the supposition is, that he does not employ a certain i stafi" of labourers in permanence, but goes out into thei market or public place to seek them from day to day. ! On this particular day, he wants as many as he can find ; and he seeks them, and finds them, at several different times, answering to the quarters of the day, with one remarkable exception presently to be noticed, ' With the first lot of men engaged, he makes a special agreement. He hires them at wh-at is called in our version a penny ^ but what reaUy is a denarius, about THE LABOURERS IX THE VINEYARD. 139 eightpence, for the day : which, according to the prac- tice of the time, was a liberal day's wages. With the second lot, hired at the third hour, — say nine in the morning, — and with the two following lots hired, at noon and at three p.m., he makes no such agree- ment : he only tells them that whatever was just, he would give them. But he pays one more visit to the public square, and that at the eleventh hour, — one horn- before sunset : when the shadows are beginning to lengthen, and the men in the vineyard are thinking, in their weariness, on the near approach of their dis- missal. This may seem a strange proceeding, but none have a right to find fault with it. The work of the day in his vineyard is not accomplished, and he wishes for more hands to bring it to completion. To these, after remonstrating with them on their standing all the day idle, and receiving for answer that no one had hired them, he simply gives an order to go also into his vineyard, without exciting in them any expecta- tions, further than would necessarily arise from the very fact of hiring at all; — the confidence of fair re- muneration, which underlies every commercial contract between man and man. It may be well now to pause, before we come to the next incident in the parable, and to make sure of our interpretation thus far. Clearly, for here there is no doubt, in the householder or land- holder here, we have set before us Almighty God, — the owner of all and the employer of all ; — the great Taskmaster, to whom our time and laboui' is due. His vineyard again is His work in the world, or in the Church, or rather in the world by the Church : — 140 PARABLES : that work to which He calls whom He will, and when He will : — which He is pleased to carry on by em- ploying His creatures as His instruments and fellow- workers. As to the rest of the machinery of the parable, it is evident it admits of many interpretations. The day here spoken of, — we may take it, if we will, for the whole lifetime of the world, — the whole day of time ; and then the labourers first called will be the Jews, whom Grod summoned to His work under ai special covenant ; and those who succeeded will re- ' present the Gentiles, with whom as yet, when our Lord spoke the parable, there was no special covenant entered into ; and these coming in one after another, even to the nation, whatever it be, which shall receive the Gospel just before the end shall come : — or we may, i if we will, take the day as representing the lifetime of the Christian Church, and the first labourers as the Apostles, with whom our Lord, by His reply to their question, had just entered into a covenant, and a, definite promise of reward;— and then those called after-! wards will represent us of later times, who have fol- lowed, with no such high mission and no such special' promise, trusting in His faithfulness who hath caUed us : — or again we may take the day to represent the' day of human life, and the first called labourers those' who have in the morning of life entered the service and begun the work of God, taking up and making their own the covenant obligations of their baptism, serving on certain and known conditions : and then those hired at the following hours will answer to men' who have obeyed the call of God at various periods of THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 141 tlieir lives, in liigli youth, or when the work of life is at its busiest, or when life's sun is beginning to decline, or even when the light and strength of life is well nigh over, — at the eleventh hour of old age. All these various meanings have been given, and aU I believe are right. The parable is manifold in its applications ; it has in fact many more than these ; any circumstances whatever, which can constitute a dif- ference in time of God's calling of men, or in advantage of using their powers for him, in the amount, or the kind, of work done, of sacrifice made, of apparent claim for ultimate reward, — to any of these wiU the parable fit, and in any of them so far find a lawful aj)plication to the distinctions between man and man as labourers in the vineyard of God. But now let us advance in our consideration of the Parable itself. At length the evening arrives, and the labourers come in to be paid. The lord of the vineyard says to his steward, ^' Call the workmen and give them their wages, beginning from the last even to the first." This prescribed order does not in itself seem to mean any thing, but as you will observe, it is necessary for the working out of the parable : it must be previously seen what the last were to have, in order for the fii^st to find ground of mm-muring. Fii'st then among the workmen appear those who were called at the eleventh houi\ They receive every man the denarius, the siun agreed upon for the full day's wages. This was more than they had a right to expect, bestowed out of the free bounty and good will of the owner of the vineyard. And so the payment goes 142 PARABLES : on, eacli receiving the same, until the steward arrives at those who had been hired earliest in the morning. They thought they should have received more : their amount of work had been more, they had borne the burden and heat of the day. And here we cannot help thinking on the Apostles' question and its ground : " Lo we have left all and followed thee : what shall we have therefore?" But observe: — they also received- each the same denarius ; the fair day's wages for the fair day's work ; and further than that, — the very sumi covenanted at the beginning when they were hired. Now