BX 5133 .P9 S4 Pusey, E. B. 1800-1882. Sermons preached before the University of Oxford SERMONS. SERMONS PKEACHED BEFORE THE UNRERSITY OF OXFORD BETWEEN A. D. 1859 AND 1872. BY THE REV. E. B.'^USEY, D.D. KEGIDS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH. SOLD BY JAMES PARKER AND CO., OXFORD, And 377, STRAND, LONDON ; And RIVINGTONS, 1872. PRINTED BY THE SOCIETY OF THE HOLY TRINITY, HOLY ROOD, OXFORD. PREFACE. The subjects of the following Sermons, preached be- fore the University mostly at distant intervals, were sug- gested mainly by the circumstances of the times, or the occasions on which they were preached. A few of the last in the volume were delivered at a time, when the necessity for Koman controversy had subsided, and the writer hoped to be able, for the rest of his time, to preach to the younger part of his audience on practical subjects. This hope was destroyed by the publication of the Essays and Reviews, and the tide of unbelief which they let loose upon our students, fulfilling that remark- able, presaging voice of John Henry Newman, whilst yet amongst us : The Heads of Houses may crush Trac- tarianism, and then they will have to do with Ger- manism.^' The writer had, at an early period of his life, thrown himself into the Tractarian movement, as an effective means of bringing to the vivid consciousness of mem- bers of the Church of England, Catholic truths, taught of old within her, pre-supposed in her formularies, but vi PREFACE. unhappily overlaid or watered down in the meagre prac- tical teaching of the 18th century. This he did with a view to the deepening of the piety of individual souls and to the restoration of the whole English Church by God's blessing, to the high ideal which she set before her, viz., to represent in life and in doctrine the teaching of the Undivided Church. As this was developed, the writer hoped that the strong appeal to the first ages of the Church, as representing the minds and teaching of the Apostles, and so of Christ Whose teaching they, through the Holy Ghost, recorded, ex- panded, and applied, would furnish the best check to the inroads on the faith, which, from his first acquaint- ance with German theology, he saw would, sooner or la- ter, come upon us. They who received that teaching had a witness in themselves. Their faith lay secure within an impregnable fortress, which the desultory assaults of cri- ticism could neither shake nor scale. The belief which in our Creeds we confess of One Holy Catholic Apos- tolic Church involves the belief of all which She with one consentient voice has taught. The appeal to that which had been taught "everywhere, always and by alP' lifts us up to the Eternal Sunshine above the reach of that which, by contradicting it, condemns itself. To put before the minds of our people a large body of this an- cient teaching was the object of that part of our joint work which originated with himself though mainly car- ried on by others, and which was interrupted for years by the death of his friend the Eev. C. Marriott, — the Library of the Fathers. To exhibit that same teaching in connection witli Holy Scripture was the object of that PREFACE. vii other plan, , whicli the death of some friends, the self- mistrust of others, as though I had set before us too high a standard for our joint work, and the troubles of the Church, have suspended until now, the Commentary on Holy Scripture. The Heads of Houses did more than they intended. The intellect of Oxford was driven out of it,'^ said to me one, himself of high intellect, whom an university sermon of J. H. Newman had once sent home to pray and who now regretted effects which the Authors had not foreseen. Tractarianism was not indeed ^''crush- ed,^^ but it was shaken vehemently. Those who remained among us were dispersed in different parts of our coun- try, carrying the good seed with them, but leaving Ox- ford, the heart, weakened. Meanwhile they who had so strongly opposed Tractarianism in front, left the back postern unguarded. Oxford was insensibly filled with a school of thinkers, which had formerly been neutralized or converted, and which through their special mode of teaching led others, whither they themselves knew not, nor followed. It is not one of their opponents who has borne witness that an influential member of that school, '^*a most learned and amiable man exercised extraordi- nary influence over the education of the most advanced College in Oxford. He led his pupils quietly on to the negation of all positive Creeds ; not because he was an unbeliever in the vulgar sense of the word, but because his peculiar mode of criticism cut the very sinews of belief. The effect of his peculiar teaching may be traced in many a ripened mind of the present day.^^ a Pall Mall Gazette, March 28th, 18G8. Vlll PREFACE. ni-clioseii text-books completed th^ work. Talented joung men who came prepared for scepticism as con- sidering it a mark of intellect, step by step parted with their faith. The foundations of faith had to be laid anew ; the young had to be won, not to a completer faith, but to Christianity, or to its most central truths. The writer then in some of the following sermons, as in a few others already published, essayed to teach his young audience first principles of faith, or he dwelt on Doctrines which had been represented as incompatible with revelation, or on subjects, which from early experi- ence, he had felt to be of value as evidences of faith. These were, the Person of Jesus, and that miracle, which we can "see with our own eyes and handle with our own hands,'^ the miracle of Prophecy. Early ex- perience had shewn him, in a powerful intellect, how this evidence might, by God^s grace, find entrance into minds which the appeal to miracles of power rather repelled. It would however be to repeat the mistake of the Evidence-writers of the last century, to think that, in this or any other way, the truth of the Gospel could be demonstrated into people^s minds. It is an error which may gravely re-act upon ardent minds, who think that, because certain evidence comes with power to themselves, it must be conclusive to others, and may come to doubt its inherent conclusiveness if they fail (as of course man by himself must) to bring their own conviction home to the hearts of others. One such mind has recorded his own experience, how, going out with fresh, though undisciplined zeal, as a lay-missionary to convert Mohammedans in the East, his faith, then strong, as he thought, received its first shock, from his failure PEEFACE. ix to convey to otliers liis own convictions. That first shock issued (as he himself records) in its entire loss, for the time. May it in God^s mercy not be so finally ! Not so was it with the converters of the world. The Apostles spake to each man "in his own tongue the wonderful works of God," and the wise and learned said, These men are full of new wine.'' St. Paul preached by the river-side, and one only, who exercised a trade, listened. He preached at Areopagus, and two only are named, with " others with them,'' who clave unto him and believed. He preached in Corinth, and needed a revelation from God to encourage him, that He had "much people in this place." They only listened to the outward teaching, whose hearts God predisposed, and who themselves were " obedient to the faith." He laid open the Scriptures to the Jews at Eome, and we hear of those only, who "contradicted and blasphemed." Yet, amid contradiction and blasphemy and contempt, the "Word of God grew and prevailed." We may not then be discouraged, though men con- tradict, nor is any thing gained by answering. Con- troversy is not the real battle-field. Argument by it- self will avail nothiag. Prayer, truth, and the grace of God will convert the world, as they converted it of old. Our Lord's words will abide to the end, " He that is of God heareth God's words." Ch£ist Chuuch, Feast of St. B.^exabas, 1872. CONTENTS. SERMON I. GROUNDS OF FAITH DIFFICULT TO ANALYSE, BECAUSE DIVINE. S. John xii. 32, 33. "I, if I he lifted up from the earth, ivill draw all men unto Me. This He said, signifying ivhat death He should die/' pp. 1—31. SERMON II. GOD IS OUR LIGHT IN ALL KNOWLEDGE, NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL. Act Sermon, Ps. XXVII. 1. " The Lord is my Light." . . » pp. 32 — 52. SERMON III. PROPHECY, A SERIES OF MIRACLES, WHICH WE CAN EXAMINE FOR OURSELVES. 2 S. Peter i. 18, 19. " This voice, which came from heaven, we heard when we we^-e with Him in the holy mount; we have also a more xii CONTENTS. sure tvm'd of inopliecy ; ivhcreunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts/' pp. 53—77. SERMON IV. THE PROPHECY OF CHRIST OUR ATONER AND INTERCESSOR, IN ISAIAH, C. LIII. ISA. LIII. 12. And He hare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.'' .... pp. 78 — 107. SERMON V. THE CHRIST, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, TO BE REJECTED BY HIS OWN, TO BE DESPISED, AND SO TO REIGN IN GLORY. ISA. XLIX. 5-7. ''And noiv, saith the Lm^d, that formed me from the womb to he His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him, Though Israel he not gathered, yet shall I he glorioiLS in tlie eyes of the Lord, and my God shall he my strength. And He said. It is a light thing that thou shouldest he my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel : I ivill also give theefm^ a light to the Gentiles tit at thou may est be My salvation unto the end of the earth. Thus saith tlie Redeemer of Is- rael, and His Holy One, to him tvhom man despiscth, to him whom the nation ahhorreth, to a servant of rulers. Kings sluill see and arise, princes also shall worship, CONTENTS. because of the Lord that is faithful, and the Iloly One of Israel, and He shall choose thee.^' . pp. 108 — 132. SERMON VI. POWER OF TRUTH AMID UNTRUTHFULNESS, IN JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY. Zech. XII. 10. " I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the in- habitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplica- tion, and they shall look upon Me Wliom they have pierced." ...... pp. 133—160. SERMON VII. CAUSES WHICH BLINDED THE JEWS TO THE PRO- PHECIES, THAT JESUS SHOULD SUFFER. ISA. LIII. 1. Who hath believed our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" . . pp. 161 — 185. SERMON VIII., THE GOSPEL COULD NOT BE TRUE, UNLESS IT HAD CERTAIN TRUTH. S. John xviii. 37, 38. " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I shoidd bear ivitness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth?" . . pp. 186—209. xiv CONTENTS. SERMON IX. JESUS, THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. S. John xiv. 6. "lam the Way, the Truth, and the Life." pp. 210—231. SERMON X. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. Rom. in. 26. " That He might he Himself Just, cmd the Justifier of him which helieveth in Jesus." . , . pp. 232 — 262. SERMON XI. CHRIST, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Jer. XXIII. 6. " This is the Name whereby He shall he called, The Lord our BdghteoiLsness." , , . pp. 263 — 289. SERMON XII. HUMAN JUDGEMENT THE EARNEST OF DIVINE. 2 Cor. v. 10. For we must all appear hefore the Judgement seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in the hody, according to that he has done, whether it he good or had." pp. 290—312. I CONTENTS. XV SERMON XIII. THE TERROR OF THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT AS ARISING FROM ITS JUSTICE. 1 Cor. IV. 4, 5. I hnow nothing hy [^. e., o/] myself ; yet am I not here- hy justified ; hut He that judgeth me is the Lord : there- fore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, WJio both will bring to light the hidden things of dark- ness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts'' pp. 313—337. SERMON XIV. GRIEVE NOT THE SPIRIT OF GOD. Eph. IV. 30. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom ye are sealed unto the day of redemption/' . pp. 338 — 358. SERMON XV. VALUE OF ALMS-GIVING IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. Peov. XVI. 6. " By mercy cmd truth iniquity is purged : am^d hy the fear of tlie Lord men depart from evil." . pp. 359 — 387. SERMON XVI. THE WORLD, AN EVER-LIVING ENEMY. S. John xv. 19. " Ye are not of the world, hut I have chosen you out of the world." ...... pp. 388—410. xyi CONTENTS. SERMON XVII. ON HUMAN RESPECT. ISA. L. 6, 7. '^I gave My hack to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that pluched off the hair ; I hid not My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; there- fore shall I not he confounded : therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not he ashamed.^' pp. 411—436. SERMON XYIII. EACH HAS HIS OWN VOCATION. Ps. XL. 9, 10. " Then said I, Lo I come ; in the volume of the hooh it is ivritten of Me, that I should fulfil Thy ivill, 0 My God/' pp. 437—462. SERMON XIX. TO BELIEVE IN JESUS, THE TEACHING OF THE HOLY GHOST. 1 CoE. XII. 3. No mam can say that Jesus is the Lord, hut hy the Holy Ghost.'' pp. 463—492. SERMON I. S. John xii. 32, 33. /, if I he lifted uj) from the earthy will draw all men unto Me, This He said^ signifying what death He should die. Few can adequately explain the gronndo of their belief. Believers are sometimes taunted with their inability to analyse why they believe, as if it were um^easonable to believe any thing, unless you can fully develope to others the grounds upon which you believe it. The young are, at times, perplexed at themselves, as if, however solid the grounds of the faith in itself may be, they could not have solid grounds for their faith, if they cannot produce them. And then the reading of many a book of so-called Evi- dences, such as were written in the last centuiy, especially such as dwell much on human testimony, makes things worse ^. For here they have what pro- ^ This sermon was occasioned by the Essay of the Rev. M. Pattison in the Essays and Reviews, ''Tendencies of religious thought in England, 1688-1750;" the apparent object of which is, while shew- ing historically the weakness of the E^ddence-writers of the ra- tionalising 1 8th century, to undermine the Evidences, and establish the supremacy of reason. The failure of the Evidence-e<;reY6r« had been felt and pointed out, neai'ly thirty years ago, by Dr. Newman B 2 GroundB of Faith fesses to be an account of the grounds of their faith. And they find the account meagre, diy, soulless ; an argument reaching mostly to a probability only ; a case, more or less well drawn out, as far as it goes, but still not yielding the certainty of that faith which they had, before they began to enquire. They are again thi'own back upon themselves. The grounds of their faith, which they have not developed to themselves, lie deeper and are far more certain, than these at- tempted proofs. "Wliat then ? Were they wrong in that first fi'esh certainty of faith ? It were to rend theii' life out of them, to doubt of it. Or were then those books of so-called Evidences inadequate ? The heart knows it must be so. But then what is ade- quate ? Ai'e they and their faith altogether a mys- tery insoluble to themselves ? Or was the answer only inadequate ? And, if so, where is any better to be found ? I had meant, on this occasion, to continue to fur- nish you with a part of one intellectual answer, the ever-present miracle of God's prophetic word, an evi- dence the more direct, because thi'ough His own word God speaks to the soul ; and I will hereafter, if God and myself, but not so as to leave the souls of men thus at sea. The authority of the Chuixh is not a mere outward thing. The Church is a Divine institution, whose existence is itself the fulfil- ment of prophecy. The office of God the Holy Ghost towards in- dividuals is, not to impart new truth, or to make fresh revelations to them, but to bestow upon them the gift of faith, i. e. a Divine certainty as to that which God has already certainly revealed. Mr. Pattison depreciates authority, and mentions ''the Spiidt" only in connection with "Independence." ''It was stiU more quickly discovered that on such a basis [i. e. on the claims of the Independents to the teaching of the Spii-it] only discord and dis- union could be raised." Essays, p. 328. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 3 permit. But now, when we are just reunited for our yearly duties here, and some of you are, for the fii'st time, entering upon your trials, I would give a more general yet more dii'ect answer, bearing on all evi- dence and penetrating it, but which leads you back into yoiu^ own souls. In the Gospel all is supernatural. It was fore-an- nounced, centuries before it dawned on this world, by a wisdom above natiu'e, the Divine light of pro- phecy. It was attested, when it appeared, by Power above nature, betokening the Presence of the Author of nature, "WTiose word creation obeyed in its changes as in its regularity. It put forth a power above na- ture in the lightning-rapidity with which it subdued hearts to itself. It is above natiu-e, in that it alone provides adequate remedies to the infii-mities of hu- man natiu-e. Above nature are the life which it can produce, and the means by which it sustains that su- pematiu-al life, whether the Divine Word or the Sa- craments of Christ or ^'^the sacrament of prayer." Above nature is the whole Office of God the Holy Ghost, in the Chiu'ch and to individuals, God's con- verting, sanctifying, enlightening grace ; above na- ture is the intercoui'se of the converted soul with God, the descent of God on the soul or the ascent of the soul to God. It is difficult then to bring into one focus all these convergent rays of its Divinity. But to name now the central difficulty. The diffi- culty of adequately explaining the grounds of your faith is occasioned by its Divinity ; the Divinity of the Object of your faith, the Divine light of faith whereby you see it. b S. Hilar, in S. Matt. c. 5. p. 630. Ben. b2 4 Grounds of Faith Tlie deeper and more Divine any thing in the soul is, the more difficult it is to analyse the grounds of it. Analyse any deeper human feeling. Analyse the grounds of the love of country. It is real, pow- erful, enduring, independent of gifts of this world or of nature. It is above ordinary nature. It is felt by the simplest, by all who have not wasted natural feeling by debasement or false refinement. It is dearer to men than life, than wealth. It could gaze unquivering on the corpse of husband or of son, and could make the mother place the shield in the hands of her son, parting for life or for death, and say, ^^This, or upon this." It has a soul, which cannot be ana- lysed. Or take that deep yearning sacred love toward father or mother. God has hallowed that love, as the condition of all subsequent good in the child ; He has made it ^Hhe first commandment with promise." The soul flings away with scorn the flimsy plea that we were not indebted to them for our being, that we did not owe it simply to the foreseen love of our- selves. Yet what grounds can we assign proportion- ate to the depth, intensity, sacredness of that feeling ? This also has a soul, which cannot be embodied in words. Or . look again at that deeper mystery still, that love of the parent to the child, most often unre- warded, at best, inadequately requited, yet unextin- guishable ; which no ingratitude, no degradation, no seeming extinction of every thing in it which can be the object of love, can eflace ; which survives the wreck of all, reason, moral sense, feeling ; which, for- getting self, loves with a special love the unconscious difficult to analyse^ because Divine, 5 idiot, yearns over the deadened heart and soul and mind, loves, (the nearest likeness to th^ love of God,) the capacity of nnexisting good, and over the corpse of the heartless, parricide ^ son, burst out into that irrepressible soitow, ^ O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son, my son ! But these, it will be said, are implanted in us. True ; but this leaves unexplained the mystery of that implanted relation of soul to soul which it asserts, the mystery of human filiation. Soul was not deriv- ed fi'om soul, as body from body. Yet it is the soul which loves with that intensity of love the soul to which it did not give, or from which it did not re- ceive its biith. But take then, that other, in one way, yet deeper mystery, to which God has appointed that love of father and mother should, in a degree, yield, that feeling, over which man at first has power, which, when allowed, becomes pai't of himself, so that thence- forth it lives on bound up with his life ; which, when hallowed by God, ends in a oneness which time, se- verance, age, death, breaks not ; nay which, thi'ough death, becomes like the love of God, the love of the unseen, to be renewed where there is neither marry- ing nor gi^^g in maniage, in adoring love before the throne of God. Man could assign this or that ground of his married love. He could not explain to himself the whole. He would feel the grounds inadequate. Yet these, you may say, are feelings still. Yet therefore^ because they are feelings, they belong to man's inmost self ; for, since God is love,-' the true *^ 2 Sam. xvii. 1, 2, 4. lb. xviii. 