06ICAL StN 
 
 BX5133.L52 S46 1880 v.2 
 Liddon, Henry Pany, 1829-1890. 
 Sermons preached before the University oi 
 Oxford : second series, 1868=1879 / 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sermonspreachedbOOIidd 
 
©Qorfes tip ttt same author. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 2>vo. $s. 
 SOME ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. Lent Lectures. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Idea of Religion— God, the Object of Religion— The Subject of Religion, 
 the Soul— The Obstacle to Religion, Sin— Prayer, the Characteristic Action 
 of Religion — The Mediator, the Guarantee of Religious Life. 
 
 Sixth Edition, Revised. Crown Zvo. 5 J 1 . 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. First Series, 1859-1868. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 God and the Soul — The Law of Progress — The Honour of Humanity — The 
 Freedom of the Spirit — Immortality — Humility and Action — The Conflict 
 of Faith with undue exaltation of Intellect — Lessons of the Holy Manger — 
 The Divine Victim — The Risen Life — Our Lord's Ascension the Church's 
 Gain — Faith in a Holy Ghost — The Divine Indwelling a Motive to Holiness. 
 
 Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 THE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 
 
 JESUS CHRIST: Eight Lectures preached before the University 
 of Oxford, in the Year 1866, on the Foundation of the late Rev. John 
 Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. — The Question before us — Enduring Interest of the Question thus raised 
 
 even for Non-Believers — Three Answers to it are possible — The Catholic 
 Answer — Position taken in these Lectures stated. 
 
 II. — Anticipations of Christ's Divinity in the Old Testament — Foreshado wings 
 
 — Predictions and Announcements. 
 
 III. — Our Lord's Work in the World a Witness to His Divinity— Our Lord's 
 
 " Plan " (caution as to the use of the expression)— Success of Our Lord's 
 " Plan " — How to account for the Success of Our Lord's " Plan." 
 
 IV. — Our Lord's Divinity as Witnessed by His Consciousness — First Stage of 
 
 His Teaching chiefly Ethical — Second Stage : Increasing Self-assertion — 
 Christ's Self-assertion viewed in its bearing upon His Human Character. 
 
 V. — The Doctrine of Christ's Divinity in the Writings of S. John — Ancient and 
 
 Modern Objections to its Claims — It is a Life of the Eternal Word made 
 Flesh — It is in Doctrinal and Moral Unison with the Epistles of S. John 
 and the Apocalypse — Its Christology is in Essential Unison with that of the 
 Synophists — It incurs the objection that a God-Man is Philosophically 
 Incredible — S. John's Writings oppose an insurmountable barrier to the 
 Theory of a Deification by Enthusiasm. 
 
 VI. — Our Lord's Divinity as 'taught by S. James, S. Peter, and S. Paul— S. 
 John's Christology not an Intellectual Idiosyncrasy — The Apostles present 
 One Doctrine under various forms — S. James's, S. Peter's, S. Jude's, and 
 S. Paul's Epistles — Contrasts between the Apostles do but enhance the 
 force of their common Faith in a Divine Christ. 
 
 VII. — -The Homoousion— The Ante-Xicene Church adored Christ— The Ante- 
 Nicene Church spoke of Christ as Divine— The Homoousion. 
 
 VIII. — Some Consequences of the Doctrine of our Lord's Divinity — Conserva- 
 tive Force of the Doctrine— Illuminative Force of the Doctrine— Ethical 
 Fruitfulness of the Doctrine— Conclusion. 
 
 EtoirtGtotuj: Horrtion, 2Djcfort), ant) eiambritiee 
 
WORKS BY THE REV. DR. LIDDON— Continued. 
 
 Second Edition. &vo. is. 6d. 
 WALTER KERR HAMILTON, BISHOP OF 
 
 SALISBURY. A Sketch. 
 
 Crown Zvo. ^s. 6d. 
 REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS AT THE RE- 
 UNION CONFERENCE, held at Bonn, September 1874. With a 
 Preface by H. P. Liddon. 
 
 Crown Zvo. 6d. 
 REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS AT THE RE- 
 UNION CONFERENCE OF 1875, with Preface by H. P. Liddon. 
 
 [London : B. M. Pickering.] 
 
 Third Edition. With Portrait. Large Type. i^mo. is. 6d. 
 A MANUAL FOR THE SICK; with other Devotions. 
 By Lancelot Andrewes, D.D., sometime Lord Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 Phcebe in London : A Sermon 
 preached at the Parish Church of 
 Kensington on the Second Sunday 
 after Trinity, June 10, 1877, for the 
 Parochial Mission Women Associa- 
 tion. 8vo. is. 
 