those who would rightly interpret the parable must not shrink from acknowledging, that there does seem, if we look merely at the human side of the story, and judge by those expectations which all men form of proportionate amount of remuneration for work done, — that, I say, there does seem some reasonable ground why these first hired labourers should be dissatisfied. i It would be vain to deny it : nor does our Lord mean, l! believe, that such treatment would be always just and right in human dealings : but that, for certain other reasons, which do not apply to our human dealings, the way in which men will be dealt with in the kingdom of heaven resembles the conduct of this householder, which, as I said before, is not proposed as an example for us, but only as something by which the great truth i may be illustrated. The words which the householder • uses in reply to the murmurers, undoubtedly would not satisfy a fair-dealing judgment as between man and ' man : we should certainly say, that though he had a i right to do what he would with his own, he was hardly . THE LABOURERS TX THE VINEYARD. 143 acting fairly in the disproportionate favour whicli lie shewed to those who had been standing all day idle, and had only worked one hour, and in the neglect and scanty measure with which he treated those who had spent the long weary day in his service. Now it is very important to bear all this in mind ; and it has been far too little thought of by those who have dealt with this interpretation. For this parable is like that of the unjust steward, or that of the unrighteous judge, in this respect, that our Lord takes the worldly dealings of worldly men, not for us to imitate as they are, but for us to learn heavenly things by, and to become as wise in our state as children of light, as they are in theirs as children of this world. Let us then go on to say, in order that we may make this instruction clear, that the answer which these first i labourers got was, in the mere human meaning of the , parable, rather hard measure. A man who is liberal, [ should also be just. We can scarcely suppose that all 1 the early-hired labourers were bad, and all the late- r hired good : they were the same kind of men : but the p owner of the vineyard chose, in doing what he would 1 with his own, to favour the one set, and to disfavour the • other. And this, judging hardly and literally, ac- e cording to the strict technical rule of his covenant, ^ he had a right to do. He gave the first what he had I agreed to give them : he gave the last what he pleased. ,t With the first there was a covenant, which he fulfilled i to the letter ; with the last, there was none, and he was a to them very liberal. And when one of those first y murmured at what he received, the householder had a 144 PARABLES : perfect right, in strict hard justice, to say what he did : ''Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny ? Take that thine is and go thy way : I will give unto this last even as unto thee. May I not do what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?'' I say this was strictly and barely just : it was nol what we call fair, using a wider word, which takes in not only agreements and covenants, but also tacit anc unwritten expectations. But such expectations them- selves, let us remember, are grounded on a certain state) of things found in men's mutual intercourse with one another : on the value of one man's work to another, — on the right which we have to look for an equivaleni for pains bestowed : — all, thoughts and hopes dependeni entirely on the equality of rights and merits as between man and man. And now let us endeavour to translate the parable into the realities of spiritual things, remembering well what has been said concerning it. First let us see what it cannot mean, and clear it from one or two misunder- standings. Well then, we are sure that the Judge o; all the earth will do right ; and that whatever there appears of wrong or hardship in the parable, belongs tc its mere human machinery, and not to its interpretatior as applied to the divine treatment of us all. Now let ug| return and ask, what is it that makes the appearance oi hardship here ? Is it not, — to follow out what has beer already hinted at, — the fact that we all regard wages foi work done as bearing a certain proportion to that work; so that the more work, the more wages ? And conse-i THE LABOURERS TX THE ^'IXEYARD. 145 quently we cannot help feeling that if the eleventh hour men were, for whatever reason, paid by the penny, the " men who had worked all day ought to have had more ? Xow this, I think, clears up very much the spiritual : interpretation. Between man and man, there is a debtor and creditor account of obligation incurred and payment ): due ; even when not absolutely stipulated, men take this n for granted, and expect accordingly. Betiveen man and i\ God, there is no such relation. Xo man ever made God i-| his debtor, or laid Him under obligation to him. Every :e covenant between God and man is an act of free un- le deserved grace on God's part. TTe have forfeited by - SLQ all claim to God's favour ; and even had we never It sinned, all we have and are is His, and we can earn ;t nothing from Him. The man who has served Him 1 during a long life has no more claim on Him than he who was converted to Him yesterday ; and the question t "TThat shall we have therefore?" was one deserving U the rebuke given to it by this Parable, as founded in ] ignorance of the true position of man in the service of • God. It is entirely of God's free grace that we can do i works well pleasing to Him at all : and this doing what i He will with his own, which was the somewhat harsh 0 measure dealt out by the earthly master, is, as applied D to God, His absolute right, founded in eternal Justice, } and exercised by iafinite Love. i{j But again; — another error to be avoided is this, [ which persons very commonly fall into ra interpretiag 1 the parable. All got theii' denarius, — their penny. All, : in the story, were paid the same. Therefore, say some, • all will get the same, who are saved and rewarded in the L 146 i*AiiABlEs : end. To which I answer, Impossible. Scripture is against it, — every declaration of divine love, every con- sideration of common justice is against it. Let us con- sider the interpretation with a view to make it clear that it is not so. What is this reward of the Christian ?: Eternal life, you will rightly answer. But what isi eternal life ? I reply, the enjojTnent of God : — the knowing Him, loving Him, seeing Him, as He is. This is life eternal. Take one hundred men, and give this gift to all of them : I say that no two of them will have received the same. The greatness and the richness of the Christian reward are measured by the man's capacity for knowing and seeing God. Take for example these murmurers at the owner of the \"ineyard : do we suppose that such a spirit as that was likely to enhance the value of the denarius which they got ? Would it not be absolutely worthless to them ? Would not the heavenly inheritance be to such men without a charm, even if they entered on it ? And so it is and will be with God's unspeakable gift of HimseK, and His heavenly kingdom. On His part il is the same to all His people. All who are saved have life eternal ; all who are saved have Himself to enjoy But very different will be the enjojTnent of Him ii those who have loved much, and sought Him early, anc served Him long, and in those who haVe but a shor time of their lives turned to Him : at least such will b< the case generally, and as a rule : the more love, thi more obedience : the more obedience, the more know-: ledge of Him : the more knowledge of Him here, th» brighter revelation of Him hereafter : the brighter tb THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD. 147 revelation, the richer the joy. But all this will be ■ marred and blighted, all this will be reversed, if pride ■ suggests, and presumption puts forward, the question r "What shall we have therefore ?" Such a thought will ? reduce the first to last : the creeping in of spiritual s pride will poison a thousand Christian virtues ; will e spoil the final reward, by dimming the sight of God and !. cooling the love of Him. e And to every man of us, to each in his place, to each tt with his advantages, to each with his causes for thank- 8 fiilness, come these words like a solemn knell of constant 's remembrance : — There are first that shall be ,e last." Let us take them to ourselves before we end ej this subject. 1 1 In how many things, my brethren, may we be said to it' be first, or among the first ! Born in this happj^ land e of Kght and freedom : dwelling under the vine and 1, fig-tree of spiritual abundance, — ever drawing water out of the very wells of salvation ; — such are we of this ft realm and of this Church of England ; — first in the it world in the knowledge of God, in the acquaintance e with, — and, notwithstanding our many faults, in the r, practice too of His holy will* And then to come ji nearer ; what are we in this place, we worshipping day id by day in this glorious temple, we summoned week by rt week to the Table of our Lord, we who dwell in a city 3e| of which, if she disgraced her Christianity, the very le stones would cry out ? Truly, my brethren, we are first r- among the first ; most privileged in a privileged land : Iff longest at work in the vineyard, bound to God by the ielmost ancient and the most explicit covenant. "But L 2 I 148 PARABLES : there are first that shall be last/' We of England — we of Canterbury — we of this church, — do we mean thus to fall through from our high estate, and be cast away after aU ? Are we resting in our own superiority, pluming ourselves on our pure belief, and our apostoKc Church, j and our burning and shining Hne of Christian worthies ? and are we looking down on others who have not had our advantages — others who in our esteem are last, — and hardly to be counted at all ? Ah, my brethren, f there may be many of those who wiU be preferred before i us, in that day when we shall stand before God. And I there assuredly will be, — if we do not, each in his place, give ourselves up to the humble and zealous service of our heavenly Master. I But there is consolation in the words, as well as warning : and with that I will end. " The last shall BE FIRST.'* Be of good cheer then, humble and un- known Christians, whom no man has placed among the busy outward religious, — whose tongues are silent, it may| be, on holy things, and with whose hearts' secrets the stranger intermeddleth not. Men may despise you, but God knows you : men may slight you, but Christ loves you ; the sheep may not know one another, but the Shepherd knows them all ; the Church's brightest lights often shine heavenwards, and she never sees them, because she does not live enough in heaven. At the same time, let us remember what has been already said. Though reward. is not of merit but of grace, yet as God is true, reward there is, rich reward there shall be, when He cometh in his kingdom : reward not for pretension, not for spiritual pride, not forj THE LABOURERS IX THE VINEYARD. 149 priority of calling, not for accumulation of claims before jrod, — but for bumble earnest self-denial, for meek jubmission, for cbeerful resignation, for love tbat spends md is spent. May you and I by God's grace thus sow our seed in ;his time of tears and of toil, that we may stand laden vitb tbe golden harvest- sheaves of His rich approval, in .he day of His appearing. SERMON XIL (PEEACHED ON SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY, FEB. 23, 1862.) PARABLES: THE SOWER. LrKE viii. 15. " That on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, , having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.'* 1 There is hardly any of the parables fuller of instruction than this of the Sower. The two which have come be- fore us on the two last Sundays, those of the tares of the field, and the labourers in the vineyard, have been rather concerned with the great outward course of God's church and government : but this has to do with the efiects of the gospel, when preached, on men's hearts! and lives. Its character is more spiritual and inward than that of those others. At the same time it, like those others, bears its testimony to great Christian doc- 1 trines : and the two which stand most prominent in it are, the power of the word of God, and the power of the heart of man to receive or to reject it. The word of God is likened to seed : the heart of man to soil, on i which the seed is cast, ' parables: the sower. 