33. 6 Grounds of Faith being of man, made after the image of God, is far more in his affections than in his intellect. Say then, why you trust. What is it which you see in that open countenance of truth, what is there in that spoken word, that tone, that you could stake your life, that it could not deceive ? Art may, here and there, counterfeit nature, (and they are the dead- liest counterfeits, because they are like to life,) but the unblinded eye can distinguish the truth from the fiction. Trust is not founded on reasoning. It is not simply founded on past truth ; ^ he will not be- tray, because he has not betrayed.' The soul would scorn, as inadequate and derogatory, such a ground of trust. It trusts, because it beholds trustworthi- ness, which yet it cannot analyse. One act of un- trustworthiness annihilates trust ; yet the groimds of trustworthiness are beyond any mere facts of tried truth. The soul sees the soul through that eye of truth, and perceiyes a simplicity of truth, which is beyond analysis. Its conviction is above proof, above its own powers to explain, above reasoning, indepen- dent of reasoning. It is the soul's sight. The soul sees and reads the soul. Or wherein again resides the force of human elo- quence in things human ? Wherein lies that won- drous power, which not only convinces the under- standing, not only creates a passing emotion, or daz- zles the imagination, but, (which, to judge from the history of man and of his Eedemption, seems to be the hardest work of Omnipotence itself,) sways the human will, even when it has determined beforehand, not to be swayed ? It is not clearness of reasoning. Truth itself will convince; it will not win. Man's difficult to analyse^ hecatise Divine. 7 free-agency will look on unmoved. Still less is it rich imagery, or power of thought, or loftiness of concep- tion, or beauty of diction, or measured rhythm, or any skill which human art can analyse. These things have their delight, but they will not move. The ear di'inks in the cadence ; the imagination admii^es ; but the soul looks on unwarmed, imi-eached, as at the cold unpiercing brilliancy of the summer-light- ning. Only when the soul goes forth out of itself and speaks to the soul, can man sway the will of man. Eloquence then is all soul, embodied, it may be, in biu^ning forceful words, but with a power above the power of words, an electric force, which pierces the soul addi'essed, transfuses into it another's thoughts, makes it its own, by going forth out of it- self. Analyse eloquence ! Analyse the whiiiwind or the lightning I Yes I these you may analyse, for they are material ; eloquence you can no more ana- lyse than the soul itself, whose voice it is, in the sim^Dlicity of its immateriality. Or look at the soul itself. Think of that inmost I, which you know to be your very self. Wliat force of proof have you of its, of your, existence ? Mate- rialism has much, which is plausible, to say for it- self ; so dependent is the soul for the expression of it- self on its poor earthborn brother, with which God has united it, now in decay, henceforth in glory or in shame, for eternity ! Every error must have what is plausible. Philosophy has attempted to give a proof ; ^' Cogito, ergo sum." God, when He created the soul in His own likeness, and imparted to it ir- revocably His o^Ti attribute of immortality, gave it a consciousness of its own deathless being above 8 Grounds of Faith proof, superseding proof, a shadow of His own know- ledge of Himself. The ^'I am" survives the ^'I think." It outlives all power of expression or of thought : it is unimpaired even in delirium, in de- rangement of thought. IN'o supposed transformation to any thing animate or inanimate®, not imagined death ^, stifles the unextinguishable '^I." Philosophy- pursues its weary cycle of proving, doubting, deny- ing. The soul knows itself, its own immateriality, its own eternity, its own responsibility. The hea- then soul too, (TertuUian says s,) not as when form- ed in the Schools, nourished in the academies and porticoes of Athens, but simple, rude, unpolished, unlearned, such as they had, who had nothing else, such as it was in the road, the highway, the shop of the artizan," knew what in the schools of Athens it was taught to prove or to question or to disprove ; it knew that it was immortal and had a God, a J udge, Who would reward or would punish ^. But since, then, the soul has ways of knowing as to itself or others, more than it could explain or prove, since the soul of man has a nameless power over the souls of men to transfuse itself into them, to imprint on them, for evil or for good, its own thoughts, mind, will, shall not Almighty God, our Maker, have means, direct, convincing, demonstrating, without circuit of proof, to impress on the soul. His creature, truths as e See Dr. Browne quoted in ''Daniel the Prophet," p. 432, 3. ^ The celebrated case of one, who would not eat, believing him- self to be dead. He was induced to eat by seeing others eat, who were, for this purpose, dressed as dead in their shrouds. Do the dead eat? " he asked. On being told that they did, he said, " So then will I," and was ultimately recovered. g de testim. an. n. 1. p. 133, 4. Oxf. Tr. h Ibid. p. 134-42. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 9 to Himself? Is the Creator tied down to reveal Himself to man, only tkrongh man's developement of his once-for-all implanted powers ? Has the Liv- ing God no means dii'ectly to infuse Himself into the soul which He has made, impressing upon it super- naturally His own thoughts, mind, knowledge, will ? The denial of this power of God is the Trpwrov yjrevSo^ of rationalism. This is the abyss, which severs rationalism fi'om faith, that rationalism denies, faith knows, the dii^ect supernatural action of God upon the soul of man, the direct communication of the Creator to and within the soul of His creature, man. This is what ration- alism, in its inmost being, abhors. It hates depen- dence. It rebels against its condition as a creatui-e, which must receive fi'om its God truths which, by nature, it cannot know. It rebels against what will be the bliss of eteiTiity, evermore to receive fi'om God Himself more and more of His Infinite "W^isdom and love, unfolded to us directly by Himself through a power received by us fi'om Him. It belongs to the centi'al bliss of the creatiu^e to be dependent upon the Creator. But now it has been a marvellous inven- tiveness of Divine mercy to transform man's rebellion against the reception of His truth into an occasion of a nearer communication of Himself. As He reme- died man's severance fi'om Himself thi'ough the fall by that closest union conceivable of the Creator with the creature in the mystery of the Incarnation, so by, (if possible,) a yet greater condescension He corrects man's repugnance and enables his inability to see by the operation of His Spirit. In man's innocence, as in Heaven, man's love of knowledge of Divine things 10 Grounds of Faith and supernatural truth would have been as much more absorbing than the love of that which is now so engrossing, the knowledge of His works, as the Crea- tor is higher than His creation. Strange that it is not so now I Strange combination of our original high destiny and of our fall, that we love the mar- vellous and supernatural, if false ; it becomes distaste- ful to us, only when true ! Yet, by God's overpow- ering mercy, Adam's fall is, if we will, every way our gain. Now, if we will, we may see the truth of God revealed without us, by the light of God placed within us. Far higher, nobler, more ennobling, is it to know the Being and Nature and love and lov- ing-kindness of our God, and our relations and duties to Him, through His unveiling them to us, than if we could have known Him by way of mental discovery, as we do some of His workings in nature, or than if we could have received His truth, without His commu- nication within us, or have loved Him without His imparting His love to us. Dull, lifeless, knowledge would that have been, for which unbelievers have asked, a revelation of God written in the sun." Cold and powerless has the assent been, when men have demonstrated to themselves, as they thought, on grounds of reason alone, the truth of the Gospel. This was the central mistake of the Evidence-wri- ters of the last century. Not the Evidences but the Evidence-writers were in fault, in that they ignored the office of the grace of God." Consciously or unconsciously, they abandoned the supernatural ground of faith, hoping to win unbelief by meeting its requirements. They conceded all they could, (as some now do in another way,) in the vain hope to difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 11 win sceptic intellect to assent to the residuum. They treated reason as an independent pow^r, which was to make terms with its Maker, itself the judge and arbiter, what it was fitting and consistent for its God to reveal to it ; itself to dictate the credentials, which the Creator ought to bring to His creature ; itself, in its serene supremacy, alone to decide whether He had brought them. They asserted that God had re- vealed Himself to mankind, and ignored His revela- tion of Himself to individuals. They tried, without God, to demonstrate into the soul the belief of God's revelation, as if man could renew in man the life-giv- ing light of God, kindle the death-cold soul, and speak to it with power the re-creating words, Believe and live." And so they busied themselves with what man could do. They omitted what was deepest in the Gospel, employed themselves in dissecting the frame- work of Christianity, and wondered that they could not find or demonstrate its soul. They constructed their system ofttimes with ability, care, acuteness ; but they could not breathe into it the breath of life. They made out that it was safer, more expedient, to act as if Christianity were true ; that no like case could be made out for any thing untrue ; that nothing untrue had been so attested, either with the voluntary suf- ferings of the witnesses to it, or through institutions, as the Lord's Day or the Holy Eucharist, perpetual memorials of the Divine Acts which they attest, from the times when those Acts took place. Is this all ?" exclaims the soul in agony, if it have once admitted doubt. Faith knows that it is not. For faith is a God-given certainty. Human reasoning ends in 12 Grounds of Faith probability only, high probability it may be, moral, not absolute, certainty. Able mathematicians have thought and think, that even mathematical reasoning, when very complex, issues only in a probable result. Such reasoning did not produce faith. They Avho thought that they believed on such grounds as these, really believed by virtue of a Divine faith which they had, by God's gift, before they studied evidences. They did not learn the grounds of their faith ; they only did not unlearn their faith. Men might, (as they were taught,) act prudentially on such grounds as these ; they might cultivate some moral virtues, act as good Heathen, to escape the risk of Hell. But the inmost soul, (whether it can analyse the grounds of its faith or no,) knows that these are not its grounds. Such a conclusion, after a balance of probabilities, is not the Divine faith of which Scriptui-e speaks, which God gives, which Christians have. Such a poor, he- sitating, conclusion is not ''the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Divine faith differs from sight, not in the soul's certainty of the things believed, but only in their clearness. Faith, by its certainty, sees Him "Who is invisible. The un- doubting conviction of our Creeds is the concurrent testimony of the hundreds of millions of souls, which have rehearsed them heretofore and now too rehearse them to God, that faith, as well as sight, has its cer- tain knowledge \ "Credo," as it has echoed from all ^ " What you have in the premisses, you must have also in the conclusion. If the result of evidences be only, that Christianity is highly probable, that the balance of probabilities lies on the side of belief, then oui* Creeds should have run ; * I believe that it is highly probable that there is One God the Father Almighty."* Observation of a fi'iend. difficult to anahjs^e. because Divme. 13 those million voices from the rising to the setting siin. rolling on in one unbroken. nnTvavering, tide for these eighteen centuries, is the expression of a truth as to the soul of man, which lies far deeper than scepticism can reach. The stream, which has flowed on, unexhausted, undried. uncongealed. by all varie- ties of time and clime, issues from a Divine source, and will roll on, until faith is absorbed in the sight of Him, in ^Whom we have believed. Faith is. in a manner, the commencement of the beatific vision, as it is its earnest. But, short of this, ask any one who believes in God. He is as certain that God Is, as that he himself is. He might be at a loss to di-aw out the gi'ounds of his belief ; very possibly he might assign inadequate grounds. But he would count it folly and madness, (as it is.) not to believe in God.. Even so, to the Christian, eveiy aiticle of the Chiistian faith is as certain as his own existence. This was the promise as to the Gospel, not •■opinions" or ••views." not un- certainties, or a hesitatins: belief, which it should be the safer side" to accept, which the contradictions of the world could browbeat ; but knowledge, a certain, personal, knowledge of God and of Christ, a knowledge given to us by God. not collectively only, nor to the first disciples more vividly than to us. but individu- ally also ; a knowledge which God should infuse, with His gift of faith, into the soul. You are familiar with the prophecies ; but observe the word know^ whence the knowledge comes, and wherein it issues. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, (in contrast ^-ith the Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. 14 Grounds of Faith coyenant of Sinai,) after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put My law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be My people : and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, 'knotv the Lord,' for they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord ; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." ^^^By the Jcnoiuledge of Him, shall My righteous Servant make many righte- ous.'' '^^All thy children shall be taught of the Lord." But what is not absolutely certain knowledge is not knowledge. We know that it would be a lie, to say I knoiv such or such a thing," of which we had not absolute knowledge. Let any the sKghtest sha- dow of doubt but cross your mind, let your doubt be so indistinct, that you cannot shape it to yourself, yet so long as the faintest haze of doubt is on your memory, though a breath would disperse it, you dare not say, I hioiu. You might say, that you had a moral certainty of it," that you were all-but abso- lutely certain of it;" ^'that only this indistinct mis- giving hindered your absolute certainty," but you would not dare to say, I know." If you did, con- science would reprove you and tell you, Thou hast lied." God hath said, ""God is not a man, that He should lie. Hath He said and shall He not do it?" Truth is essential to the Being of God. He is true, because He Is. He calls Himself "the God of truth ; and the Son is °the Truth ; and the Holy Spirit is Pthe ^ Is. liii. 11. ^ Is. liv. 13. ™ JS'um. xxiii. 19. » Deut. xxxii. 4, &c. 0 S. John xiv. 6. p lb. xiv. 17 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 13. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 15 Spirit of truth. It is then essential to the truth of the Gospel, that it have certain truth for ns. For the Gospel claims it and promises it. And if it claimed it falsely, it were not of God. We are not left to toss about, reeling to and fro, among the waves of uncertain opinion. We have absolutely certain truth, or all religion is (God forbid !) a blank, a name, an unreality. Look, what a Creed we have in those things, which God's word declares that tue know. Look at what our Lord says ; that we ^knoiv God, that we know Jesus Himself, that we know the union of the Father and the Son ; that we know the power of Jesus to forgive sins, that we know^ (and that by the gift of God,) the whole breadth and depth of the revelation of God. ^^''To you it is given to know the myst-eries of the kingdom of God ^'Hhat ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins:" Believe the works: that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him." "I am known of Mine." And in that His last great prayer for His own to the end of time. ^^^Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only True God, and Jesus Chiist Whom Thou hast sent." have given them the words which Thou gavest Me ; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee." ^'''The world hath not known Thee; but I have knoivn Thee, and these have knoim that Thou hast sent Me." See how our Lord likens the certain- ^ S.Matt.xiii. 11. » lb. ix. 6. t S. Johnx. 38. lb. 14. ^ lb. xvii. 2, 3. 7 lb. 8. ^ lb. 25. 