 Bishop Wilberforce : A Sermon 
 preached at the Parish Church of 
 Graffham, Sussex, on its Reopening 
 after Restoration, Nov. 2, 1875. 
 8vo. is. 
 
 Love and Knowledge : A Sermon 
 preached in King's College Chapel, 
 at its Inauguration on the Twenty- 
 second Sunday after Trinity, 1873. 
 8vo. is. 
 
 The One Salvation : A Sermon 
 preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on 
 the Fifth Sunday after Easter, 1873, 
 at the Anniversary Service of the 
 Bishop of London's Fund. 8vo. 
 is. 
 
 The Moral Groundwork of 
 Clerical Training: A Sermon 
 preached at the Anniversary Festival 
 of Cuddesden College on Tuesday, 
 June 10, 1873. 8vo. is. 
 
 St. Paul's and London : A Ser- 
 mon preached at St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral on the Fourth Sunday after 
 Epiphany, 1871. 8vo. 6d. 
 
 The Day of Work : A Sermon 
 preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on 
 Sunday, August 6, 1871, being the 
 Morrow of the Funeral of the very 
 Rev. H. L. Mansel, D.D., Dean of 
 St. Paul's. 8vo. is. 
 
 The Purchas Judgment : A 
 
 Letter of Acknowledgment to the 
 Right Hon. Sir J. U. Coleridge, 
 one of the Lords of Her Majesty's 
 Most Honourable Privy Council ; 
 together with a Letter to the Writer 
 by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., 
 Eastertide, 1871. 8vo. is. 
 
 The Purchas Judgment : A 
 
 Letter to the Right Hon. and Right 
 Rev. the Lord Bishop of London 
 by the two Senior Canons of St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, June 1, 1871. 
 8vo. is. 
 
 Pauperism and the Love of 
 
 God : A Sermon preached at St. 
 Paul's, Knightsbridge, on the 
 Second Sunday after Trinity, 1870, 
 for the Convalescent Hospital at 
 Ascot. 8vo. is. 
 
 The Model of our New Life : 
 
 A Sermon preached at the Special 
 Evening Service in St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral on Easter Day, 1870. 8vo. 3d. 
 
 The Work and Prospects of 
 Theological Colleges : A Ser- 
 mon preached at the Cuddesden 
 Anniversary Festival, on June 10, 
 1868. 8vo. is. 
 
 The Moral Value of a Mission 
 from Christ: A Sermon preached 
 in Christ Church Cathedral, at the 
 General Ordination of the Lord 
 Bishop of Oxford on the Fourth 
 Sunday in Advent, December 22, 
 1867. 8vo. is. 
 
 Rtometorw: Hormon, SDjcforU, anti CambrttjQe 
 
SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE 
 
 C&e (Htnticrsttg of ©rforD 
 
 (SECOND SERIES) 
 1868—1880 
 
RIVINGTONS 
 
 JUltDOtt Waterloo Place 
 
 SD^forH Magdalen Street 
 
 CamfcrtOgc Trinity Street 
 
 [c-442] 
 
SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE 
 
 e ^ntbersutg of ©xfortr 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 1868—1880 
 
 H. P. LIDDON, D.D. 
 
 CANON RESIDENTIARY OF ST. PAUL'S, AND IRELAND PROFESSOR 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 SDjcforD ann Cambridge 
 
 MDCCCLXXX 
 
" Per voler esser certo 
 Di quella fede eke vince ogni errore." 
 
 — Inf. iv. 47. 
 
TO 
 
 JOHN ARCHIBALD SHAW STEWART, ESQ. M.A. 
 
 BURSAR OF KEBLE COLLEGE, 
 
 IN WHOSE LIFE OF PRACTICAL BENEVOLENCE 
 HIS OXFORD CONTEMPORARIES HAVE BEEN WONT TO TRACE 
 THE POWER AND BEAUTY . 
 OF A CLEAR AND CONSISTENT FAITH. 
 
atJticrttsement 
 
 Of the Sermons contained in this volume nine 1 were 
 preached by the appointment of successive Yice-Chan- 
 cellors, and the remainder in the author's turns as Select 
 Preacher. 
 