151 The power which lies wrapt up in seed is wonderful, 't contains the germ of the future plant : and not only hat, but a faculty, granted by the Creator, to develope hat hidden form and become itself the plant, and in ime to bring forth new seeds, like what itself once was, , But the exercise of this power is altogether dependent m its being deposited in soil favourable for it. The soil, on the other hand, has certain powers im- parted to it by the Great Creator, of acting on the seed : ind without these being called out, the seed remains Darren and unfruitful. Even so it is, my brethren, with the word of God, md the heart of man. The word of God is quick and powerful, containing in it all the germs of spiritual life, ible to make wise unto salvation, able to multiply itself indefinitely by the living plants which spring from its deposition up and down the world. But it again is altogether dependent on its being deposited in the soil of the human heart, and on that soil being favourable for its reception. And that soil, the heart of man, has certain powers imparted to it by Him who made it, powers of acting on and vi^dfying the seed of the word dropped upon it, or of excluding it from entering into its inward parts, and rendering it unfruitful. These are the lessons given us in the main by the parable. Let us deal with them separately, and then go briefly through the various classes of hearers which it brings before us. The word then is seed : sown, as our first great parable told us, by Christ, Himself or his agents : sown every where : sown at all times, Prii;,cip^Uy perhaps 152 PARABLES : THE SOWER. in preaching : but in plenty of ways, besides preacbing. The sower is ever sowing. The word of God is cast upon us in our private thoughts, in our converse with others, in our hearing or reading of daily events, of ^mercies, of judgments : in our education, and in our business : in our sicknesses, our bereavements, our hopes, our fears: day by day and hour by hour, as well as in solemn places and times. And 0 what wondrous power this seed has, if it do but penetrate a man's heart and grow there ! First of all, it is quite unlike any word of man, any mere piece of human wisdom or human information. Drop that into a man, and if he receives and understands it, it becomes part of his mental or practical store, he becomes so much the wiser, so much the better informed : but drop the very least word of God into a man, and it does, not become part of him, but he becomes part of it : it springs up in him, and does not cease growing, tHl it has taken up and overshadowed his whole being. It changes him into itself: in its light he sees Kght: deeper and deeper, higher and higher, reach its root below, its branches above ; and it, which was once less than all seeds, has become a great tree, in which all his thoughts and feelings and desires find shelter and abode. A man may come to know that Caesar invaded Britain, and he has an addition to his knowledge, remaining the man he was : but a man cannot come to know that J esus Christ died for sinners, and remain the man he was before he knew it : it enters his heart, and constrains him by love, and penitence, and gratitude, even till he loses his former life, and lives by faith of the Son of PARABLES : THE SOWER. 153 God, who loved Hrn and gave Himself for him. I say this will be so, when a man hioics this for a fact : not merely when he hears it, reads it, speaks of it, preaches of it : — for thousands do all these, without ever KNOWING it : — thousands do aU these, and go on in the -ervice of sin, in the pursuit of pleasure, being in and li this present world, thinking they have only to per- form their moral and social duties, and all will be right ill the end: — but let only the fact, Jssrs died for me a DINNER," sink down into the caves and springs and deep ?oil of a man's heart, and he cannot live in sin, — he i-annot follow the world's fashions, — he is discontented *vith and loathes his own best performances of duty : — :ie sees God in another Kght, he sees himself in another ight, he sees the world in another light : in a word, "if my man be in Christ he is a new creature : old things ire passed away, behold all things are become new." Such is the wondi^ous power of the divine seed : such :he transforming energy of the word of God, received ind understood. But now let us pass to the other great truth — the ^reparation of the heart in man. This immense result )f which we have been just speaking, it is not in man's oower to bring about, any more than it is in man's 30wer to make a plant out of a seed. It is God's doing : md all the means and ways to it are of God's providing. 3ut though this is so, yet here, as with the seed, God is :)leased to make men his fellow-workers. He provides he inherent power both in seed and soil. But He does lot put the seed into the soil : He does not, except by arger and more general influences than those of which 154 parables: the sowtsr. we are at present speaking, prepare the soil for the seed. Both these he leaves to be done by man. It is true, that even these are from Him : it is expressly written that the preparation of the heart in man is from the Lord : but this clearly means that it cannot be carried on without His gracious help and continual blessing ; i not that He does it, and leaves man to sit still. The Christian doctrine is this : not that divdne grace comes down upon us, carrying us out of ourselves, overbearing and superseding our own natural will : rather does it ) affirm that it is of God's unspeakable grace that we have a will to seek to Him, — that the power of exercising that will is granted and is continued to us by the same free and undeserved grace : but that it is we who must use that grace, it is we who must exercise that will, it is we ' who