16 Grounds of Faith ty of our knowledge, that He came from God, to His own knowledge of the Father. Or in that promise to all mankind; ^If any man will do His Will, He shall know of the doctrine," [the whole substance of the revelation of Jesus,] ^'whether it be of God." Or look at what Holy Scripture says, that, as Christians, we know, what the early Christians knew, as certain truth. They knew, they say, God^ ; ^Him that is from the beginning ; "^Him Whom we have believed; ^Him and the Power of His Eesurrection ; ^that the Son of God is come ; s Christ in us, the hope of glory; ^that we have passed from death to life; Hhat we dwell in God and He in us ; ^that we are in Him; Hhat when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is ; ""the truth ; ^the grace of God in truth; ""the love that God hath to us ; Pthe love of Christ which passeth knowledge; ^the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance, and the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe ; ^the things given us of God ; that Jesus', being rich, for our sakes, became poor. It is the will of God that we should ^^*come to the knowledge of the truth." ^'"^ Never to be able to come to the knowledge of the truth" is the charac- ter of unstable souls. Again, you know how Scripture contrasts our con- a S. Johnvii. 17. ^ 1 S.Johnii. 3. « 1 S. Johni. 1 ; ii. 13, 14. d 2 Tim. i. 12. e phn. iii. 10. ^ 1 S. John v. 20. g Col. i. 27. t 1 S. John iii. 14. ^ 1 lb. iii. 24 ; iv. 13. k S. John xiv. 20. 1 1 S. John iii. 2. ^ 1 S. Johnii. 21 ; 2 S. John 1. « Col. i. 6. ^ I S. Johniv. 16. P Eph.iii. 19. q Ib.i.18,19. 1 Cor. ii. 12. 6 2 Cor. viii. 9. * 1 Tim. ii. 4. " 2 Tim. iii. 7. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 17 dition under the Gospel, with that of all before it, as light with darkness. Isaiah foretold it as a great light in contrast with darkness and the shadow of death. St. Paul likens it to the change, when God created light in this material world, and on that formless void there burst the glad, viyifying, kin- dling, beautifying radiancy, which God Himself has chosen as the most expressive likeness of His own invisible Being. Christ came as ''the light of the world and we ^'are light in^" Him, ''children of light ^" " The darkness," we are told, " is past ^ " past and gone, if we will, as to us, and we are ""^ trans- lated " by Him " out of darkness into His marvellous light." A marvellous light is it, whereby God has vouchsafed to lay open to us the secrets of His own essential Bliss and the mystery of His Being; One, but not Alone ; Love Everblessed in Coequal Love ; God become Man, Man in the Person of Jesus Dei- fied; the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge, peace in God which passeth understanding; Christ " made sin for us%" "we made the righteousness of God ;" God dwelliug in us ^ and we in God^. Marvel- lous is it, because it is of God and speaks of God ; but light it is, only because it is certain, unshadowed. Truth. This is not a question of schools, or of "shades" (as people speak) "of opinion.'''^ People may and do believe more or less of the one truth ; and what they do not ^ Is. ix. 2. 7 2 Cor. iv. 6. ^ S. Jolmxii. 46. « Eph. v. 8. ^ ^vi. 8 ; S. John xii. 36 ; Eph. v. 8 ; 1 Thess. v. 5. c 1 S. John ii. 8. d 1 S. Pet. ii. 9. e 2 Cor. v. 21. f S. John xiv. 23 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16, &c. g S. John xvii. 21, &c. C 18 Grounds of Faith believe, they censui-e as error, or, if they themselves have no fixed belief, they relegate into opinion. This is a question, not as to details of revealed truth, but whether any truth have been revealed. Absolute cer- tainty of knowledge is essential to revelation. "What is, to ''reveal," but to ''unveil" truth to us? To what end should God reveal truth, except that we should know it ? Faith and opinion, knowledge and uncertainty, are plainly contradictories. Where the one begins, the other ends. A system, which man could not certainly know to be fi'om God, whose truth rested on a balance of probabilities, as to whose pri- mal truth there was no certainty, would condemn itself. Certainly, it is not Christianity ; for Christ- ianity claims a God-given certainty of God-given truth. If Chi'istianity had not certainty, it would have nothing. For it would have made a false claim in the Xame of God. Holy Scriptui-e is as explicit as to the som^e of oiu- knowledge, as it is as to its certainty. Even when He, the Infallible Teacher, taught without, those only received His teaching, "WTio received the Voice of God within. "Thou hast,-' our Lord says, "revealed these things unto babes the simple guileless souls which opposed no wisdom of theii' own to the Wisdom from above. " To you it \^ given to know V " ^Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eter- nal life to as many as Thou hast given Him ; and this is life eternal, that they might hiotu Thee." "^I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me ; and they have received and have Jcnoivn ^ S. Matt. xi. 25 ; S. Lukex. 21. i S. Matt. xiii. 11. ^ s. John xvii. 2, 3. ^ lb. 8. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 19 surely that I came out from Thee." And so of Christians generally, ''""We are lig-ht," because, Scripture says, God hath shined in our hearts ; " we are ^'in marvellous light," because ° He has called us out of darkness into it ; " we know the truth, because, it says, p the anointing [i. e. as it ever means, of the Holy Spii'it, howeyer conveyed] which ye have received of Him, abideth in you, and teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie." It is in keeping, when a religion like Mohammed's, a stereotyping of a cold, unloving, Monotheism, ab- stracting fr'om the Gospel so much of truth as is no tax on human reason, gaining support fr'om the truth of the Unity of God, but fr^eeing itself from the weight of every mystery as to God or man, which it could discard without annihilating to itself the idea of God or man, and asking for no moral victories of faith, demands of man an unspiritual assent. But it were out of haimony, that the Gospel, bringing us into a supernatural system ; requiring of us a life above na- tui'e, the life of grace ; imparting to us powers above nature, the power of grace ; not impairing reason, but perfecting it ; not interfering with fr^ee-agency, but regenerating it ; — it were even out of harmony that we should be led by a way of mere natiu^e into a new creation ; that the natural should be in us the parent of the supernatural ; the human should be the author of the Divine ; the earthly should be oui- chariot of fii'e to the heavenly ; this body of death should lay open to us life ; these eyes, dazzled by earthly bright- ness, should, unaided by God, behold God. ™ Eph. T. 8. "2 Cor. iv. 6. « 1 S. Pet. ii. 9. p 1 S. John ii. 27. C2 20 Grounds of Faith Not so, wheal the Eternal Word did, in Human Form, exhibit to ns God. Peter beheld Him, saw His Divine acts, heard His Divine words, saw His Deity streaming through His acts and words of holi- ness and love, and owned Him^ '^^the Son of Man," to be, as no other was or could be, the Son of the Living God." Did Peter see this through the eye of flesh, or hear it through ear of flesh, or perceive it by human reasoning or human love ? Our Lord said, ^Blessed art thou : for flesh and blood hath not re- vealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in Hea- ven." Was it through unaided human intellect, that the fishermen, '^'unlearned," as they own, ''and ig- norant men," "*the publicans and the harlots," saw that Jesus came from God ; or for want of it, that the Pharisees and the lawyers saw it not ? Did the blind, who saw not come to see through power of their own ? or were they who saw not, blinded by aught but sin, which hindered their receiving grace to see ? To say so, were to contradict Jesus. Was it by pro- cess of reasoning, that James and John saw that in Him, that, at His mere word, they '' ^ left their all and followed Him?" Porphyry'' and the Apostate Julian y laughed at their simplicity ; the world echoed their laugh ; they rung the changes on folly, vanity, credulity, old wives' inventions, dogmatism; they were off'ended alike at the contents of the Gospel and its want of demonstration ^ ; they assigned the date when it should come to an end. Time is a searching test of truth. Porphyry and Julian are powerless q S. Matt. xvi. 13-16. r lb. 17. ^ Actsiv. 13. * S. Matt. 2cxi. 31. " S. John ix. 39. ^ S. Matt. iv. 20, 22. J In S. Jerome ad loc. » See on Tert. p. 137. notes s. t. Oxf. Tr. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 21 shadows of a name ; the intellect of the world was taken captive by Him Who spake in -the fishermen, the publican and the tent-maker. Doubtless the Apostles did see in Jesus what their mere human eye could not see, and their souls drank in with His words a consciousness that He was more than man. ''Certainly," says S. Jerome^, ''the very brightness and majesty of the hidden Divinity, which shone through in His Human Countenance, could, at first sight, draw beholders to Himself." "^Had He not had in His Countenance and Eyes a sort of starry lustre, neither had the Apostles instantly followed Him nor had they who came to seize Him fallen to the ground." The Eleven had seen great miracles, when our Lord asked them, "Will ye also go away?" But St. Peter, in answering for them, shewed that our Lord's words bound him even more than His works. "^Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." The Samaritans, without mi- racles, had their inner ear opened ; " ^ We have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Chiist, the Saviour of the world." Think you that the Sa- maritans, with no books of the prophets read or re- ceived among them, saw, of themselves, that great truth, which the Apostles were so slow to receive, that Jesus was "the Saviour," not of the Jews only, or of themselves too as mixed up with Israel, but ' ' of the world ? " Our Lord taught it to Mcodemus « ; but we find that great name of love, " Saviour of the world," in the mouth of the outcast Samaritans, ear- a On S. Matt. ix. 9. ^ Ep. 65. ad Princip. § 8. St. John vi. 68. *i lb. iv. 42. e jb. iii. 16, 17, 22 Grounds of Faith lier than in that of the Disciple whom Jesus loved. Or was it again of themselves, that the officers of the high Priests who had assented to their impious com- mand to take Jesus, boldly alleged as the ground why they did not fulfil it, — not the fear of the people, but the Divinity of the words of J esus ? ^ ^ ^IS'ever man spake like this man." We know that to understand any deeper thoughts of man, there must be, what we call a kindred spi- rit" in him who hears them. We understand that Plato may have understood the deeper thoughts of his master Socrates, better than the practical common- sense mind of Xenophon. It is a common complaint of more thoughtful youth, that those around them do not understand them. If any have been more gifted than others to understand their thoughts, they have known that it has been through a secret sympathy of soul. Even so we understand the mind of God, by having ourselves, through the gift of God, something of the mind of God ; as St. Paul says, ^We have the mind of Christ." In Pascal's great words, To love man, we must know him ; to know God, we must love Him." There is then a two-fold mystery of faith, or Divine knowledge, which we can have, which we can know that we have, but the grounds of which we cannot analyse, the depth of the Divinity in our Lord, the light of grace in ourselves. God, Who doth nothing unprepared, foreannounced Him Who was to come ; but that ever-present miracle of prophecy which our hands may handle and our eyes may look into," cen- tres in Jesus. Our Lord's miracles were a part of f S. John vii. 46. e 1 Cor. ii. 16. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 23 Himself; they are bound up with Him; they were foretold as a part of His character, outward manifes- tations of His superhuman love ; the great miracle of His Eesurrection we cannot, even in idea, separate from Himself. Through these Divine words or works of God, that secret voice of God, which, in Scripture and Theology, is called the grace of God, speaks to the inner ear of the soul. It gives power and efficacy and persuasiveness to those outward, though Divine, attestations ; not superseding those words and works, but shining through them, illumining them by illu- mining the eye which sees them, and opening and attuning the ear which hears them. ^'^^ While we muse" on His words or on His Person, ^'the fire is kindled ;'' the grace of God enlightens the intellect, draws the heart, transforms the will, transfigures the soul, inspires the mind, assimilating the finite mind to the Infinite. Yet the centre of all is Jesus. Christian thought has been compelled to frame a word, Theandric^ which should express that wondrous union, through which the human actions of our Lord were super-human^, and He infused into His Human I^ature the operation of His Godhead, which was manifested by His Divine actions in the Flesh ^. Our Lord being God, every Divine work of His shines through on the soul which can see, with a separate light ; every word of His speaks to the inmost soul with a Divine wisdom and a Divine power. We have heard them, the older of us, it may be ten thousands of times. They are more forceful, more penetrating, more penetrated with His Ps. xxxix. 3. ^ Sophron. in Petav. de Incarn. 8. 12. 1. k Hipp. lb. 8. 8. 4. 24 Grounds of Faith Divinity, to us now, than when our young hearts first glowed with them. Count the number of the stars, or the radiances of the works and words of J esus ! Analyse the grounds of their power ! Analyse Divi- nity and the Power of God and the "Wisdom of God ! Analyse the simplicity of the Divine Essence which touches your soul, and grasp Infinity. Analyse the light by which you see ! Analyse life, for the light, by which you see, is the life of God within you. This is a part of that great prophecy of our Lord ; I will draw all unto Me." He spake of a mighty power and attractiveness in Himself. He says not, that men should be led to own the Divinity of His mission, or to believe in God, or to leave idolatry, or to be persuaded of the reasonableness of His doctrine, or to admire the excellence of His moral lessons : but that men should be drawn, drawn with a mighty con- straining force, to Himself, nay, more than this, that He, overliving, would draw them to Himself. To whom, and whither ? He Who spake with this Di- vine certainty, what, in human sight, was He ? Sprung seemingly from among those the most despised of His nation^, which itself was counted as ""despectissima pars servientium," in whom it was an offence to trou- ble the tranquillity of Eoman greatness with any no- velties of its own. A ^'carpenter's son" and ''""a carpenter;" rejected of His own people, called''*' a blasphemer ;" in whom, it could be said, " none of the rulers p, " or learned, or strict, of His people ' ' believed, ' ' and whom those who believed did not dare to con- ^ S. John vii. 41. S. Mark vi. 3. < X. 33 ; S. Matt. xxvi. 65. Tac. Hist. V. 8. 0 S. Markii. 7 ; S. Luke v. 21 ; S. John P S. John vii. 48. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 25 fess ; who was called ^Hhe friend of publicans and sin- ners ^i," a ^'gluttonous man and a winebibber^" Wbat foretold He of Himself ? The abiding Empii'e of the world, the Empire of intelligence, of wills, of affec- tions, of the whole of man. And whence was He to reign? where was to be His Throne? The Cross. The Cross, which among His own people, was, by the word of God, the note of the curse of God — '' ^He that is hanged is the curse of God." The Cross, which, in the Empire of the world, was the punish- ment of the vilest slaves ! Who were His enemies ? His own people, whose hopes He disappointed by a kingdom, not of this world ; the wisdom of the Greeks, to whom the Cross of Christ and the Eesurrection of the Elesh*, His Death or His \dctory over death, were, each in special way, '''' foolishness the pride of Empire of the Eomans, whose seven centuries of con- quest were bound up with their contemporaneous worship of the gods, whom they believed to be the givers of their empire of the world ^, and whom Jesus came to annihilate. "Who His Friends ? Those who, He foretold, would, in the hour of His death, forsake Him. What His attractiveness ? He says. Himself, in His Death. '' I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto Me." He was to illumine all wisdom by His certain Truth ; He was to correct all rule by a kingdom from above, which kings should obey ; He was to be the Centre of all religion, revealing the Fa- ther in Himself, with Whom, He saith, I am One." And so it was. He Himself ascended to His Fa- q S. Matt. xi. 19 ; S. Luke vii. 34. ^ S. Matt. xi. 19. 8 Deut. xxi. 23. t S. Aug. in Ps. 88. in N'ote on Tertullian de test. an. n. 4. p. 137. Oxf. Tr. " 1 Cor. i. 23. * See Tertull. Apol. c. 24. p. 61. Oxf. Tr. 26 Grounds of Faith ther. But His Name it was, which was preached ; He it was, Who won the world. This was the chal- lenge of the ^ ^unlearned and ignorant" fishermen to the rulers of the people and the elders of Israel; ^^^ By the Name of J esus Christ of Nazareth, Whom ye cru- cified, Whom God raised from the dead, by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. Neither is there salvation through any other." In this Name the Jewish authorities straitly and repeatedly forbade the Apostles '^^to preach or to teach," and were dis- obeyed, as against the command of God. This was the seed, which the glorious Paul scattered through- out the world, even to us. This, he says, was his of- fice. ^ It pleased God Who called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen." This was '^^his manner, " his way, his mode of life. This, in his hearing before Agrippa, he stated to be the object of his life. ^Having ob- tained help of God, I continue unto this day, witness- ing both to small and great, that Christ should suffer, that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people and to the Gentiles." This even Festus gives as the sub- stance of the accusations of the Jews, ^'^one Jesus Who was dead. Whom Paul affirmed to be alive." The sons of Sceeva the Jew adjured the evil spirit ' ^ ^ by Jesus Whom Paul preacheth. ' ' Him he preach- ed, as, himself alive to God through Him, living by his life in Him^, able to do things through Christ in- y Acts iv. 8 — 12. add ii. 36. God hath made that Same Jesus, Whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." ^ Acts iv. 1 8 ; v. 40. ^ Gal. i. 15, 16. b Acts xvii. 2. ^ lb. xxvi. 22, 23. d lb. XXV. 19. e xix. 13. ^ Gal. ii. 20. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 27 strengthening^. Him he preached, as Saviour, King, Lord, Christ, Son of God, Lord both of the dead and living^' ; our Life^ ; All, and in alP; in ^Miom to be- lieve, was to be saved ^; the Power of God and the Wis- dom of God"", but to us too " Wisdom, Eighteous- ness, Sanctification, Eedemption." He preached, not a philosophy, not even an aggregate of doctrines, but Christ ; God, and for our sakes, Man ; Christ Cru- cified. ^^"I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified." ^'PThe Lord of Glory Crucified." Jews, Greeks, Eomans, understood the issue. The Jews still render to our Lord's greatness the homage of hate, and delight in blaspheming the hanged." The heathen scofi'ed especially at the worship of the Crucified. ^^^The wise of this world insult us as to the Cross of Chiist, and say, 'where is yoiu' under- standing, that ye worship God Crucified? '" The world mocked, blasphemed, hated, persecuted, raged at its own impotence, marvelled to find itself becoming Chiistian', was converted, adored, loved. I do not speak now of any evidence fi'om the super- natiu'al spread of the Gospel. All, endui^ance, hate, malice, love, faith, were superhuman, fi'om God or Satan. It was a superhuman "^spectacle to the world, to Angels and to men," in which the Divine simpli- city of faith captured the acutest deepest philosophy ; Divine endurance overcame Satanic malice; Divine love melted human hate. I mean now to point out g Phil. iv. 13. ^ Eom. xiv. 9. i Col. iii. 4. ^ lb. 11. 