 Two of the Sermons 2 have been published singly, and 
 they differ somewhat in complexion from the rest. 
 Recent discussions in Convocation have seemed to make 
 it a duty to reprint that on " The Life of Faith and the 
 Athanasian Creed." 3 And the Sermon on " Christ and 
 Human Law" 4 will possess an interest, at least for a 
 great many persons, distinct in degree and kind from 
 that which any others in the volume could command. 
 It was preached at the suggestion of Dr. Hamilton, the 
 late Bishop of Salisbury, who was at the time lying on 
 what proved to be his deathbed, and in whose hopes and 
 fears respecting subjects that lay nearest to his heart the 
 writer was permitted to share. The opinions which are 
 embodied in the Sermon are substantially those of this 
 revered and lamented prelate, while the author is alone 
 responsible for any faults of treatment or expression. 
 
 1 Sermons n., v., vi., xi., xn., xm., xiv., xv., xvi. 
 
 2 Sermons vn. , xti. 3 Sermon vn. 4 Sermon xvi. 
 
 3 Amen Court, E.C.. 
 
 Michaelmas 1879. 
 
Preface to tfje ©econo <ZEtutton. 
 
 In this Edition a Sermon 1 which has been preached 
 since the publication of the first edition is inserted at the 
 request of some persons who heard it. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 Whitsuntide 1880. 
 
 Sermon xvn. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON L 
 
 PREJUDICE AND EXPERIENCE. 
 St. John i. 46. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come oat of 
 Nazareth ? Philip saith unto him, Come and see 1 
 
 ^rcacfjfU at St. fHarg's on tfje Xinetantfj Sunoap after JZZrinits, Oct. 23, 18Z0. 
 
 SERMON II 
 
 HUMILITY AND TRUTH. 
 1 Cor. iv. 7. 
 
 Who maketh thee to differ from another ? And what hast thou that 
 thou hast not received ? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou 
 glory, as if thou hadst not received it? 18 
 
 ^reacfcetJ at St. fHarp'g on ©uinquagrstma Sunoap, Jtfr. 19, ISJl. 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 IMPORT OF FAITH IN A CREATOR. 
 Gen. i. 1. 
 
 In the beginnina God created the heaven and the earth ... 38 
 $3reacf)20 at St. fflarg's on Septuagcsitna Sunoap, fieb. 5, 1871. 
 
X 
 
 Contents. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 WORTH OF FAITH IN A LIFE TO COME. 
 Rev. vii. 9, 10. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 / beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of 
 all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the 
 throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in 
 their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our 
 God Which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb . . 55 
 ^reacfieo at St. fHarg'g on trje 2Tbjentg=first Sunoag after Krtnttg, Nob. 10, 1878. 
 
 SERMON Y. 
 INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 St. John iii. 8. 
 
 The icind blowcth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof 
 but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth . . 78 
 " iPreacfjeU at St. fHarg's on E2Ef)ttsun Sag, 3une 4, 1876. 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 GROWTH IN THE APPREHENSION OF TRUTH. 
 Heb. vi. t. 
 
 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on 
 
 unto perfection 98 
 
 ^reacrjeo at St. fflarg's on trje jfirst Sunbag after Brittits W Sunbag), June 15, 1879. 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 THE LIFE OF FAITH AND THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. 
 St. John iii. 36. 
 
 He that believcth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that 
 believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth 
 on him . , , . . . , , m t .119 
 
 $reacf)eb at St. fHarg'g on trje Efocntg^firat Sunbag after GFrtmtg, ©ct. 20, 1872. 
 
Contents. 
 
 XI 
 
 SERMON" VIII. 
 CHRIST'S SERVICE AND PUBLIC OPINION. 
 Gal. l io. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 If I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ . . .144 
 ^reacrjeo at St. iSarg'y on tfje JEfoentg^fiftrj Suntiag after STrtnitg, Noo. 18, X8ZZ. 
 
 SEEM ON IX. 
 
 CHRIST IN THE STORM. 
 
 St. Mark iv. 38. 
 
 And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep upon a pillow ; 
 and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not 
 that we perish? § 165 
 
 ^reacijeo at St. USarg's on t$e £b3entg=tf)tro Sunfcag after Crinitg, Nob. 12, 1871. 
 
 SEEMON X. 
 SACERDOTALISM. 
 2 Cor. v. 18. 
 
 But all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us unto Himself, 
 through Jesus Christ, and hath given unto us the ministry of The 
 Reconciliation : to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world 
 unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath 
 given unto us the word of The Reconciliation . . . . 183 
 
 $reari)eo at St. fflarg's on Seiasesttna Sunoag, San. 31, 1875. 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 THE PROPHECY OF THE MAGNIFICAT. 
 St. Luke i. 51-53. 
 