can exclude His word and His grace from working in our hearts, it is we who can seek His promised help simply and earnestly, and by it can open our hearts to His word, so that the seed shall drop in and work by its own wonderful inherent power. Now in what we have to say about the various classes of hearers in the parable, we shall see various degrees < of this preparation or of the neglect of it, and corre- : spending various degrees of the failure or success of the deposited seed of God's word. In considering the first class of hearers, we must form to ourselves some idea of the spot where the sowing takes place. Imagine a field, extending over portions of soil brought under various degrees of cultivation, by and by | to be described. Through this field there runs a beaten path. Such a field is represented by the rude but PARABLES : THE SO^N'ER. 155 igorous hand of the ancient glass-painter in one of the irger windows of this north aisle of our choir : and it i interesting to remember, that that representation of lie parable, which has stood there with its silent testi- lony for nearly 700 years, was made for the worship- ers here when there were no printed Bibles, and when 1 fact those illustrations were the great Bible for the eople. How much better ought we, who have the Titten word in every room in our houses, to under- :and its teaching : how much more deeply to feel it ! lut this only by the way. Imagine then such a field, -and such a path across it. The sower casts his seed very where. So God casts all His bounties. " Why lis waste?'' is not Christ's question, but Judas's. What is the use of doing this and that good, kindly, beral act?" is not a wise man's enquiry, but a fool's. Jid the seed being cast every where, — some of it, much f it, falls beside this beaten path : on ground partly Todden, full of footmarks and hard spots. "\^Tiat is likely ) become of this seed? There is doubtless a chance of its Dining up, and even prospering. The ground is not all ard : softening showers may fall, — or, as it lies there on le surface, the foot of the passer-by may tread it in, in- jead of crushing it : — when the crop comes up, the path lay be reduced more within boimds, and it may become portion of the crop itself. But it has other enemies, esides the passing feet and the half-beaten soil. It Kes sposed — it has not sunk in. The birds of the air came ad devoured it up. And so, our Lord teUs in the ex- lanation, it is with a whole class of hearers of His 156 PAKABLES : THE SOWEH. word, who when they hear, do not understand : do no take in what they hear. It passes over the outward ear it lies for a time on the surface of the memory. Ther( are soft places in the heart, into which it might sink i it had a chance : even the most frivolous and leas earnest are not past feeling ; — they have their hopes and their loves, and their little interests, through whicl, the good word might find a chink of access, howeve: unpromising it may seem : and now and then God'i heavy hand descends on the brittle fabric of their trifling pleasures, and the softening hour of sorrow might let th( good seed into what soil there is in them. But this ii all too good to be true in their case. The enemy of soul is too quick for such triflers. Those who will not tab care of their own souls are wards of his, and he takei care of them for them. " Immediately,'" our Lord telli us, he " comes," losing no time, " and takes away th< word which has been sown in their hearts, lest the;) should believe and be saved." Takes it away ; how i Has he then access to our hearts and can he remov( thoughts and facts out of them ? Perhaps we should b( wrong in saying that the parable asserts so much ai this. There may be many methods of taking away th( good seed. It has merely lain on the outer surface, anc has never in reality become the thought of the heart' And so any bird of the air, any passing thought, an} trifling or flitting concern, — a coming entertainment, o] a past one, — or an idle jest on coming out from the plac( of hearing, — or a thousand things even less marked anc assignable than these, may prove the breath of th( PARABLES : THE SOWER. 157 iipter, and the descent of the evil bird, — and the i)od seed shall be gone, and its place shall know it no lore. Multitudes of every congregation, multitudes of you, aj brethren, belong to this class of hearers : people rho sit and listen, without any real interest or earnest- less : on whose minds there remain perhaps a few hings that have been said, for a little while : but the ?empter, whom you see not — and perhaps only half •elieve in, so far has he deluded you, — is ever busy bout you ; and before the Sunday is over, or perhaps •efore you are out of these precincts, he will put in his bought, his fact remembered, his prospect looked for- ward to, — and what you heard is gone for ever. And yet — gone for ever ?■ was this true ? Ah no, my •rethren : nothing ever goes for ever. The seeds were own in the wind, and it blew them away ; but you rill reap them in the whirlwind : not in blessed fruit, >ut in bitter ashes of remorse, in the day of desperate orrow. And what class comes next ? Truly, a very different ne. Some portions of the field are ver}^ near upon the lative rock: — stony places where there is not much .epth of earth. The moisture lies confined here ; the un's rays act with power on the rock, and its scanty overing : the seed falls as on a hot-bed : long before he rest of the field, this plot is clothed with beautiful Teen blades : it is a speedy and a wonderful promise, — nd the inexperienced husbandman passes by and re- oices. But alas for all his hopes : — let the sun rise dgh, — or, as we should rather say in our less tropical 158 PARABLES : THE SOWER. 1 and less certain climate, let dry weather set in ; there is no depth of soil holding store of moisture : there is no root sent down into places where the hot sun, or the drought, has no power : the same beam which onc< heated into life, now scorches to death : — all the blade wither away, — all the fair hope is disappointed : — am when the field is golden with rich corn, that corner is { rustling mass of shrunken straws. Now who are these ? Who, but those hearers whc are ever impulsive, ever ready to run after the sounc of preaching, receiving the word with joy? Wit! them, all seems done in a moment. 