1 Acts xvi. 31. ^ I Cor. i. 24. ^ lb. 30. « lb. ii. 2. P lb. 8. 1 See Eisenm. Entd. Judentb. or Euxt. Lex. c. 2596. f St. Aug. Serm. 174. n. 3. Kortholt, c. 43. ^ Xert. Apol. c. p. 2, 3. and references in note q. Oxf. Tr. ^ i q^^^ iy 9^ 28 Grounds of Faith tHs only, how all evidence centered in the Person of Jesns, how He was the Sun and Centre of the preach- ing which won the world, the Evidence which illu- mined all other evidence, a Power nameless, ineffable, because deep and Divine, which attracted mankind to Itself. For in Jesus Crucified shone forth the full attrac- tiveness of the love of G od. Love asks for love, creates love, draws it forth to Itself. The stumbling-blocks of scepticism are the nourishment of Faith. For they are the Almightiness of the love of God. Our Creator all -but became a creature, because He loved us, and to win our love ; He came as near to it as He could with-^ out ceasing to be God. For the exceedingness of His love for us, our God clothed Himself with our human nature ; and, in that Human Nature, He was God, Who was insulted, mocked, scourged, crucified^ died"". He drew all, because He gave Himself for all ; and the hiding-place of His power " was the Omnipotence of His love. The corn-seedy, as our Lord foretold, has multiplied. The Eleven, who met in the upper room with doors closed for fear of the Jews, became the hundred and twenty of the Day of Pentecost; the hundred and twen- ty have, generation after generation, become some 300 millions, and, under their Master and their God, are still conquering and to conquer. None, save Himself, can count that white-robed army of saints, who are filling the courts of Heaven, having become ^'^more than conquerors, through Christ Who loved them." And Who, when they were on earth, was the centre " See passages of the fathers in S. Ath. ag. Arian. Or. iv. p. 443, 4. n. h. i. Oxf. Tr. ^ Hab. iii. 4. y S. John xii. 24. ^ Rom. viii. 37. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 29 of the being of these millions upon millions, their hope, their stay, their All? Who is now, in His own, their Strength in temptation, their Solace in suffer- ing, their Friend in adversity, their Joy above all joys, their Life in death ? He, the Same, my sons, to Whom, in your best times, you look ; in Whom, in your inmost hearts, you believe and love ; Him to Whom, if at times you have forgotten, disobeyed, nay, rebelled against Him, you have returned or hope one day to return, without Whom you dare not die. You have come now to that great trial-point in man's life, whether you will belong to God or to yourselves, whether you will seek your happiness in '^^the glo- rious liberty " of choosing God for your portion, your glory, your bliss, and nothing wilfully against His blessed-making Will, or the false freedom and true slavery of being, as you may be tempted to think, your own masters, the slaves of your lower natures ; whether you will have your own wisdom or the Wis- dom of God. The love of Christ Crucified is the guar- dian alike of personal purity and of purity of faith. He Who has drawn the world unto Himself, will, one by one, if we allow Him, draw us. Sweetly but mightily is the soul drawn, when with intent thought it dwells on the Passion of Jesus Crucified, His love as He hung upon the Tree, His purpose in suffering, the sharpness of His tortures, the Person of the Medi- ator." Unbelief, scepticism, rationalism, doubt, float harm- less around the heart which believes in Jesus and me- ditates on Him. Disputing might as soon rend the sun from the Heaven, as J esus from the heart which « Eom. viii. 21. ^ S. Laiir. Just. p. 366. col. 1. 30 Grounds of Faith loves Him. The doubts of others cannot trouble our knowledge, nor the blindness of others our sight. You have not to win that faith for yourselves. The power of that faith was given you, when you were " ''born of water and the Spirit," and Christ, antedat- ing reason and your own choice, made you members of Himself and children of God. You have by His mercy to retain, not to gain, faith. You will not lose it, while you lose not Him. Live as you believe, and you will not lose your faith. For faith, infused by God into the soul, is, like every other grace, in- worked into our very being ; nay, as being that last grace by which the soul is united to God, holds more tenaciously than even love ; and, when blended with love, only fades into sight, when God, Who by it had unveiled the knowledge of Himself to the soul, shall to the disembodied soul unveil Himself, and the Sun of righteousness Who illumines us even while hidden from us by the horizon of this earth, shall shine out full upon us, the beatific Light of eternity. Christ is the light of the world, your light. While you follow Him, no darkness of doubt will overtake you. He has called you '^friends." Friends un- derstand friends ; live as His friends and you will understand Him. He loved you with . His whole Self. He spared Himself no suifering for love of you. For you He died ; for you He lives ; for you He inter- cedes. Therefore He said, I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all men unto Me.'' By the power of the Cross, He drew us from the horrible pit," which our sins deserved ; by the constraining power of His love, He will draw you from the bitter « S. Johniii. 5. ^ lb. xv. 14, 15. difficult to analyse^ because Divine. 31 sweetness of your sins. He will lift you up above the nothingnesses of this world to the- secret inter- course of His love. There, on His Cross adore Him; there, in that Atoning Death, meditate upon Him ; there as you gaze upon Him, marred, tortured, blas- phemed, for love of you, listen to His own words, ^'^God so loved the world, that He gave His Only- Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Divine foolishness of the Cross has not, in eighteen centuries, lost its power. ^'^The foolishness of God is" still wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Heed not how men would explain away our Lord's words, but listen to Himself, speaking in them. The words of man, save as they contain any thing of eternal truth, pass away with man. The words of Christ live because He lives, words from the Eternal "Word, instinct with His Divinity, alive with His love. To you too, as you meditate on them, they will speak with a Divine force ; and you too will, by His Grace, be able to say with joy, ^^^We have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." « S. John iii. 16. f 1 Cor. i. 25. s S. John iv. 42. SERMON II PSALM xxvii. 1. The Lord is my Light, They are great, deep-rooting, compreliensiye words, which our forefathers gave us as our motto and our watchword, Dominus illuminatio mea." They have that strange depth in their simplicity, which words of God have, the more forceful and manifold, because, in guise, so simple and so one. The Lord is mt/ Light. They overlook and overpass for the time all ways and methods and media, through which light may be transmitted to the soul, and go straight to the Eternal Source of all light, and embrace it in its oneness, in God. They claim a close relation to God. They pro- fess an entire allegiance to God. They say not mere- ly, God giveth me all light," (true as this is,) but ^' God Himself is my light." They involve the cor- responding fealty to God, that, howsoever His light may come to the soul, it will admit that light, and joy in it, and be faithful in it. The words are the more remarkable, as commended to us, on account of the large extent of study proposed God is our Light. 33 to us here. The name of an University^ carries with it the idea of an universality of study, not, of course, by each, but diffused in all. The University includes within its range, the knowledge of God, the Author of all, as He has revealed Himself unto us, and then of that all, which He has displayed before us or laid up within us ; their laws and their principles ; that concentrated world within us, our mind, our consci- ence, oiu' moral and intellectual being, in itself and as bearing on our fellow men, and as exemplified in the past, or as developed and expressed in language, morals, mental philosophy, political science, law in its principles, as ^copied out of the very tables of the high everlasting law " of God, and in its application ; history ; or, again, the laws and rules, on which our God made and upholds that physical creation without us, whether as exhibited in life and organization, or in the almost spiritual properties of harmony ; of number, space, time, matter, force ^. Of all and in all these, in their intricacies, their depths, their mysteries, it says, " The Lord is my light." The words are the keynote of a belief, the direct contradictor}' of that system of ^'non-intervention," which, in order not to be atheistic, admits a Fii^st Cause of all created things, but would have it, (out of respect, as it gives it out, for God,) that, having once made this our beautiful world and our own in- telligences. He keeps Himself apart fi'om all lives, ^ The subject of this Sennoii was suggested by its occasion, as one of the Act Sermons, in 1862. The writer was appointed by the kindness of the Yice-Chancellor, Dr. Jeune, now Bp. of Peter- borough, c Hooker E. P. i. xvi. 2. ^ This summary of the subjects of mathematics was fui^nished me by my friend, Professor Donkin. D 34 God is our Ligh t in all knowledge^ like the gods of Epicurus, in an eternal repose, and leaves His creation to the regular developement of un- changing laws. Himself no more concerned with it, than that He, once for all, drew it out of nothing and impressed those laws upon it. Men grant, in their condescension, that God made all things, or at least the rudiments of all things, once for all. It extri- cates them from the difficulty as to the origin of matter. But they lay it down as an axiom, that God is to be admitted as little as possible into His own creation ^ It is to lower Him, they say, that He should have to do with all the variations of our changeable selves. Undoubtedly creation was a con- descension of God, or, (we need not shrink from the word,) a lowering of Himself. It is God's own word of Himself, so we may joyously repeat it; ^^^Who is like the Lord our God, Who hath His dwelling so high and yet humbleth Himself to behold the things which are in heaven and earth." Yet He humbled Himself in act, not in Himself, since He is unchange- ably the Self-same. But as, in any creation, God, without derogation fi'om the unchangeable Unity of His Being, created things manifold through the al- most boundless realms of space, bringing into being what He ever purposed to create ; so, without injuiy to that same Unity, He upholds, directs, controls, overrules, all the multiplicity of those beings in the long course of time. I will not now occupy you with arguments as to a system, which denies our whole supernatural being. Every thing, short of that blank Atheism in which God is blotted out of His own creation, and His creation alone Is, attests the soul's ® "Westminster Review. ^ Ps. cxiii. 5. natural or supernatitrah 35 continual abiding relation to God. Human nature itself bears witness to the continual agency of God within it; directly, as to His natural operations in the things which belong to the essential conditions of man's nature ; indirectly, as to things supernatural, by that ineffaceable longing, which attests the reality of that which it longs for, since there is no craving, which has not a corresponding reality. Every error, as far as it is an error and not a simple denial of truth, bears witness to some truth above it. As man, in his very sins, desires a sort of distorted likeness of God, seeking amiss out of God what is only to be found in Him^, so in his errors he owns some fragments of Divine truth. God made us for Himself, to find our bliss in closest union with Himself. The highest doc- trines of the faith and those aspirations of man's un- tutored nature, which are a part of his being, unless he have spiritually cauterised it and extinguished in himself all which is akin to God, meet in this, the closeness of the relation between God and His crea- ture, the nearness of God's continual presence to him, with him, within him. The Incarnation ; the gift of God the Holy Ghost ; the aids of Divine grace ; Sa- craments ; the voice of conscience, serene, clear, dis- tinct, until tampered with, and the inextinguishable deathless gnawings of remorse, which man would eflPace, but, by God's ordinance, cannot ; God's all-em- bracing, large, minute, Providence ; His Omnipre- sence, in which we live, move, are^^; His penetrating, encircling Being, through which, present every where in His creation, yet unmingled with anything. He in- 8 See St. August. Conf. i. n. 13, 14. pp. 25, 6. Oxf. Tr. h Acts xvii. 28. d2 36 God is our Light in all knoivledge^ timately pervades all, inflows into all, sustains all, is Himself the Life of all which lives, supplies our strength, empowers our minds, enlightens our spirits, kindles our souls into love of Himself, — all, natural and supernatural, are harmonious parts of one great whole ; all, in the several degrees of His mercy, are acts and expressions of that love, by which our Crea- tor would bind us to Himself. All but that blank Atheism, which simply denies, so that out of its nothingness nothing can come', which constructs nothing, but makes one universal blot, bears witness to our intimate ever-present rela- tion to God. Atheism itself cannot stir one foot out of its negations, but forthwith it impinges unconsci- ously upon some intimate connection with God. Even that strange form of Atheism, which would make to itself a god out of past, present, future, humanity ^, while it means to deify itself, what does it but own one continuous, eternal, all-pervading, intelligent, self-existing Life, which alone gives oneness to the manifoldness of human existence, present to each, animating each ? It denies the personality of God, but it, so far, bears witness to His presence with the soul. It cannot conceive of the soul, as independent of God. Pantheism, strictly, denies its own personality, but asserts emphatically the Presence of God within the human being. Man's consciousness of his God, in Whose Image he was made, bursts forth uncontrolla- bly from the bonds of his false systems. Insanity it- self, it is said, never wholly destroys the consciousness of the /; man's personal being, apart from all which i Its own maxim, cx nihilo nihil fit." ^ Comte. natural or supernatural. 37 he may imagine of himself. Pantheism were an insa- nity of pride, thinking God's poor creature to be a part of God, or degrading God into impersonal life. But that more spiritual Pantheism, which isolated itself from all sensible natiu'e, lost itself out of sight, extinguished its desires, in order to be absorbed into God, phrenzy as it was, owned, in its phrenzy, that it came forth from God, and that God was its end and the creatiu'e's home. ^' The object of the Buddhists," Dr MilP sums up, appears the same as that to which the whole Gentile world bears witness as long- ed for ; the deliverance from the bondage of mere physical or sensual existence and reunion of the soul to God.'' Even Polytheism, degraded, brutalised as it was, bore witness to the longing of man to behold his God. Marvellous images had it of that seeming wondi'ous inversion of the relation of the Creator and the crea- ture, that God makes His Omnipotence the servant of our wants. That false mysticism which, short of Pantheism, yet sought, not union, but unity with its God, which hoped, contemplating Him, to be absorbed into Him, mistook, of course, both itself and God, yet was it a perverted form of the inmost desire of man's na- ture, to dwell in God and that God shoidd dwell in him. The doctrine of the soul's transmigration had even more of truth involved in its error; for it implies, not only that it was a penalty to be kept away from God, that the longing and reward of the souls of the good was to ''fly forth swiftly to God," but that, (how- ^ Mill on the Pantheistic Theory, end. 38 God is our Light in all knowledge^ ever inadequate and inconsistent the Heathen's no- tion must be of God,) the good only could behold Him. "What was, what is, all prayer, as it rose or rises up among the Heathen world, amidst its distresses or needs, but the soul, owning its own special rela- tion to God or to its gods ; that it was individually the object of Divine care and Providence ; that its God, ^^^Whom it ignorantly worshipped,'' left it not out of sight ; that He ruled, not by any mere course of nature or by fixed unregulated laws, independent of Himself save in their origin, but acted with a sin- gle reference to each single soul ? What though what it asked for, was most often some mere natural gift or want"", (now too, prayer is far more frequent than thanksgiving,) in these too the prayer acknowledged the creature's intimate dependence upon God. The heathen in the ante-historic times of Homer still re- tained the memory that the Providence of God was over nations ° and each individual in them, even in lesser things p ; that God not only bestowed on each their bodily and mental gifts % once for all, but Him- self continually supplied them at the moment when they were needed that counsel and even moral courage came from Him'"; that He supplied thoughts and even words ^; that He gave and took away under- ^ Actsxyii. 23. " N^agelsbach quotes as instances of praise, 11. a. 472 ; of thanksgiving, II. -q. 298, Od. v. 256 sqq. II. k. 462 sqq. Homer. Theol. v. 11. p. 185 sqq. on specific prayers ib. pp. 186,7 sqq. 0 See in Nagelsbach, Ib. i. 28. sqq. pp. 45-52. P Ib. § 34-42. pp. 55-65. 1 Ib. § 33. p. 54. ^ jb. § 43. p. 65. IS", cites especially Hector's prayer for his young son, II. ^. 476 sqq. as one for gifts, not for a special occasion only. p. 186. » Ib. § 44. pp. 65, 6. natural or siijjeniafural. 39 standing t. "With God^'' i. e. "with the help of God,-' "it was, or shall be, spoken or done," is a con- fession of God's cooperation in our words and acts, found largely beyond the limits of revelation. Its profane use by one heathen^, in mock solemnity, at- tests the more its vitality in other hearts. And, in historic times, how did that almost prophet of Hea- thenism own a continual conscious guidance of a Di- vine Presence, restraining or permitting his acts ! He taught, in no pantheistic sense, that the soul of man partook of God ! An early Christian father, * lb. § 45-47. pp. 66-70. " axv OcwB' elprfrerai. Tertulliaii remarks on the reference to the One God, by the use of the singular. " It nameth God by this name only, because the proper name of the true God. 'Great God,' * Good God,' and * which God grant,' are words in every mouth." Apol. i. 17. See Plat. Prot. c. 8. Theaet. c. 7. Legg. ix. 4, and other references, lb. n. z. and Liddell and Scott, Lex. v. S. John vi. 14. P Heb. X. 2. 