 He hath shewed strength with His arm : He hath scattered the proud 
 in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty 
 from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled 
 the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty 
 
 away 203 
 
 ^reacrjea at St. Parg's on tfjc Etaentgsfiftt Sunoag after airtmtg, Noo. 22, 1874. 
 
xii 
 
 Contents. 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 THE FALL OF JERICHO. 
 Heb. xi. 30. 
 
 TAGE 
 
 By faith the ivalls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed 
 about seven days . 222 
 
 iPreacfjco at St. fHarg's on Srtnttg Sunoag, 3une 8, 1873 (3&amsoen Sermon). 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 THE COURAGE OF FAITH. 
 Rom. i. 16. 
 
 / am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the power of God 
 
 unto salvation to every one that believeth 242 
 
 $reacbeti at St. flarg's on 5Trmitg Sunoag, fHag 25, 1877 (ftamscen Sermon). 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 THE CURSE ON MEROZ. 
 Judges v. 23. 
 
 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the 
 inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, 
 to the help of the Lord against the mighty . . . . .264 
 
 ^reacrjeo at St. JSarg's on trje Secono Sunoag after STrinttg (act Sunoag), June 9, 1872. 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE POOR. 
 St. Luke iv. 18. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to 
 
 preach the Gospel to the poor ' . 2S1 
 
 $reac?)eo at St. fflarg's on OTrjitsun JBag, 3une 9, 1878. 
 
Contents. 
 
 xiii 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 
 CHRIST AND HUMAN LAW. 
 St. John xix. 10, n. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Then saith Pilate unto Him, SpeaJcest Thou not unto me ? Tcnowest 
 Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to 
 release Thee ? Jesus answered, Thou couldcst have no power at all 
 against Me, except it were given thee from above : therefore he tJiat 
 delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin .... 300 
 33«adjeti at St. j/flarn/s on tfjc Erjiro Sunoan. in Hent, jfcb. 28, 1869 (asstje Sermon). 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 THE CURE OF LOW SPIRITS. 
 Ps. xliii. 5. 
 
 Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou disquieted 
 within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the 
 health of my countenance, and my God ..... 332 
 
 33wacrjeo at St. fHarg's on Sciagesitna Sunoag, jFetr. I, 1880. 
 
SERMON L 
 
 PREJUDICE AND EXPERIENCE. 
 St. John i. 46. 
 
 Xathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? 
 Philip saith vnto him, Come and see. 
 
 THE main purpose of the fourth Evangelist was to show, 
 by a careful selection from our Lord's words and 
 works, what was the full and momentous truth respecting 
 His Divine Person. 1 But subordinate to this object there 
 were others ; and among these it was of importance to dis- 
 pose of an objection, which would have been urged often 
 and earnestly at the close of the Apostolical age. If the 
 miracles of Christ were such as the earlier Evangelists had 
 described, how was it, men asked, that they did not produce 
 a more general conviction of His Divine Mission among 
 His countrymen and contemporaries ? The answer which 
 the fourth Gospel gives to this question is in effect, that 
 the conduct and temper of the Jews furnishes a sufficient 
 explanation of their insensibility to the real value of the 
 miracles of Christ. The picture of the Jews which is pre- 
 sented by the fourth Evangelist offers some undeniable 
 points of contrast to that which meets us in the first three 
 Gospels. The first three Gospels describe several indivi- 
 dual Jews with marked lights and shadows of personal 
 character : the fourth Gospel refers to them as a class with 
 
 1 St. John xx. 31. 
 A 
 
2 
 
 Prejudice and Experience. [Serm. 
 
 an average habit of thought and feeling. There is no 
 inconsistency between these representations ; and here, as 
 elsewhere, St. John says enough to serve his immediate 
 purpose, without at all implying that it is exhaustive, or 
 more than a selection from the rich materials before 
 him. " The Jews," as he describes them, are morally and 
 spiritually, rather than intellectually, deficient and dull; 
 they are at no loss for ingeniously captious arguments, but 
 they are deaf to the persuasive eloquence of spiritual 
 beauty. Face to face with the Light of the World, Who, as 
 the Evangelist is persuaded, has only to be contemplated 
 steadily by the true spirit's eye in order to be forthwith 
 adored, the Jews arm themselves with the weapons of a petty 
 dialectic, which betrays a warp and narrowness in the moral 
 sympathies, even more than any intellectual wrongheaded- 
 ness or religious ignorance. Thus the dialogues of the 
 Gospel are an illustration of the thesis that "the Light 
 shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it 
 not j" 1 they show us how it was that the Incarnate Word 
 came unto the people which was, in virtue of its past 
 history, especially His own, and which, although His own, 
 did not receive Him. 2 
 