0 blessed sount of God's word ! 0 quick and ready efiect ! What a warmth of heart, what a softness of feeling must be- there : — what a blessing, if all were like these : — what an encouragement to a preacher : what a present re- ward for his toil ! But wait awhile, and the more experienced pastor will wish all were like any but these. Track them into life : watch them in what ought to be their growth in grace. Where is the blessedness they spoke of ? Where is all that gushing forth of earnestness which seemed ready to lead to any amount of fruit ? Where are these, when the hard eye of the man of the world lights upon them : — when scorn and derision encounter them ? Before we answer the questions, let us look at these hearers a little more closely. This warmth and openness of heart, what is it — how deep does it go ? What is there beneath it? The hard impenetrable rock. They are even more hopeless, as to any lasting effect, than the former. In them the surface was hard, but there was J PARABLES : THE SOWER. 159 food soil beneath, if it could be got at. And so it very ommonly is with the rash and impulsive, with the eady praiser and the soon moved : he is even harder leneath than the trifler and the light-minded. In this atter the hindrance is on the surface : you never got tOwn into his real self ; but you may some day, and 'ou may find a good sterling character after all. In his second case, the advantage is all on the surface, nd the hindrance is beneath. When you look for .epth in the character, and for root to the plant, you nd there is none. All is stir, show, earnest feeling : 'Ut the whole character is not an inch deep : there is .0 sub-soil, for any thing worth having to grow in. Lnd so these hearers cannot stand even the least mount of trial from without. At the first contact /ith tribulation, persecution, ridicule, the heavenly hoot that was so promising is all withered up and ;one. They are offended. The joy at hearing the rord cannot last for ever : the word, if rightly heard, •rings sorrow as well as joy; and when that comes, hey fall away. These are not so common as the 3rmer ; but they are by no means uncommon. They onstitute a great portion of the audiences of popular Teachers; running about at the call of "Lo here," nd " Lo there,'' but shewing no solid fruits of grace nd obedience in their lives. They are more to be )imd perhaps in great cities, where all is intelligence nd stir, and there is abundance of choice what people oil hear, than in retired country places like our own, ^here the current of thought moves slow, and the area } but limited : and every where they are more to be 160 PARABLES : THE SOWER. found among tlie softer sex and the young, thai among those who are habituated to the real business o Hfe. The mention of these last brings us to the nex great division in the parable. In the field there h also a portion of soil to all appearance good and wel prepared and deep, but not well cleared from the root; of noxious thorns, which at the growing season wil' be sure to send up their shoots and cover the soil. There the seed falls in, and for a time all goes wel It sends down its root, and pushes its blade upward but with the blade come up also the rank vigorou runners from the unclean weeds. And the result i as may be supposed. The weed is ever stronger tha] the wholesome plant : that which is indigenous, thai that which is brought from afar. And so the tende blade is choked, and draws up weak and yellow an( sickly, and its ear just appears, but there is no frui in it, and so it dies away. Ask we what class of hearers we are now dealin; j with? Let us listen to the great Teacher Himself " That which fell among thorns are they which whe they have heard, go forth, and are choked with care » and riches and pleasures of this life, and lusts of othe i things, and bring no fruit to perfection." Observe • that here all goes weU at first. There is not the in \ attentive ear of the first set, nor the easy and shallow \ susceptibility of the second. The soil is good and deej j These men hear and understand. They go their wa} ) and remember what they have heard, and resolv i well ; but their hearts are preoccupied with othe i I parables: the sower. 161 things : they have no room for good thoughts in them : no time for doing good and obeying Christ. No"W such hearers are Tery common indeed : far more so than would at first sight appear : far more so among us, than those of the last class. And one large detach- ment of them consists of persons in whose hearts the good seed was sown b}^ Christian parents in well- tended childhood, and who have always been leading moral and correct lives, and imagine on that account that the heavenly plant is prospering in them: for- getting that the good seed is not the only thing that has been growing there ; that evil propensities, fleshly appetites, selfish ambition, and other evil weeds, have been growing too, and will assuredly, unless they be rooted out, choke the divine plant and render it un- fruitful. ^'Eender it unfruitful:" for they will not quite destroy it : there will be the form of godliness : li the coming to church, and it may be to Holy Com- munion : the correct belief, the carefulness about all 1^ . proprieties : but no fruit : no real self-denying living 1 zeal for Christ or His work. 0 how often do we see I this — a sickly dwindled religion, dragging on in men e : a miserable contemptible existence ; known by all but I [ themselves, and sometimes known by themselves too, t to be an empty farce ; upheld on fitting occasions : D defended with indignant assertion when their credit is )i at stake or their worldly advantage, — but forming no I I part of their belief, and being a matter on which they IT never so much as waste a thought in private, or a 1 1 prayer by their bedsides, unless some one else sees i 1 them. And even what appears to be fruit, in such 162 PARABLES : THE SOWER. persons is not fruit. They give it may be for charitable ends ; but it is because it is expected of them, or to get rid of importunity, or that they may not appear less liberal than such or such a neighbour ; but never because they love the Lord Jesus Christ, — because they would obey what He has commanded ; which is the only motive that bears fruit towards God. And many of this class too belong to those who really intend to be Christian men, but the world is ever coming in and preventing them : Sunday's resolves melt away before Monday's business, — are replaced next Sunday, again to disappear in like manner. But is there no class in whom the seed really does change their nature and find fit soil to grow in? 0 yes, brethren : " Some fell on good ground, and sprung up, and bore some thirty, some sixty, some one hundred.'