1 lb. vii. 23. ' S. John xii. 34. and Interces^sor in Is. c. liii. 81 Whom ''^should all fulness dTS'ell:'' in that they came and passed away, they shewed that they were servants, to prepare the way of Him A\Tio should come, not the long-expected One, the long-longed for. Theii' being coincided with their words. One by one, as they completed and filled up that long avenue which was to lead the eye onwards, they lifted up their hands and pointed on, look not to me, look on beyond me.' They were not ^' ^ He who should come," because they spake of Him, still in the future. Each, up to the threshold of the Gospel, taught those who came to them, to look for another. Their death was but the laying down of an office, which in life they had attested to be but preparatory. Through that great law of sufi'ering and contempt which God has appointed to His servants, or again through that spirit of love, which dwelt in His ser- vants in measure, in the Son without measure, it could not but be that prophecies both of the doings and sufferings of Christ should, in part, be true of God's servants, the Prophets. Yet here too there was re- served to the Son a prerogative as of holiness, so of suffering. So then in Isaiah's great prophecy of Him, ^Tio, for us and for our salvation, took upon Him the form of a servant, the Servant of God, these two things are to be observed ; 1) that whatever in this description is in any degree true of any servant of God, was far more realised in the Son; 2) that the likeness belongs to graces of which man is capable, or the lot of suffer- ing which God bestows upon His servants, the un- likeness is specially found in what is supernatural and t Col. i. 19. I S. Matt. xi. 3, S. Luke vii. 19, 20. 82 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner Divine. Yet a third remark follows from the struc- ture of this portion of prophecy. The Prophet has cast it into a solemn rhythm, five times comprising in a cycle of three verses, the subjects of which he speaks, 1) in summary, the great paradox, until it was fulfill- ed, that abasement should be the cause of exaltation, a marring, below the form of man, should issue in a sa- crificial cleansing of nations. Man's stupified amaze- ment at that marred Face should be the prelude of the reverence of kings. Then, in the same even rhythm he describes in the second, the grief, neglect, con- tempt of this Servant of the Lord; then, 3) the vicari- ousness of His sufferings ; 4) His condemnation. Death and Burial ; 5) the fruits of that Death, as an ofi'ering for sin, in the justification of sinners. It would then, even thus far, be unlawful to adapt (as has been lately done to any Prophet of God the one or other ex- pression out of any of these cycles of prophecy, in proof that Isaiah wrote of hwi, neglecting other lan- guage on that same immediate subject, which is in- capable of being so adapted. Further, these five cycles of prophecy make one whole, and must agree in one. They exhibit an order of events, not an ideal. They present before us, one growing up, known to God, unknown to man, and when known, despised; cut off by an unjust judgment ; buried ; but then prolonging His days, carrying on the work of God after death, and this work, that of jus- tifying many by the knowledge of Himself, sprinkling nations, interceding for transgressors. Each of these cycles exhibits manifoldly its own special subject, but each advances on the other. 'No object, which Essays and Eev. pp. 72-4. and Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 83 does not satisfy the whole description, really satisfies any. Eut then also the more complex and well-or- dered the description is, the more its fulfilment bears witness to Him, in Whom alone it centres. N'ow of all these subjects, one only, that which de- scribes the low estate of our Lord's early life, might seem likely to contain much which might be said al- so of His servants the prophets. Yet here too the characteristic trait is His growing up, so lowly, so un- observed, with so little expectation of what He should be revealed to be, as the sucker from the hewn trunk, the root out of the dry ground ; but before God. This is, in the prophecy, the ground of the offence taken at Him. Who hath believed our report and " i. e. seeing that ^^He grew up like a sucker before God, protected, owned, beheld by Him, but unknown to man. Isaiah, who had before prophesied of the ^rod which should come forth from the hewn-trunk of J esse," the Son of David in the sunken state of David's house, the Branch from its roots, now, with the same image, speaks of Him, as the slight sucker, the root from the dry unnourishing ground. The prophets were called, to act; the Son was sent, chiefly to suffer. The greatest prophets were called in early youth. Their life was a long martyrdom of conflict with a re- bellious people. They were not withdrawn from sight. Jesus grew up before God alone, vouchsafing, for thirty years, with the exception of that one brief un- veiling of His Wisdom in the temple, to be known only as the Carpenter's Son and the Carpenter, of whom they could say, ^'Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Whence hath this man letters, having ^ Is. xi. 1. See Daniel the Prophet, p. 484. sq. g2 84 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner never learnt them ? Wlience hath this man wisdom, and these mighty works ? Is not this the carpenter's son ? "Wlience hath this man all these things ? And they were offended at Him." And by being offended they fulfilled the prophecy, both in that they were offended, and, in the ground of their offence. Again, in that next stage, His Death. The death prophesied is no mart}T:'s death, no mere death of vi- olence, or popular tumult, such as even St. Stephen's defence issued in, or the stoning of Zechariah °, or other prophets, th€ sawing of Isaiah asunder, or the slaying of others with the sword. It is no king's un- godly command. The death prophesied is a formal judicial act. He is to be cut off by a violent death, but that, through an oppressive judgment. Out of oppression and judgment," i. e. out of a sinful and oppressive judgment, ^'was he taken," as the word means, by God p. To the dishonoured death was, in man's order, assigned the dishonoured grave. According to the mode of death, the body or the ashes were assigned to either of the two sepulchres of the wicked, But the sentence whereby those capitally punished were sever- ed from the congregation of the Lord, was continued on after death. The putrefying carcase or the dis- honoured ashes were allowed only to mingle with those alike dishonoured, ^^'i Those who were slain by the house of judgment," the Jews themselves record, are on no account buried in the Sepulchres of their fathers but two sepulchres are appointed for them by the house of judgment, one for those stoned and burned, 0 2 Chron. xxiv. 21. P See Daniel the Prophet, p. 496, 7. fl Maimonides quoted by Iken Bibl. Hag. ii. 2. and Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 85 the other for those beheaded and strangled." It was, then, no mere outward appointment which Isaiah fore- told, ^'His grave was assigned with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death." It was the outward token that God would henceforth reverse the malice, which He had thus far permitted. Up to the Atoning death of Christ, all was shame. God, Who spared not His o\vn Son but freely gave Him up for us all, spared not any ingredient in that cup of shame. J esus di^ank it to the dregs for us. Spitting, buffeting, scourging, mocking, stripping, blasphemy, and that, above all, accursed Death, all were there. He ^' was made a curse for us, as it is written. Cursed is every one which hangeth on a tree." From the moment when that holy Sacrifice was accomplished, all was reversed. The triumph of the powers of darkness and of man's malice was arrested in the moment of their seeming victory. Nature owned its God. The hard rocks rent. The rent of the veil of the temple bare witness that the way into the Holy of holies was opened. Death yielded up her dead to the Lord of life. Our Lord's marred but sacred Body was placed with honour, with the rich man in His death," to become, on the third day, the earnest of the victory over death. Such a reversal could not, in the nature of things, take place, while the Jewish polity, under which Isaiah prophesied, remained uncontrolled. Man does not instantly reverse his own injustice. The words stood inexplicable, until they were explained in deed. More inexplicable yet, beforehand, was it, that the work of God was to prosper in the hand of this His righteous servant, after His atoning Death. Up to 86 The prophecy of Christ our A toner that death, the prophecy speaks only of rejection, oppression, contempt. In that last cycle of the pro- phecy after the account of his death and burial, all is victory. I^or is it, according to that Christian saying, which itself first was the fruit of the efficacy of the Cross, ^^the blood of martyrs is the harvest- seed of the Church." It is not His cause which pros- pers ; it is Himself. ^'^When His soul shall make an offering for sin. He shall see His seed. He shall pro- long His days, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His Hands. He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied ; He shall justify the many." These are no metaphors, and they are strictly personal. He, the Same Whose Soul was '^made an offering for sin," Who ^'poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors," He, the Same was to prolong His days." The prophet speaks of Him, as living, not in His posterity, but in His own person ; not, as leav- ing His work to be carried on by others ; he says, that, after His Death, He should accomplish it Himself. The prophecy could not be fulfilled, except by an in- terposition of Divine power, such as had never been then manifested, such as has never been manifested except in the Person of Jesus. Enoch and Elijah had been translated to live in the sacred Presence of God ; some dead had been raised, themselves again to die. These words could only be fulfilled in one, who, being raised fr^om the dead, should die no more ; death should no more have dominion over Him." They were fulfilled in Him, Who after His Eesurrec- tion said ^ All power is given unto Me in heaven and r Is. liii. 10, 11. « Kom. vi. 9. t ]^x^tt. xxviii. 18-20. and Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 87 in earth : go ye therefore and disciple all nations ; lo, I am Avith you alway unto the end of the world." They are, to this day, fulfilled in Him^ ^^''Who is before all things and by Him all things consist. Who is the Head of His Body the Church, that in all things He might Have the preeminence of Whom it is said, ^^of His kingdom there shall be no end^." Then, those Sufi'erings and Death, which issued in this prolonged life, were to be yicarious, healing, peace-bringing, justifying. Fruitless alike is every attempt to show that any other sufi'erings of the righteous are vicarious, or that these, which Isaiah foretold, are not vicarious. The blood of the pro- phets brought not peace, but guilt. The innocent blood, with which Manasseh filled J erusalem, God as- signs as the cause of its removal J'. They slew Thy prophets," Xehemiah saith to God^, which testified against them to turn unto Thee — therefore Thou de- liveredst them into the hand of their enemies." Fill ye up," our Lord says^, ''the measure of your fa- thers,— I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall Idll and crucify ; — that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth." To the Blood of Jesus alone was it reserved, that it should be shed for those who shed it. Him alone "^God set forth, to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteous- ness for the remission of sins that are past." Him, when the multitudes " were pricked in their heart," on hearing that " God had made that same Jesus whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ," the Col. i. 17, 18. S. Luke i. 33. y 2 Kings xxiv. 4. 2s\^h. ix. 26, 7. ^ 8. Matt, xxiii. 23-5. ^ j^qj^. iii. 25. 88 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner Apostles preached as the source of the forgiveness of their sins. Eepent and be baptised every one of you in the Xame of Jesus for the remission of sins^" ^^^The blood of sprinkling" to which they came, spake better things than that of Abel. Wherein? In that the blood of Abel, God says, '^crieth unto Me from the ground " against him who shed it ; the Blood of Jesus crieth for mercy, grace, and remis- sion of our sins. But whereas the blood of prophets could in no sense be vicarious, since it, as all innocent blood save that of Christ, brought down the vengeance of God, the Death, which the Prophet foretells, was to be vicarious. Words of man cannot make this word of God plainer. It is the burden and centre of the pro- phecy. Isaiah speaks of it in contrast with the false opinions of man concerning Him. They ^thought of Him, as stricken, smitten, and afflicted of God" for His own sins. The words do describe suffering for sin, as the Jews thought of Christ on the Cross, as forsaken by God. ^Let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him." They found, as did all who came to believe in Jesus, He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Isaiah speaks of that wondrous inter- change, our sins gathered into one, and concentrated on Him. ^The Lord hath made to light upon Him the iniquities of us all," our sins, the source of His wounds and bruises. They were wrong, the Prophet says, not in accounting Him specially stricken, smit- ten by God," and that for sins; but in that they thought that the sins for which He was smitten were ^ Acts ii. 36-8. ^ Heb. xii. 24. ^ Is. liii. 4. f S. Matt, xxvii. 43. ? Is. liii. 6. and intercessor in Is. c. liii. 89 His own. He^^ Whom they had thought stricken of God for sin, He was '^wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." And contrariwise our peace and healing streamed forth from those wounds ; *^'the chastisement of our peace, " i. e. whereby our peace was wrought, ^' was" heavy '^upon Him, and by His wounds healing came to iisP Isaiah repeats it yet again, when speaking of His Death, '^^He was cut off out of the land of the living ; for the transgres- sion of My people was He stricken." And yet anew in foretelling the results of that Death ; ^^%hen Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin. He shall see His seed ;" My righteous Servant shall justify many, and shall bear their iniquities." ''He shall bear the sin of many." In three out of the five cycles of the prophecy, in nine different expressions, did Isaiah inculcate the vicariousness of that Death. Yet further. Isaiah connects that vicarious Sacri- fice with the sacrifices of the Law, and thereby he in- terprets the meaning of those sacrifices, which en- tered so largely into the religious life of the Jew ; which God declared to be worthless in themselves, and yet inculcated as the central part of their devo- tion, their public devotion, morning by morning, and evening by evening, the solemn act of all their solemn festivals, the worship for which they were gathered into one from one end of their land to the other ; the condition of forgiveness, for ''""without shedding of blood there was no remission." For the sins of the whole nation or for individuals, there was no other ^ The contrast is marked by the emphatic used of the pronouns We^ He. vtjac'n v. 4. xini v. 5. ^ Is. liii. 5. ^ lb. 8. 1 lb. 10, 11, 12. ^ Heb.ix. 22. 90 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner appointed Tray of forgiveness. Look at the pietm*e, Trhieh the Day of Atonement set before them For them it was a strict sabbath of affliction. In moui'n- ing for their sins in that twenty-foui' hoiu's' unbroken fast°, they were assembled to witness the High Priest, himself fii'st cleansed from sin but in a state of hu- miliation p, entering into the immediate Presence of God, alone, veiled from the sight of every human eye, there to present before God that blood of a victim '^without spot or blemish," which God TTimseK had appointed as the atonement for their souls. On this, they were told, all the offences of the whole congre- gation were remitted 'i, and, as a visible symbol of this, a substitute, upon which their sins were laid'", was led far away into the wilderness, to carry them, as it were, out of sight. And then, the Atonement made, the High Priest appeared again in glorious apparel, the symbol (as we see in Zechariah') of acceptance and joy before God. It was a wonderful picture of complete forgiveness. ^'^In that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean fi'om all youi' sins before the Lord." '^''He shall confess over him all the iniquities of the child- ren of Israel and all their transgressions even unto all their sins." Every name, expressive of sin, is men- tioned, and to each the word '^all" is prefixed, in order to shew that all might be confessed and all forgiven. ^'^This shall be an everlasting statute for ever to make an atonement for the childi'en of Israel for all theii* " Lev. xvi. 0 Lev. xvi. 31, xxiii. 32. To afflict the soul " is the Pentateuch expression for fasting. P lb. 1 Lev. xvi. 30. 34. r j^. 21. « Zcch. iii. 3, 4. t Lev. xvi. 30. u 11^, 21. x j^). 34. and Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 91 sins once a year." It was a statute made for Israel during its whole existence. The high-priest existed for this one office. His one ritual office was to bear part in this solemn action. Year by year, that same solemn sight was enacted ; unsatisfying, even because it was repeated, yet so full of meaning; combining (as the leper's sacrifice only did besides,) death and life; blending deepest sorrow and an eventide of joy. — It could not but have fixed the gaze of the pious in Is- rael onward. The more they felt the unsatisfyingness of their sacrifices in themselves, the more they knew that ^Hhe blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin," the more, since God commands nothing without meaning, they must have looked on longing- ly towards that reality, which cast beforehand these mysterious shadows. And now Isaiah met these longings. He gathered into one all the twilight rays of their manifold sacri- fices for sin, concentrated them, and cast them for- ward upon One ; One, beyond all others the righteous Servant of God; One, Himself wholly without sin; not, like the earthly High Priest who ''J' needed to of- fer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people's," but Himself without spot of sin amid a sin- ful people. IsTo contrast can be more absolute than that between the unrighteousness of the people and the righteousness of their Deliverer. On the one side is all sinfulness ; on the other all holiness. ^ All we," the Prophet confesses in the name of his people and of human nature, as we confess still, '^all we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we have turned every man to his own way." And He, not only is He guiltless of y Heb. vii. 27. Ms. liii. 6. 