 One great misery of this Jewish temper was that it kept 
 men at a distance from our Lord. Physically, indeed, the 
 Jews were close to Him; but spiritually they lived in 
 another sphere of being. As they heard His language with 
 the outward ear, and then set themselves to confute it; 
 so they beheld His works with the bodily eye, but saw in 
 them nothing higher than a skill which eluded detection. 
 The reason was, according to the Evangelist, because both 
 the words and works could only be placed in their true per- 
 spective by souls who were already in some sort of willing 
 contact, however tentative and provisional, with the Person 
 of the Speaker and Worker. St. John, indeed, does not 
 
 1 St. John i. 5. 2 St. Johni. 11. 
 
I.] Prejudice and Experience. 3 
 
 depreciate the evidential force of the miracles to which our 
 Lord Himself appealed : l each of the seven miracles which 
 the Evangelist describes is in some way pre-eminent, and 
 the greatest of all the recorded miracles of Christ is 
 described by St. John alone. 2 But the tendency of his 
 narrative is to discourage exaggerated expectations as to 
 the power of miracles by themselves to create faith; he 
 does not allow us to suppose that they will enforce a con- 
 viction by sheer intellectual constraint in the case of those 
 who are morally and spiritually indisposed to embrace it. 
 Even the most startling miracle was not meant to stand 
 unaided and alone : in the design of Providence it was to 
 co-operate with the attractive power of a Faultless Character, 
 appealing persuasively to the moral sense. When the moral 
 sense was paralysed, a miracle naturally appeared to the 
 understanding only in the light of an unusual or unwelcome 
 occurrence, for which it was presumed some explanation, 
 natural or artificial, must be forthcoming. A miracle becomes I 
 an intellectual challenge which irritates, where it is not I 
 the accompaniment of a moral influence which wins. To be 
 in intimate contact with the Person of Christ, the Word 
 Incarnate, manifesting forth His Glory ; to gaze upon Him, 
 not fitfully, but constantly, earnestly, penetratingly ; to learn 
 at length to see in His words and works the harmonious 
 product of His superhuman Personality, a perpetual radia- 
 tion from the Life of the A 11 -Perfect Being : this was what 
 St. John desired for his countrymen, as being what he had 
 experienced himself. But it was precisely this for which 
 the leading moral features of their peculiar temper so 
 seriously indisposed the Jews : and the result is exhibited 
 in St. John's narrative. He leads us on step by step to 
 a double climax, in which the evidence for Christ's 
 claims and His rejection by the Jews alike reach the 
 
 1 St. John x. 38. St Matt. xi. 4, 5. Of. Heb. ii. 4. 
 1 St. John xi 
 
4 
 
 Prejudice and Experience. 
 
 Serm. 
 
 highest point conceivable. On the one hand, Lazarus is 
 raised from the dead : on the other, the Son of God is 
 crucified. 
 
 If the fourth Gospel thus sets itself to explain why it 
 was that the J ews did not receive the Light of the World 
 manifested among them, it naturally completes this ex- 
 planation by showing, in the way of contrast, how it was 
 that the disciples did receive Him. The disciples, too, had 
 had their difficulties in the way of faith : they came of the 
 same stock as their unbelieving contemporaries; they 
 breathed the same intellectual and originally the same 
 moral atmosphere ; they were fed by the same truths and 
 warped by the same prejudices. But they placed them- 
 selves morally and spiritually in contact with the Person of 
 Christ, the Incarnate Word, and from Him there streamed 
 forth upon their souls a power which made them His. This 
 is the Evangelist's inner sense when he tells us, as if inci- 
 dentally, that the two disciples of the Baptist came and 
 saw where Jesus dwelt ; 1 or that Andrew brings his 
 own brother Simon to Jesus; 2 or that St. Philip meets 
 Nathanael's a priori objection to the prophetic or spiritual 
 associations of Nazareth by the simple invitation, " Come 
 and see." 3 
 
 £ 
 
 Nathanael comes before our Lord as the victim and 
 exponent of a popular prejudice. It was one of several 
 irrational prejudices which went to make up the dull or 
 passionate hostility shown towards Jesus Christ by the 
 Jewish opinion of the time. When Philip, in his eager 
 enthusiasm, announces that in Jesus from Nazareth was 
 to be found the fulfilment of all the choicest hopes with 
 which the Mosaic and prophetical writings had inspired 
 the noblest souls in Israel, Nathanael bluntly asks whether 
 any good thing can come out of Nazareth. 
 