^ And who are these in the interpretation? "They who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience." Observe first here, the honest and good heart. This is the very first condition of hearing the word pro- fitably. The intent must be clear and simple. Clear : a man must not come to church he knows not why, but with a view of getting good and becoming better ; and simple : this view must not be only one among many, but must be the ruling and the only one. Look at the difierence from the other classes. In the first, the wayside hearers, there was no intent at all : they were shut up and hardened by carelessness and in- difference. In the second, the joy with which they parables: the sower. 163 [leard was no settled purpose : it merely rustled on th.e surface, and was not felt beneath, at all. In the third? the intent was neither clear nor simple : it was com- pKcated, uncertain, disunited : there were side-purposes, worldly regards, present and prevailing. But in this last class, there is the requisite ; an honest and good heart. And therefore the holy seed comes to maturity, and bears according to their capacity, — in which one man is made different from another. Having heard the word, they keep it ; hold it fast, clasp it to them : the Httle tendrils, so to speak, of their thoughts and affections twining round that which they have heard, so that it is the stay and stem of life to them. There is in these what there was not in any of the others, inward disposition of heart acting on life. " It yielded fruit springing up and increasing," says St. Mark : it sprung up, for there was no hardness of surface : ft increased, for there was both depth of root, and clearness of space for its growth. And notice, that the fruit borne is the man himself, not something outside him : not an assignable quantity of good deeds which may be laid to his account, — but HIMSELF, body, soul, and spirit, made into a tree of righteousness which the Lord hath planted. Notice also the various proportions of fruit-bearing which are mentioned. Here indeed in St. Luke we have but one : they bare fruit an hundi'edfold." But in the other two Gospels we have tbree degrees in- troduced : — some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred- fold. It is remarkable, that here none merely gives back what he received. There is no " Lo here is thy M 2 164 parables: the sower. ' talent which I have kept wrapped up." The lead in' the kingdom of heaven brings forth fruit thirfyfold what he received as seed. And what wonderful power again this shews us in the heavenly seed itself. That which lay light on the surface of the trifler's heart, and was swept away by the whisper of another trifler when church was over, has sunk into the honest and good heart, and reappears thirty, sixty, an hundred- fold increased in the life and actions of a good Christian man, or a good Christian woman, — bringing glory to God, and blessing to mankind. And once more notice these degrees for another reason. See how they are calculated. It is not, which ear stood highest, grew rankest, furnished the better sample ; but, which produced most fruit. It is not birth, nor acquired station, nor personal influence, nor wealth, nor intellect, which -vsill tell in the great harvest : it is, how much fruit was brought forth for Grod and for good. And remember as we separate, that we have been speaking to-day not of a matter of choice, not of some- thing which may or may not take place in us ; not of a growth which if it goes on may make us somewhat better, and if it is checked may leave us somewhat the worse : but we have been dealing T^dth a matter of life and death. We must receive the seed, we must spring up, we must bring forth fruit to God, or we are lost men. If we come here, merely to listen, and remain as we are ; if we come here merely to receive the word with joy, as we would the sound of an in- strument, and in time of temptation to fall away ; if PARABLES : THE SOWER. 165 we come here to hear and understand, and then let the miserable world choke the seed and make it unfruitful, — we are not better, but worse, for coming here ; and what we hear shall appear against us in the great day. 0 may God deliver us from hearing with the har- dened heart, from hearing with shallow and unabiding excitement, from hearing amidst worldly thoughts and choking cares : and may He give us (for it is His gift alone) the honest and good heart, that having heard the word we may keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. SERMON XIII. (preached on qtjinqttagesima sttndat, maech 2, 1862.) WHY CHRIST SUTFERED. LrKE xviii. 31. " Then Jesus took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, wt go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are wTitten by the prophet concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished/^ We are close upon the season which the Church seti apart for meditation on the sufferings of our Lord, anc on our own sins, which were the occasion of those suffer- ings. And this gives at once an opportunity to oni preaching a course of sermons on Christian doctrines to employ this Sunday in enquiring, for our profit, Hov Christ's sufferings and our sins ^^re connecteu^ Further on in the season, we shall be employed mor« with the details of both sides of the subject — with th' necessity of our repentance and sorrow for sin, an( with the whole procedure of our blessed Lord's deatl and self-sacrifice. So that it will be better for us no\ at the entrance of Lent to follow the guiding of th WHY CHRIST SUFFERED. 