92 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner that for wliicli they condemned Him; ^^^He did no violence neither was guile in His mouth" ; but His righteousness flowed over to others. '^^By the knowledge of Him," i. e. by knowing Him (as He Himself said, ^'^This is life eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent") ''shall the Eighteous One, My Ser- vant, make many righteous." Of this Eighteous One Isaiah speaks in sacrificial terms. He ascribes to Him the character, at once, of sacrifice and priest; of sacrifice, in that he says, '' ^ when Thou shalt make His soul a sin-offering; " of priest, in that he says, '' ^He shall sprinkle many na- tions." Scripture knows of no metaphoric sin-offer- ings. The word means very rarely the guilt ^ itself, commonly the sacrifice offered for that guilt. It is one of the two sorts of sacrifices, upon offering which, by virtue of that Sacrifice to come, which the great sacrifice of the Day of Atonement represented, atone- ment was made and sin was forgiven. If he who had contracted the guilt, for which it was appointed to be offered, confessed it not and brought not the sa- crifice, it is expressly said, '' he shall bear his iniqui- ty^, he shall be guilty^^" Upon his confessing his sin and bringing that offering, it is said in contrary wise, '' ^ the priest shall make an atonement for him for the sin which he hath sinned, and it shall be forgiven him." The word '' sprinkle," is a received sacrificial word, used in the law of the sprinkling of the blood a Is. liii. 9. b lb. 11. c S. John xvii. 3. ^ Is. liii. 10. ^ Is. lii. 15. ^ Gen. xxvi. 10, Ps. Ixviii. 22 ; Jer. li. 5. g Lev. v. 1. ^ lb. 2, 3. i lb. 6. 10. 13. 13. 13. and Intercessor in Is, c. Uiu 93 of the sacrifice ^, whereby the Atonement was made : as elsewhere, so also on the Day of Atonement itself. It anticipated the Gospel-word \ ''^the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ," ''"the Blood of sprink- ling." In this great sacrifice which Isaiah foretells, priest and victim are one. The earthly shadows of the good things to come in the Gospel, could not but be distinct. As God, Who in His One simple Es- sence contains all perfection and excellence which is or can be conceived, as simply one, yet so attempers Himself to us and our infirmity, as to allow us to con- ceive severally those perfections which in Him are one, that so we may be drawn on to contemplate in parts and as, thi'ough the gift of His Grace, we can, what in Him has no parts ; — so He made known to His former people. Him "Who came to die for us, by little partial visible likenesses, each of which could only represent some one aspect of Hwi^ 'Wh.o is the Divine counterpart of all in one. ''°He is the Victim, He the Sacrifice ; He, the Priest ; He, the Altar ; He, God ; He, Man ; He, King ; He, High-Priest ; He the sheep ; He the lamb ; He, for our sakes, became all things in -all, that in every way. He might become life to us." Yet is this variety of representation, in truth, no greater condescension than when He enables us to conceive something of Himself, by speaking to us of those several attributes which in Him are one. Those difi'erent images do not contradict, they fill up, one another. Visibly, death could be represented only by that which is irrational ; the ofi'erer must be distinct from the ofi'ering ; he could not offer himself for, it ^ Lev. xYi. 14, 15. 19. l pavrccrixos. 1 S. Pet. i. 2. " Heb. xii. 24. « S. Epiph. Haer. 55. n. 4. p. 471, 2. 94 The prophecy of Christ our A toner would have been the sinful oiFering of one whose own life was forfeited for sin. In order to express his own common guiltiness, the earthly High Priest had to offer for himself ; p first for his own sins, and then for the people's." But now, together with those other fuller disclosures as to the Deliverer to come, God declared the oneness of what in the ritual was exhibited as distinct. He threw a deeper light upon that ritual, setting before them a spotless righteous Offerer, who Himself was to be slain, yet Himself spiritually offered Himself, and, being the Sin-Offer- ing. Himself applied that atoning Blood to the cleans- ing of the nations. He willingly offered Himself." ^'^He, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God." Yet, although this purpose of God was to be brought about through the sinful agency of man, the agency rather than the human agent is spoken of, in order that all may appear the more to be the work of God and of His Servant. Isaiah tells us of the wounds, the bruises, the wales on His body, the op- pressive judgment ; but almost all is passive. He was wounded;" ''He was bruised;" ''with His stripes, or wales, we are healed," "He was oppress- ed; " " He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; " He was cut off from the land of the " living; " " the stroke was upon Him." Once only the human agent is spoken of impersonally, " One assigned His grave with the wicked." Else God is spoken of as ap- pointing the sacrifice, the Servant as willingly offer- ing it. Of God he says, " The Lord made to light on Him the iniquity of us all;" "it pleased the P Heb. vii. 27. i lb. ix. 14. and Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 95 Lord to make sore His bruise ; " and of the servant of God, ^^our griefs did He bear and oiir sorrows He carried;" ^'He was oppressed, and He Himself took the affliction He poiu-ed out His ''soul unto death and gave Himself to be numbered mth the trans- gressors ''He bare the sin of many." And so of His state of exaltation, in which a more than royal authority is ascribed to Him, the glorious work is as- cribed both to God and to His servant. God, says "I will divide Him a portion with the great" : he says of the servant, " He shall sprinkle (as purifying) many nations ;" "by the knowledge of Him shall the right- eous One, My Servant, make many righteous." These acts also of sacrifice for sin, and the priestly office which follows, God has, in this prophecy, so dis- tinguished, that the Atoning Death, which was once for all, He speaks of under those many words, almost throughout, as past ; the High-priest's office, which was to abide continually. He speaks of as future. It seems as though God had exhibited before the Pro- phet's soul, the events of the Passion and taught him so to relate them, as he saw them. And so up to His Death and Burial, Isaiah speaks in the well-known prophetic past, " seeming," in St. Jerome's words ^, "to compose, not a prophecy but a Gospel," so minutely does the account correspond with our Lord's Passion. In two places only, he in- termingles futures, " when Thou shalt make His soul a sin offering ;" " their iniquities He shall bear;" lest his hearers or we should think that he was speaking of a real past. Beyond it, he speaks of our Lord's continual Mediatorial Office for us with the Father, and fi-om the Father towards us, as a continued future. Ep. 53. ad rauliu. n. 7. 96 The 'prophecy of Christ our Atoner What was once for all finished on the Cross, what our Lord embraced in His word, It is finished'," Isaiah mostly speaks of as past : what He still con- tinueth to do, he speaks of as future. Yet he so blends both, that he does not stop short in the Atone- ment, without speaking of the abiding office in which it was to issue ; nor of our Lord's present office, jus- tifying, cleansing, interceding for us, as separate from the Atonement, by whose meritorious virtue He jus- tifies, cleanses, availingly intercedes for us. ''*His visage was so marred more than man's, — so shall He sprinkle many nations." ""He shall make many righteous, for He shall bear their iniquities." " -^He shall divide the spoil with the strong, hecause He hath poured out His soul unto death." "^He [The One] hare the sin of many, and for the transgressors He shall intercede." As Isaiah gathered into one the teaching of the sa- crifices which Ood had appointed to Israel, and cast their collective light upon the Person of our Lord, so from the beginning of the IN'ew Testament the Fore- runner, our Lord Himself, His Apostles, bind together the Gospel with Isaiah's prophecy. He whom Isaiah foretold, "as the Voice of one crying in the wilder- ness," sent his disciples to Jesus in language echoing Isaiah's words, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." Our Lord, on the night of His Passion, instructed His dist3iples as to Isaiah's words, "^This that is written must yet be ac- complished in Me, ^and He was numbered with the transgressors ;' for the things concerning Me have an 3 TeTeWrai. t jg. Hi. 14, 15. u l^i. n. ^ lb. 12. y S. Johni. 36. ^ S. Luke xxiL 37. from Is. Jiii. 12. add S. Mark xv. 28. aiifl Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 97 end," i. e. are receiying their end. Its words oiu' Lord expanded, when declaring the ^dcariousness of His Sufferings. " ^ The Son of man came not to be minis- tered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ran- som for many ^ ;"not for the sake of" only, in be- half of," as has lately been affirmed but a ransom in exchange for those whose lives were forfeited. To it again oiu' Lord doubtless alludes, when He dwells so tenderly on the words, ^"^lay down My life." '^I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd layeth down His life for His sheep. I lay down My life for My sheep. Therefore the Father loveth Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. I lay it down of Myself ; I have j)ower to lay it down and I have power to take it again." Our Lord doubtless retained the word of Isaiah's prophecy, when, in answer to His disciples, who doubted about the mean- ing of the Eesiu'rection, He explained, ''^how it is written of the Son of man, that He must suffer many things, and he set at noughts He used the very word^ which the LXX adopted for that here used by Isaiah, and which so expresses Isaiah's meaning, ''ceasing to be of men." Doubtless our Lord explained this pro- phecy to the eleven after the Eesurrection, when He upbraided them as '' slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken." His words, ''^ought not the Chi'ist to have suffered these things," (i. e. did it not belong to the office of the Christ to suffer them,) and to enter into His glory ? " are a summary of * S. Matt. XX. 28, Mark X. 45. ^ Avrpov dvrt ttoXAwv. ^ Jowett, Essay on the Atonement. Comm. on the Romans, p. 589. S. John X. 11, 15, 17, 18. ^ S. Mark ix. 12. f i^ovSevojefj ? ovxt Tavra cSei TraO^iv rov Xpiarov ; S. Luke xxiv. 26. H 98 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner this prophecy of those His sufferings and the glory which should be their fruit. And so, in the teaching of Apostles hereon, we have a portion of the direct teaching of our Lord. St. J ohn and St. Paul point out how, in the unbelief of the Jews, its words, Who hath believed our re- port ? " had their fulfilment. Out of that Scripture, Philip, under the direction of the Holy Ghost, preach- ed Jesus to the Ethiopian eunuch \ And in regard to the vicariousness of His sufferings, you remember how St. Peter embodies its language in his picture of Christ's meek Suffering. They are all Isaiah's words ; ^'^Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who His own self bare our sins in His own Body on the tree — by Whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray." In the same way also, in which Isaiah unites the Atonement once made and the continual Intercession at the Eight Hand of God, He it was who bare the sins of many, and shall intercede for the trans- gressors," in that same way do St. Paul and St. John. The Atonement, although ended as an Act, is not a a mere past Act. It lives on in in effect in our Lord's abiding Intercession. Our Blessed Lord's Interces- sion is not the deprecation of a servant, as man might pray for man. It is the continued Presence, within the veil, of Him Who made the Atonement for us, and now, in that ineffable Communion with the Father, gains for us, by virtue of that Atonement, forgiveness, grace, everlasting joy in His own Pre- sence ; yea gives, as One God with the Father, what, as Man, He obtains for us. St. Paul says not only, h S. John. xii. 38, Rom. x. 16. » Acts viii. 32-5. k 1 IVt. ii. 22, 24, 25. and Intercessor in Is. c. liii. 99 Wlio ever liveth to make intercession for us," but premiseth the mention of His Death. ^It is Chi'ist Who died, yea rather, That is risen again, AYho is ever at the Eight Hand of God, ^Tio also maketh interces- sion for us;" and again '-^ For Christ is entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us, nor yet that He should offer Himself often." And St. John, '^''We have an Advocate Jesus Chiist the Eighteous, and He is the Propitiation for our sins ." He is our Advocate, because He is our Propitiation ; He is our Propitiation °, in the present, and not in the past only, because that Propitiation, although in itself perfected when He bare our sins on the Cross, is ever present with God, ever makes Him propitious to us sinners. I have, (save that there is no season unmeet to dwell on the Sufferings of Christ for us,) although not in its proper season, yet as I had opportunity, point- ed out to you some characteristics of this great prophe- cy, both because it is often a help to faith, to see vi- vidly one great instance in which God has plainly spoken to us, and this instance of God's speaking is so bound up with our devotions on the Great Day of our Lord's Passion ; and yet it has been questioned in a writing much circulated among you p. He in- deed, in whose name it has been attempted to tui'n this prophecy aside to Jeremiah, lived to own, '^^i certain it is, that Jesus owned this image to belong to Him- self, and not less certain that He, first and alone, ex- hibited it perfectly in His o^ti Person." Look at it, 1 Eom. viii. 34. Heb. ix. 24. « 1 S. Johnii. 2. 0 'Altos tXacrjotos eort. P Dr. Williams in Essays and Rev. p. 7.2, 3. Bunsen Bibclwerk on Is. liii. H 2 100 The prophecy of Christ our A toner as a whole. Such is not the ideal which human wis- dom forms ; nor, if it could, could ought but Divine power accomplish it. It combines in one our Lord's Coming in humility and His reign in glory, humility which man would not choose, and glory which he could not attain. It is an outline filled up by other prophecy, but it is, as an outline, complete. You see before you, that still and retired and unknown life in youth ^, in low estate ; you see, how ^^'He came unto His own and His own received Him not; " you behold His soul full of heaviness, acquainted with grief;" you behold Him uncomplaining, led in the slow procession'' to the slaughter ; you see His silence before His judges ; their unjust judgment ''; His violent y yet voluntary Death ; and that, amid the transgressors, as one with them; the accursed buriaP assigned, but reversed; and then, after death, a prolonged life wherein He should live, (not, as has been said, ^'everlastingly in His work," but) Himself, personally. He Himself should be mighty^; kings should stand in awe of Him''; He Himself should be the purifier of nations^, the Im- part er of His own Eighteousness to the ungodly '^; He, the Eighteous One, should make the many righteous '^; He, the Holy One, should be alone the Healer. This latter fruit of His "Work is indeed within the veil, in the inner Court of God, where God, unseen by human eye, passes His secret judgment upon us. It is visible in its effects only. Yet not the less is it prophecy. The truth itself which we believe is an unseen reality ; our belief in that truth is fact ; a fact, ^ Is. liii. 2. « lb. 3, S. .John i. 11. * Is. liii. 3. " h^vv. 7. ^ lb. 8. y lb. 7. lb. 9. ^ lb, 10, b lb. J 2. c lii. 15. d liii. 11. and Intercessor in Is. c. Uii. 101 which is in itself a working of Divine power, that human greatness, human intellect, the majesty of kings, should seek its true greatness and glory and cleansing and acceptableness with God in reveren- cing Him Who died between the malefactors, "Whom of old Christians were taunted with worshipping, — the Crucified. ^^or beyond the one misery, that any Christian should lose his faith in Christ as He is, need it star- tle you, that any have ceased to see the image of your Eedeemer here. Not the criticism, employed to gloss over the unbelief, has been the parent of the unbe- lief, but the unbelief has been the parent of the criti- cism. ^^The interpretation of this chapter, as relat- ing to the Messiah, " said one of the founders of that criticism ®, would without doubt receive general ac- ceptance, but that the conviction that the prophets announce nothing as to things to come, except what they could know without Divine inspiration, had led many to seek and deck out the old Jewish explana- tions." So also as to that central doctrine of our faith, the blessed truth of Christ's vicarious sufferings, all can see it to be there, save those who will not bow down their souls to see it. Those who have believed in Christ as their Eedeemer and their God, and those who denied Him, alike bear witness to the evident meaning of Isaiah's words. Most Hebrew readers," says one of these last^, ^'familiar as they were with the ideas of sacrifice and vicariousness, must of ne- cessity so understand it, and there is no question but « Eichhorn Biblioth. d. Bibl. Litt. B. vi. p. 655. ^ Gesenius Comm. iib. d. Jes. ii. p. 191. 102 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner that the Apostolic representation of the atoning Death of Christ rests very chiefly on this ground." Such would resort to the blasphemy of supposing that Isa- iah's prophecy influenced our Blessed Lord's own ac- tions, or would say, (which is of course, inconsistent with this,) that it influenced the Scripture account of His actions and sufi'erings ; but they owned the har- mony, which it cost no submission of the intellect or the will to acknowledge. The faith needs no such witness. We have need of no witness, now that we have the witness of Christ. The Old Testament, in its fulness of prophecy, the largeness of its prophetic outlines, or the wonderful minuteness of its single rays concentrating in Jesus, bears witness to Him. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Our Lord's words seal to us the details, which are hard (if so be) to human intel- lect to receive, until it sees them illumined and trans- figured by Divine light. This is no cii^cle in argu- ment, as it has been untruly represented. Prophe- cies, which require Divine knowledge to foretell or Divine Power to accomplish, are one concurrent testi- mony to our Eedeemer, ''the Divine "Word Incarnate." Our Lord's Divine authority is alleged against gain- sayers, not of those prophecies, (which would alone be a circle in argument,) but of other portions of the Old Testament, which do not bear their own evidence of inspiration. Still less need you be dismayed by confident asser- tions, that the doctrines of our Blessed Lord's Vicari- ous Sufferings and Atonement are not to be received, because contrary, it is said, to ''^'the moral sense" ! g Eev. xix. 10. h Our "moral sense" hud recently been and Intercessor in Is, c. lilL 103 As though oui^ moral sense were a test and arbiter be- forehand of the Divine revelation, sitting in judgment on the doctrine of the redemption, as the High Priest did on the Person of our Eedeemer. True, that all God's gifts will harmonise ; that the book of His words and the book of His works, each rightly understood, will speak one language ; that the moral sense, which He has created in us, will be in accordance with all which, by His revelation. He makes known to us. True ; but under what guidance ? Not, under the di- rection of unsanctified intellect ; not, when intruding into mysteries which it cannot grasp; not, while de- nying truths, which are part of a whole which it can- not fathom ; not, when blinded by scanning its Maker face to face and disputing with Him Who formed it. "When the moral sense can explain that utterly insolu- ble mystery, the presence, nay the reign, of evil in the works of the Almighty All-Good God, then let it say to Him, Thus and thus doth it befit Thee to remedy it. It befitteth Thee not, to lay the punishment of the guilty upon the Innocent. Our moral feelings revolt at such a doctrine of the Atonement, that Thou should- est be ^^^ready to inflict a disproportionate punishment upon us, and only turn it aside, for the sake of the Suf- ferings of Thy Son in our stead." In other words, Thus would I remedy, and thus would I not reme- dy, sin, if I were God." Eut since neither moral sense, nor even illumined intellect, can see more than this, how even evil worketh to good to those who love God, then we may well cease to measure by set forth in an University Sermon as the test whether any given doctrine in revelation was from God. i Jowett on the Atonement, beg. Comm. on Horn. T. ii. p. 547. 104 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner our notions the Justice and Holiness of the Infinite and All-Holy, in remedying that evil which we con- fessedly do not understand. The province of the moral sense" is not to criti- cise beforehand the revelation of God, and to deter- mine what it will, and what it will not, receive, what is fitting, and what is unfitting its Maker. Its office, when illumined, not by human intellect but by Divine light, when purified by grace, guided by faith, ensoul- ed by love, made discriminating by faithfulness, guarded by humility, quickened in perception by obe- dience, fed by meditation, — its office, when so enabled by God, is, not to judge Divine truths which it has not received, but to appreciate truths, which by Divine grace it has received ; nay, still more (which is our case) not, in the service of human intellect, to unlearn the truths for its growth in its daily life in God, which it has once received, but to draw wisdom from the truths which it has been taught. And will then moral sense," as taught by God, in- deed rebel against the doctrine of the satisfaction paid by our Dear Lord ? The appeal lies not to the in- tellect, but to the seat of the moral sense," the heart. ^'Christ crucified" was indeed 'Ho the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." Intellect has no advantage in appreciating the Cross of Christ. Else the Gospel would not be the Gospel of the poor. Ask not those who have looked upon it from without, as a man might look from without on the storied panes of a Church and complain that all looked dark and cold, because he had never seen the light from heaven stream through them, and exhibit them radiant with glory from above. But ask those. and Liter cesser in Is. c. liii. 105 whose book has been the foiir Gospels ; the rule of whose life has been the Passion of their Sa^dour ; who have studied it, letter by letter, until their soul has been transfigui-ed into some likeness of the Eedeem- er ; fi-om whose mind, by daily meditation, the image of the Crucified departed not ; who have reverently suffered in the Suffering of their Eedeemer for them, and joyed in His Joy. They would be amazed at the thought, that such exceeding love could be re- pugnant to the moral sense " of man, to whom it is shewn. They joy with reverent amazement at that boundless pity, that inestimable charity, that He, the Innocent, was ^' willingly afflicted " in order that we the guilty might be freed; that to redeem a servant the Son should give Himself to be slain. It is un- just to punish the innocent for the guilty against his will. But how since it was with His Will? To whom should the injustice be done ? To the Co- eternal Son, One God with the Father, "Whose Will is ever one with the Father's, Whose Will it was, ''for us men and for our salvation," to take upon Him the form of a servant, and therein to become obedient unto death, and that, the death of the Cross ? The thought were blasphemy ! Or was it then to the Manhood, which He took, and which is now exalted in glory unspeakable, for ever united in One Person with the Co-eternal Son, united with His Godhead by a closer union than any save that of the Persons of the Adorable Trinity in the Unity of the Divine IS'ature, Sharer of the Wisdom, the Perfections, the Bliss of God ? To ask the question, is to answer it. Such thoughts would not arise, my brethren, if, in- stead of losing themselves in abstractions, men medi- 106 The prophecy of Christ our Atoner tated more on the Person, Life, Actions, Sufferings of their Eedeemer. Hear how they speak who so medi- tated. Nothing is so helpful to Salvation as daily to meditate, how great Sufferings God-Man endured for us." In the Cross of Christ we find all pow- er ; it is the guide of the blind, the way of the con- verted, the refuge of the assaulted, the consolation of the afflicted. It is the source of all our bliss. This freed us from the blindness of error ; this restored us from darkness to light ; this joined us aliens to God ; this is the solid foundation of peace ; this the abun- dant grant of all good. " ^'^To meditate on this, I have called wisdom; herein have I constituted for my- self the perfection of righteousness ; herein the fulness of knowledge ; herein the riches of salvation ; herein the stores of merits. From these I have at times the draught of healthful bitterness ; from these again the sweet unction of consolation. These uplift me in ad- versity ; these repress me in prosperity ; and, amid the joys and sorrows of this present life, give me on either side a safe escort along the royal road, repelling from me the dangers impending over me. These win for me the Judge of the world, exhibiting as mild and humble Him Who is aweful to the Powers ; yea, they represent Him, Who is terrible to the kings of the world, as not forgiving only but imitable. Where- fore these things are often on my lips, as ye know; these are ever in my heart, as God knoweth ; these are familiar to my pen, as appeareth : this is my sub- lime philosophy, to ^know Jesus and Him Crucified.' " ^""0 wondrous lovefuU Passion, which maketh him ^ S. Laur. Justin. ^ S. Bernard Serm. in Cant, xliii. § 4. »^ S. Laur. Justin. De incendioDiviniAmoris c. 1. 0pp. p. 617. and Intercessor in Is. c. liiL 107 who meditateth thereon another man, not Angelic only but Divine. For dwelling in meditation on the Suf- ferings of Christ, it overlooks itself and beholds God within. It gazes, too, on its Lord in His Passion, and while it longeth to bear His Cross with Him, itself beareth in its heart Him Who holdeth in His Hand the heaven and the earth, and for Him it beareth most lightly every burden. It longs for His crown of thorns, and is crowned with the hope of glory. It willeth, bared of all, to be chilled on the Cross, and is kindled with an overwhelming glow of love. It willeth to taste the vinegar with Him, and receiveth the wine of unutterable sweetness. It willeth with Him to be mocked upon the Cross, and is itself ho- noured by the Angels. Willing with Christ to be saddened, it is gladdened. Willing with Him to be afflicted, it is comforted. It willeth to suffer with Him suffering, and is overwhelmed with delightsomeness. It willeth to hang with Christ upon the Cross ; and Christ enfoldeth him most sweetly." Let others, if they will, dispute, my brother ; do thou set before thee daily Christ Crucified ; fi:x Him wholly in thy heart Who for thee was fixed on the tree ; and He will quench for thee the fire of thy temptations. He will fiU thee with His love, and, by His love, He will enable you to understand some por- tion of His Infinite love for thee. He will guide thee by His counsel. He will bring thee to His glory, where, in that beatific Vision, thou shalt see, eye to eye, all which, not seeing, thou hast believed. SERMON V. Is. xlix. 5-7. And now J saith the Lord^ that formeth me from the ivomh to he His servant^ to bring Jacoh hack to Him^ and Israel^ which vjill not he gathered^ and I shall he glo- rious in the eyes of the Lord^ and my God shall he my strength. And He said^ It is too light a thing that Thou shouldest he My servant to raise up the trihes of Jacoh ^ and to bring hack the irreserved of Is- rael; and I have given Thee for a light to the gentiles ^ to he My salvation unto the ends of the earth. Thus saith the Lord^ the Redeemer of Israel^ his Holy OnCj to Him Whom man despiseth^ to Him Whom a nation ahhorreth^ to a servant of rulers ; Kings shall see and arise^ Princes^ and they shall worship^ he- cause of the Lord Who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose Thee. In the natural works of God, we admire at once their yastness and their minnteness. In the sight of those countless suns, which the eye beholds by night or which science discloses, we repeat, in humility or in unbelief, what the Psalmist said in wondering love, ^' Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" In the sight of the tiniest organization, whose mys- Evidence from the paradoxes of prophecy, 109 teries the unaided eye cannot see, Tre behold our Fa- ther's individual care of the least thing which He has created. So then we might expect beforehand in His Word, that there would be the vastest and the least ; Mys- teries of His Godhead which all eternity will not ena- ble even the God-empowered eye of the blessed to ex- haust, in that beatific contemplation of Himself, His Beauty, His "^Msdom, His Love : mysteries, again, of oui'selves, our own littleness, meanness, badness, our fertility of evil. Over against these once again, there are Mysteries of His condescension, the superabun- dant adaptations of His grace, the piercing minuteness of His revelations of oiu'selves to us, the all-prevail- ingness of ffis remedies of our ills ; our almost invisi- ble littleness in ourselves, our transcending great- ness through His ti-ansfonning Spirit. It is then altogether in analogy to His other ways, that greatest and least meet together in those evi- dences which He gives us of His having spoken or of His speaking with us. His miracles of Power or of Wisdom. Men stumble alike at what is great or what is little ; at what is great, because they would have it, that it is too great for us ; at what is little, because it is to be too little for God. They speak of the won- ders of the flood, or of the stopping of this globe, as if they were too great suspensions of His physical laws, for Him to command, "WTiose ever-present, con- tinuous Will is the one central law of His creation. They speak of the miraculous supply of the widow's needs, as too small an occasion for the exercise of His Omnipotency, ^Tio knoweth alike the number of the stars, and the hairs of our heads, and the beatings 110 The Christy the Light of the world^ to he rejected of our hearts, which in all Eternity were present in His serene Omniscience, and which, ere we were. He willed to succoui\ And so again as to His Word. Men will have it, that it is to be too little or poor a thing, that God should disclose beforehand so seemingly incidental a thing as the name of the poor village where the Christ should be born, or the piercing of His Hands and His Feet ; or they have evaporated into mere generalities those vast predictions of the conversion of the world, as if they were mere expressions of the longing of the humian heart ; which, bearing in itself the uneffaced, although defaced, image of God, feels itself not to have been created for the moral miseries in which it has plunged itself. In both ways they overlook this, that the largest and the least, the most expanding and the most definite, form one harmo- nious whole, the minutest prophecies presupposing the greatest, the greatest receiving from the most mi- nute, distinctive marks, in which we may recognise the more readily their Author's Hand. To-day, as a part of those miracles, which God sets before us for our own hands to handle, I would, with His blessing as I trust, weigh with you two of those larger, and at the same time intense paradoxes of prophecy, which run throughout the prophetic word, and which Isaiah, in those wonderful words which I have read to you, concentrates in one. The first is, that He, Who was foretold, should Himself be the light and salvation of those who knew not God, unto earth's utmost bound, yet that He should fail as to those to whom He should fii^st come, the prophet's own nation, the people among whom alone, before He came. He hj His oim ; to he despised and so to reign in glory. 111 was looked for, hoped for, believed in. The second is, that He, Whom to adore should be the glory of kings, before "Whose presence they should arise from their thrones and bow down before Him, should be first ^'despised of man, abhorred by the " Jewish '^peo- ple," be in the power of the rulers of this world, as a slave is in the power of his masters. All this was, of course, contrary to all experi- ence," contrary, in those who uttered it, to all their human feelings, to all to which noble natures most cling to. It was contrary to the whole tendency of things around them or before them; it was utterly beyond the reach of human power, and, except by themselves, never conceived of in human heart. Yet it has been and is. What was a paradox tJien^ what continued to be a paradox and a stumbling-block to human reason until it was^ what is, in part, a stum- bling-block to unsubmissive human reason still, is. I have read to you the whole of the great prophecy, that you might see that it is no mere combination of scattered notices. It cannot be represented to be the result of the varying hopes and fears of the human mind, or of mere difference of temperament, as an ar- dent soul might look to the future with more sanguine hopes, or a tender heart might shrink back at the over- whelming might of evil around it. Tender love, in- deed, is a characteristic of all the Prophets. Yet, one after another, they had this sight spread before them. He who made the heart, knew and declared it before- hand ; it was foretold that it would be ; it has been and is. The same prophets declare both. Isaiah, in one clear, full, calm, passage, enunciates the whole abso- 112 The Christy the Light of the world^ to he rejected lutely, distinctly, certainly, entirely. Look at it with me. If there is one thing, to which nobler souls by nature cling, it is the good of that portion of the human family, in which God has cast our lot. Hea- thenism owned, how sweet," as well as noble a thing" it was ^^to die for one's fatherland." The "ruling passion, strong in death," passes out of life with the prayer, "save my country, Heaven." In the prophets of Israel, the passion, the hunger and thirst, was, that their people should be, in deed as in name, the people of God. For this they laboured from the morning to the evening of life, as well as of each single day. At times God worked by them great re- formations ; at times they failed; or the people relapsed and became worse than before. But no disappoint- ment discouraged, no ingratitude chilled, no power quelled or silenced them. "Love, strong as death," infused, enabled, gifted with perseverance by God Who sent them, sustained them, until man slew or God took them. This was the end of their mission and of their life. For this, God had created them. Yet, as the end of all this toil and of the people for whom he toiled, Isaiah foreannounces, that God should form One from the womb to bring back Israel to Him, and that towards Israel that mission should, as a whole, fail ; and that^ by reason of the strength of the human will; "Israel will not be gathered." The calm enunciation is so startling ; it dashes down so unexpectedly the hopes, arising from the announce- ment of One to be born and to live, as God's instru- ment to bring back His people ; its clear statement of the failure of His mission towards God's people stands hy His otvn ; to he despised and so to reign in glory, 113 in such naked unrelieved contrast with His high honour in the sight of God and with His investiture with the power of God which follows, that people have tried to evade or reverse the Prophet's words. In vain. They stand, simple, clear, distinct. ^'Israel, which will not be gathered." Yet this declaration too is not indis- criminate. It foreannounced the disobedience of Is- rael, as a whole ; not the disobedience of all Israel, but the contrary. It is no voice of disappointment, which lays down its office hopelessly. Calmly the prophet foretells what would be, the disappointment in the main, the partial success, the great compensation. It is still that one same voice, which sounds throughout the pro- phets. "^A remnant shall be saved; the remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the Migh- ty God." Isaiah does not foretell only that, when the Long-expected should come, His people should flock to Him . He prophesies two things ; 1 ) that a cer- tain portion, preserved and guarded by God, ^^the pre- served of Israel," should be restored by Him Who should come ; 2) that this restoration of that portion should be by conversion, by a change of heart and soul, a bringing-back to God, a turning to God. The first office of Him Who should be born into the world was to be (as Jesus said that His own mission, while on earth, was,) to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He was to be the Servant of God, to perform His will to His people, '^to bring Jacob back to Him," *^to restore the preserved of Israel." We seem to be al- ready in the Gospel, when Jesus said; ^^^My sheep hear My voice." ' ' Ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep." He that is of God heareth God's a See on Joel ii.32. p. 131. ^ Is. x. 21. ^ S. John x. 27, 26. I 114 The Christy the Light of the world, to he rejected words ; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God^." A portion of God's people, ^'preserved" by God, should return to God. It is no mere conti- nuance in the old, no mere addition to what they had, no glories inward or outward, to come to the Jew- ish people, as they were, no mere developement of their law, no mere enlarged knowledge of God, or fresh re- velation of His Will, or disclosure of His infinite love. It was to be all this, but it was to be more. It was to be a fresh irradiation of light upon the mind, a flood of knowledge, of light, of love. But it was also to be a conversion of the heart and will. What J esus said to IS'icodemus and the twelve lay implied in Isaiah, "^Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God;" Except ye be con- verted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'' The benefit from Him Who was to be born to them was to those who, hav- ing gone astray, should be brought back. He was to be light, not to them who ^'^say, we see," but to those who owned themselves blind. He was to free, not those who said, ^'^'we be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage, ' ' but the bound. He was to restore, not those who should deem themselves to be in the way, but those who should own, ^^^all we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way ; " as our Lord Himself, when He came in the flesh, said, ^'^They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;" ''I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." They were individuals, yet a class; those '^preserved" and kept ^ viii. 47. eg, johj^ iii 3, f Matt. x\dii. 3. gS.Jolmix.41. f^Ib.viii.SS. i Is.liii.6. ^ S.Matt.ix. 12, 13. hy His 010 n ; to he despised and so to reign in glory. 