167 Church, and put and answer this question — ^VRY did Christ suffer? Now bear in mind wliat was said in the Terr begin- ning of this coui'se. ^' All have sinned tliis was our first subject. "We tried to shew you the truth of this, as opposed to modern unbelief: to bring out the fact that there is in us a continual protest against wrong, testifying that we were made for better things : but at the same time a continual doing of wi'ong, testifying that we are fallen to worse things. Then, after, in our second sermon, shewing the deceitfulness of sin, as accounting for the many treacherous forms of mental and practical imbelief, we insisted, in our third, on the solemn and just sentence, The soul that sinneth, it shall die:'' shewing to you that death, bodily and spiritual, flows from and is the consequence of the sin of our nature. Then on Christmas day came before us the great leading truth, of redemption ; — that God, sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Let me quote to you a few sentences out of that Christmas sermon, for it was the centre and keystone of the year's teaching, eyen as the doctrine of which it treated, the Incarnation of our Lord, is the centre and keystone of the system of Chris- tian doctrines. After striying to shew how He was sent in the Kkeness of sinful flesh, yiz. in perfect manhood, and for sin, yiz. to take away our sins, I went on to say, " Now this taking away our sins He accomplished by two great things which He did : by his life, and by his death. The Apostle Paul put this yery plainly and clearly before us : ' If,' he says, ' when we were enemies, we 168 WHY CHRIST SUFFERED. were reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved through His Life.' The whole process of this wonderful matter — how His Death reconciled us, how His Life saves us, will come before us, please God, hereafter." And then soon after I said, The Son of God has become Man : our nature is united to the Godhead. A new and righteous seed is implanted in it : a second and perfect Head is granted. The first Adam was tried and fell : but this new Adam shall be tried, and shall gloriously conquer. The first Adam, being created liable to Death, lost by sin the means of escaping death, and bound it as a lasting curse on himself and his posterity : the second Adam, also born liable to death, was pleased to become obedient unto death for our sakes ; thus condemning sin, the cause of death, in our flesh. The first Adam brought the penalty of his sin on us, the Head on the members : the second Adam sufiered the penalty of our sin for us, the Head for the members." Now you see where we at present stand. The Son of God was, like the first Adam in his innocence, born liable to death. Death was in fact more a certainty for Him than it was at first for Adam. Adam was of the earth, earthy : / and even without sin, he must eventually have been subject to decay and dissolution,' if he did not first take of the tree of life and thus live for ever. This liability became by his sin a definite sentence of death on him and his race : and thus the second Adam, who was the Lord from heaven, took on him a nature which, how- ever personally pure as dwelt in by Him, was yet under, not the possibility or the probability of decay, but this WHY CHRIST SUFFERED. 169 iefinite sentence of deatli owing to sin. So that, dthough the death of the Son of God was a voluntary jelf-sacrifice, even at the last moment, yet it was not, 50 to speak, an act outside of his human nature, brought ji upon it, but an act belonging to it and involved in lis taking it upon him, unless, which He could have ione at any time if He had pleased, He had exerted his livine Power and saved himself from it. Now then our question returns upon us, — Why then Kd Christ suffer ? And this you will see resolves itself, IS concerned with the matter of fact of His sufferings 'evealed in Scripture, into two questions : why did He lie at all ? and, why did He die as He did ? Now for the sake of reverence, and that we may keep )urselves, in every man's mind, in our proper position, et me say that we do not for a moment ask either of hese questions, as if we could ever answer them by any maided speculations of our own. It is impossible that ve can understand even the simplest truth of redemp- ion, except by the Hght which Grod's record of re- lemption sheds. It is in that Hght, it is as Christian )elievers, that we ask these questions. Holy Scripture las been pleased to assert, or to imply, sufficient answers o both of these. What Scripture asserts, it is the )reacher's duty to enforce : what Scripture impHes, it is lis privilege to unfold. And all we have to say in re- )lying to these questions will fall under one or other f these descriptions : will be an attempt either to en- orce what Scripture has asserted, or to unfold what it las implied. Why then did Christ die ? And we may boldly an- 170 WHY CHRIST SUFFERED swer, witli certain warrant of Scripture, that if He had not died, we could not have been saved. I have dweh often, I dwelt in the next sermon of this course to that on Christmas day, on the vast share in our redemption which is due to our Blessed Lord^s life of holy and spotless obedience. And I then insisted on this point ; that that obedience went even beyond all absolute law and covenant binding the blessed Mediator as obedient to the law for man : it went to a further point, to which the Lord was not, even when under the law, bound by a law ; to which He was constrained by nothing buti transcendent Love. That Love had indeed bound Himl of his own will in the bonds of an everlasting CovenantI to do this thing, because this thing was necessary ia| order that we, the race whom He undertook to savel should be redeemed. M And now look on the matter itself. The Son of Gofl takes on him human nature : takes it entire : in Sm Augustine's words, once before quoted during these ser