115 by God, kept by His mercy without them, yet with the consent of their own will. They were not merely to go on in the right way ; they were to be brought back, and themselves first to return, to God. Israel too then needed conversion; and all, whom the Servant of the Lord should enlighten, He should first convert. Yet this was but the beginning. This was the loss and disappointment. What was the compensation? The world; the nations. What was to accrue to them ? Light and salvation. And this light was to be in One. He Himself personally was to be their Light. I will also give Thee for a light to the Gen- tiles, to be My salvation unto the ends of the earth." It is again the voice of the Gospel. ^ I am the Light of the world." ^'That was the true Light, which light- eth every man that cometh into the world." And in what guise was He to come ? Contempt. Tru- ly this is not the way, in which man would expect the world to be won. This is not the way, in which men now hope that the world may be regained. In- fluence, natural and cultivated powers of mind, per- suasiveness of worda of man's wisdom, excellency of speech, every thing in which man, as man, is superior to man — these things men look for, as at least the chief instruments for winning men, — dare we say, for gain- ing souls ? Good things in their way, yea good gifts of God, when penetrated by His Spirit ! Yet not so did Isaiah foretell that the world should be won. Not so was it won. Stronger words could scarcely be chosen to express the unmitigated contempt, wliich the world should show to Him Who should in the end convert it. '^To Him, the contempt of man," not, de- 1 S. John viii. 12; i. 9. I 2 116 The Christy the Light of the world^ to he rejected spised only, but their contempt ™, in whom their con- tempt was, as it were, personified; to Him, the loathed^ ^ perhaps, the awakener of the loathing ° of the nation; to Him," the Servant indeed of God, but, as it seemed, the powerless subject of rulers," as Pilate deemed, ^^Pknowest Thou not, that I have power to crucify Thee and have power to release Thee?" It is, as you know, no insulated description of Him Who was to regenerate the world. ^ ^ 1 1 am a worm and no man ; a reproach of men, and despised of the peo- ple. " ^ ^ ^ He was despised and we esteemed Him not . ' ' Yet this is He of Whom Isaiah foretold that, ^^to Him kings should rise up, princes should worship." This is something even beyond that other great subject of prophecy, that the world should worship that One God, Whom then the Jews alone adored. Every thing human was against even this. A small powerless nation, nay, when Isaiah prophesied, not a fraction of a nation, in extent not so large as some of our English counties, in numbers, at that time^ per- haps not one-third of our capital^, distinguished for ni3, like ph?', Job xii. 4, lit. the laughter, i. e. the object of laughter ; Vbp lb. xvii. 6, ' a byword.' See Ew. ausf. Lehrb. p. 389. ed.7. So AE. " synp maybe a verbal noun, like nripn, Is. xlix..7. See Ew. lb. p. 416. ^ i. e. if nynp be, (as is most natural) the Piel partic. P S- John xix. 10. i Ps. xxii. 6. ^ Is. liii. 3. s In TJzziah's prosperous reign, Judah had but 307, 500 fight- ing men. (2 Chr. xxvi, 13.) Taking these as \ of the population, (the fighting men being those from 20 years old and upward," Num. i. 3, 2 Chr. xxv. 5.) and these being \ of the whole people see Eickman in Census of Great Britain 1851 Popul. Tables ii. Ages &c. p. vi.") the whole population of Judah was 1,230,000. (from Smith Bibl. Diet. Kingdom of Israel p. 897. K. of Judah p. 1158.) The reign of Ahaz must have much diminished the population. hy His ovm ; to he despised and so to reign in glory. 117 no human gifts, inconstant, variable, influenced by every idolatry in turn, and influencing none ; — bow should it sway the world, which could not itself be fixed in good, ever ''starting aside, like a broken bow," missing the mark for which God made it ? The child is the parent of the man. In natural things the rudiments of the nation foretell the character of its greatness. The single, self-reliant, Arab energy boded, if united, the conquest of the world. In Eome, the strong practical wisdom, stern energy, self-forget- ful patriotism, insensibility to reverses, measured ad- vances to power, were rudiments of its consolidated world-empire. Spiritual conquest requires spiritual superiority of might. "Where was it ? In the pro- phets ? But they had not won their own people. There was a long experience, but of failure. ' ' I should have been less surprised," said one, feeling his way back from unbelief, ''if this had been predicted of Jupiter, and had been fulfilled." For the Eomans The king of Syria carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus. (2 Chr. xxviii. 5.) 120,000 fell in one battle with Pekah (lb. 6.) The Edomites carried off other captives (lb. 17.); the Philistines invaded the cities of the low country (She- phelah) and the south of Judah and dwelt in some of their towns (lb. 18.); and Tiglathpileser,to whom Ahaz sent for help, ''distressedhim but strengthened him not " (lb. 20). Under Hezekiah, when ' ' Sen- nacherib came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them" (2 Kgs. xviii. 13), Sennacherib himseK counts the strong fenced cities which he took at 46, "besides a countless number of smaller towns." (Insoript. in Pawl. 5 Emp. ii. 435). With cruel- ties such as the Assyrian monuments attest, the slaughter must have again brought down the population, which had probably re- covered to some extent in Hezekiah's first 13 years, besides the deportation of " young and old, male and female," which Senna- cherib states at 200, 150. (Inscr. lb.) 118 The Christy the Light of the world ^ to he rejected had, at least, an iron might of will, and an iron pow- er; the Jews had not even human steadfastness of purpose, and their national existence was well-nigh gone. Ten tribes had abandoned the pure faith, and had entered on their scattered, broken, despised ex- istence. The same prophets, who foretold the future spiritual conquests of Him Who was to be born of them, foretold also, with absolute certainty, the captivity of the portion which remained. Yet they prophesied, not, that they should leaven the nations among whom they should be captives ; not that Israel, having the knowledge of the true God, should be the missionary of the world, over which it was to be spread ; not that the life-blood of the truths which they held | should be circulated with themselves in the system of nations ; but that One should be born in that coun- try from which they were to be severed, and that He should convert not the world only, but themselves first, and that Jerusalem itself should be the centre and spring of that conversion. But the prophecy went far beyond this fact, that the God, Whom they alone worshipped, was to be owned as the God of the world. Nor was it only or chiefly, that one, who was once despised, should in memory be reverenced. This too does not lie in hu- man, conception. Man can imagine that what was once unjustly hated^ should afterwards be reverenced. For what is great in this world's eyes may, through envy, be the object of hate. The world reverses its judgement of hate, not of contempt. But the prediction in Isaiah is more than this. It is not like Plato's ideal just man, whose justice can * See my Commentary on Hos. viii. 8. p. 52. andix. 17. pp. 61, 2. by His own ; to be despised and so to reign in glory, 119 only be tested by being thought unjust, and, as be- ing unjust, punished For there Plato's picture ends. Isaiah's prophecy is no ideal, but the distinct pre- diction of one who was to come ; no posthumous honour, but an universal personal rule. The same Person, born of woman, was to be despised, abhorred, mocked, spat upon, smitten on the cheek, adjudged to death, cut oflP, and Himself to rule, to be the Prince of peace. His rule unending, unbounded, increasing without end. Himself the Object of the worship of kings and nations to the ends of the world. Nor can it be said truly that Isaiah had a limited knowledge of the human race. The nations, known to Isaiah and his hearers by a human knowledge included Greek and Italian, Celts, Scandinavians, Sclavonians and Teutons, Armenians, Medes, Per- sians and some yet beyond; and then from Elam and Asshur to Ethiopia southward, Egypt and the Libyan tribes to Spain. India they knew at least in memory. Isaiah, in this immediate context, fore- told y. Behold" (it is a great wondrous fact to which attention is called) these shall come from far ; and, lo, these from the north and from the west ; and these from the land of Sinim." They were to come from distant lands on all sides ; and those, who are mentioned by name, are now recognized to be from that furthest East, China ^. These fill up part of the outline of the " all nations," who were to flow in to the worship of the One True God from earth's remotest bound. This was prophesied, not by way of hope or antici- "de Rep. ii. 5. * See my Commentary on Micah iv. 2. p. 321. yls. xlix. 12. 2 See Gesen. Thes. v.oto pp. 948-950. 120 The Christ, the Light of the world, to he rejected pation, but with absolute certainty. This, the bless- ing of all nations in the seed of Abraham, was the hereditary prophecy, the charter of their national existence, for nearly 2000 years. They were enlarg- ed, contracted, trampled on, torn away from their land, corrupted, despised. The faith was not rent from them in their adversity ; it was not obliterated by prosperity. Their hope was not in themselves. ^They were not to work deliverance in the earth;" nor did they become missionaries to the heathen. Their eyes were ever fixed on One to come. And, as time went on, God filled up that outline. The additions intensified the marvel beforehand ; be- ing Divine truth, they facilitate it to belief. Isaiah, who here speaks of the low estate and contempt of Him "Who should be the Light of the world, speaks elsewhere, as you know, of His Atoning Death, and, after and because of that Death, of His personal reign. He who here says, that kings shall wor- ship," declares elsewhere, as do David and other prophets, that He should be God. Continued reve- rence, unceasing personal rule in life after death, perpetual diffusion of life and salvation from Him- self, belong only to Him, Who, while for us men and for our salvation He became Man, continued what He was, the Author and Giver of life. Almighty God. And now look back with me to the heads of this com- pass of predictions. Human anticipation sees, with more or less sagacity, the probable future in its pre- sent human causes. Divine prophecy sees certainly a future, of which the causes lie hid in God. Which then are these, human or Divine ? One, it is pre- Is. xxvi. 18. ly His 01V71 ; to he despised and so to reign in glory. 121 dieted with one imiform eertaiiity, should he horn, Who should convert, hless, reign over, he adored hy, oheyed hy, all nations. King and Priest for ever, yet not according to the Jewish Priesthood. And on what conditions ? That He, the Prince of peace, shoidd be despised, rejected, smitten to death, yet live for ever. And yet He, Who was to he received by the nations, was to be accepted by a portion only of His own people. And those who should receive Him, Jew or Gentile, were to receive Him thi'ough a conversion of heart. He was to bring a new law, the same in a measure but not the same; for it was to be new. And that law was to be received thi'ough a new spii'it, one universal outpouring of the Spiiit of God, on young and old, sons and daughters, nay specially on the slaves, male and female. Joel says nothing of the wise, but he predicts the conversion of those who were among the fii'st converted, the slaves Could man foresee this? Could man accomplish it? If man could conceive it. why has it not been con- ceived elsewhere? Why only by men who claimed to speak the words of God ? Man has conceived the idea of universal civil empire. He has longed for another world to conquer. The universal empu-e of mind is too bold an ambition, even in human things. Expe- rience was against it. Each philosopher sought to gain his adherents. His authority was disputed by his contemporaries, set aside or modified by his suc- cessors. The long succession of prophets attested its impossibility to man ; no one was commissioned to execute it and so none attempted it. They foretold a new law ; they modified not one letter of the old. ^ Joel ii. 29. 122 The Christ J the Light of the world^ to he rejected It was no chance, no failure through human in- firmity, in what could be, but was not. God made His creature for Himself, to find its bliss in obeying Him. He gifted the human soul with that myste- rious endowment of reason, the image of His own, to bow before no idol, to be the slave of no created being, to be enlightened by Himself, and to obey His voice alone, howsoever that voice should sound to it. He gifted the soul of man with that yet more sacred power of free-will, which, even in claiming the obe- dience of His creature. He Himself will not force or subdue, save by the overwhelming power of His love, willingly received by the soul itself. Man could not conceive the universal subjugation of the human mind to man, because it is contradictory to a primary God-implanted law, too sacred for man's con- science to dare {o violate. This new universal obedience, which the prophets foretold, was not to man, but to God; an obedience rendered through the empowering enlightenment of the Spirit of God, teaching the soul to recognise its Maker's voice. The conception was not self-contradictory, because it involved the Presence of a power, above man, within man; detaching him from self-will, to set his will free ; freeing him from the bondage to himself, his passions, his idiosyncrasies, his weaknesses; break- ing the mould of self, to enable him freely to receive the mould of the only pure Eeason, the Mind of Christ, his God. The prophecy was possible, only be- cause the power whereof it prophesied was Divine. This, in itself, answers the question, could man accomplish it ? " But look at the two arrays, when Jesus came. On the one side, (in our Lord's cause hy His own ; to he despised and so to reign in glory. 123 we may speak boldly, it will be reverent still,) on the one side, to human sight, was a Jew, a carpenter's son and a Carpenter, speaking and acting in the most de- spised part of the most despised country in the world, hated by the powerful, the wise, the learned, the re- spected of his nation, condemned as a malefactor and seditious, crucified because He called Himself the Son of God, "because'^," they said, "that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God." His cause would have failed, had He not been worshipped as God. One, who should so have spoken, who, not being God, should have said, " and My Father are one" ("substance," ev) ; who should have accepted St. Thomas' adoring confession, My Lord and my God ;" or who should have declared his own ever-present existence, "^Before Abraham was, I am;" or should have spoken of him- self as having come " down from heaven," and being then " in heaven?," — he could not have been the re- generator of the world, since he would have said un- truly, " I am the Truth He would have been, as the recent romancer ' represented Him, the hideous wreck of what God had endowed for good. No reve- rence, had such been possible upon failui-e, no reve- rent memory, no admiration, (such as some, who disbe- lieve in His Divinity, inconsistently render Him,) would have fulfilled the prophecy. All was rested on that one demand. He came ; and, as was foretold of Him, He was rejected, despised, put to death ; but He claimed the world as His own ; He demanded to be obeyed by all, loved by all, adored by all, because He, being God, did, as Man, die for all. c S. Johnx. 33. ^ i^. 30. e Xb. xx. 28. f lb. xiii. 58. gib.iii. 13. J^Ib. xiv. 6. » Renan. 124 The Christ, the Light of the world, to he rejected We are, thanks be to God, so encompassed by the light of the Gospel, that grace has become like nature, and it now seems, as it is, nnnatui^al not to be a Chris- tian ; for it is the only true end, the nobility, the in- tegrity, the completion of our nature. But look back at those times. Look at the pride of Eome, its long centuries of prosperity, its power, its name, which it idolised, bound up with the memory of its false gods^. Conceive the proposal made to it to depose all those gods, to count them as nothing, and to worship One, Whom they knew only as a Jew, crucified by one of their subordinates. We know their answer from the Imperial Edict, that Christianity was ^an empty execrable vanity, a pernicious error." The question, said Festus, was only about ™one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul afiirmed to be alive." Or look at Greek and Alexandrian philosophies. Measure from Avhat you see around you, which is not Christian, what the demand was, to receive the undemonstrated wisdom of a Jew ; to substitute dogmatic faith for scepticism ; to believe, what they, from the rooted tra- ditions of their schools, thought irrational, the crea- tion of matter and the resurrection of the flesh ; or that all-comprehensive '^foolishness of God," the. Cross of Christ and the worship of the Crucified. Greece and Eome were but specimens of human nature. Where- ver the Gospel was planted, it was watered by the blood of martyrs. Will was arrayed against will, this world's wisdom against the foolishness of this world ; iron might against weakness ; oppression against non- resistance. The world had its way, slew, imprison- k See references in Tert. Apol. c. 25. p. 63. Oxf. Tr. ^ Edict of Maximin in Eus. H. E. ix. 7. Acts xxv.19. hy His ovm ; to he despised and so to reign in glory, 125 ed, banished, enslaved, tortured, and was conquered. It conquered that which was of earth, and slew it. It was conquered by the Indweller in those ''"earthen vessels." " Greater," it had so been said to them °, '' is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." The words of the Prophet were fulfilled ; yet not by, but against, human power. God foretold that He would win the world, and He overcame it, not by His power but by His love. Amid this wide-wasting flood of scepticism, it may be useful to some of you, to grasp this great miracle of the wisdom and love of God ; a miracle, which it requires no learning to apprehend, although all learn- ing evidences the more its intensity. What Divine wisdom predicted, contrary to all experience and im- possible to man. Divine power has accomplished and is accomplishing by one unceasing miracle, the mira- cle of supernatural transforming grace. Unbelievers have asked for a revelation written in the sun. God igives a revelation more blessed, one written in the hearts; but the e\T.dence for which is around you, within you, of which you are yourselves a part ; a mi- racle, which pervades those three hundred million souls, which, from every land, from every character of people, intellect, temperament, habits, dispositions, circumstances, worship Him "Who was bom on earth for them, and, dying, bare their sins. But if any of you have been tempted to part, if n