 1 St. John i. 39. 2 Ibid. 42. 3 Ibid. 46. 
 
I-J 
 
 Prejudice a?id Experience. 
 
 5 
 
 Why should no good come out of Nazareth ? What was 
 the nature of this presumption against Nazareth ? Did 
 it rest on some political or social feeling, the exact ground 
 of which may have been guessed at by later tradition, but 
 the true reason of which is lost ? Or was its motive theo- 
 cratic ? Does " good " in Nathanael's mouth mean that 
 specific good which in the judgment of every religious 
 Israelite lay in the fulfilment of the Messianic promise ? 
 Is it his meaning that if the new Prophet announced 
 Himself as from Nazareth, the case against Him must be 
 decisive ; because while Nazareth is not so much as named 
 in the Jewish Scriptures, every Israelite knows that the 
 Messianic King is to be born in Bethlehem, little indeed 
 among the cities of Judah, yet " not the least," considering 
 its theocratic rank, and the extraordinary honour that 
 awaited it ? 1 Or is Nathanael swayed by some popular 
 saying, which altogether warps his judgment ; and which, 
 whatever may have been its historical origin, has placed 
 the Galilean village under a religious ban, so that any dis- 
 position to expect from it a message of truth or an effort 
 of virtue at once incurs rebuke or even ridicule ? 
 
 Decide this question as we may, there can be no doubt 
 about the strength of Nathanael's prejudice against Nazareth. 
 Nor, let us remark, was he, as yet, morally the worse for 
 entertaining it. Himself a native of Galilee, he had 
 heard Nazareth depreciated all his life, and he simply 
 gave expression to a conviction which it had not occurred 
 to him to question. He held it, together with his other 
 opinions and beliefs, with honest tenacity. If the intel- 
 lectual furniture of our several minds could be examined 
 and catalogued, it would probably be found that we are 
 most, if not all of us, to a certain extent in Nathanael's 
 condition: we have received from our elders an assort- 
 ment of prepossessions which combine with the highest of 
 
 1 Micah v. 2. St. Matt. ii. 5, 6. 
 
6 
 
 Prejudice and Experience. [Serm. 
 
 truths the least tenable of assumptions. Most of us who 
 think at all are engaged throughout our lives in revising 
 at least some portion of this hereditary mental stock. 
 Some men, it may be feared, only succeed in ridding them- 
 selves of priceless truths, while they cling on uninquir- 
 ingly to stupid superstitions ; as was his case who had no 
 faith in the truth of Christ's Eesurrection, but would on no 
 account forget to turn his money in his pocket at the sight 
 of the new moon. 
 
 Now, so long as an untenable prejudice lies dormant in 
 the mind, and its holder has not been called upon to con- 
 sider its worth, he is not necessarily the worse for holding it. 
 Nathanael's prejudice against Nazareth was quite without 
 foundation. Yet we know on the highest authority that he 
 was an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile. 1 Although 
 the victim of a serious misapprehension, he had not trifled 
 with his sense of truth, and the consequence was that his 
 mistake did not permanently injure him. Nathanael is the 
 type of that simple goodness in union with narrow pre- 
 judice which is sometimes in our day branded as " Philis- 
 tinism." Brethren, it is well to be large-minded ; but there 
 are worse things in the moral world than " Philistinism." 
 It is better to be cramped and narrowed by unexamined 
 prejudice, than to hold no one conviction with the earnest- 
 ness which would prompt you to make sacrifices for it. 
 It is better to be making the most of some onesided or 
 imperfect creed, which is a local or temporary compound 
 of truth and error, than to pass through life with a feeble 
 interest in all religions ; an interest so comprehensive 
 and so diluted as to involve conviction of the truth of 
 none : — 
 
 " Sitting apart, holding no form of creed, 
 But contemplating all." 
 
 Nathanael was wrong about Nazareth ; but he was near 
 
 1 St. John i. 47. 
 
Prejudice and Experience. 
 
 7 
 
 to the Truth and Wisdom with which, throughout all time, 
 Xazareth is associated. 
 
 And yet, although a man may hold to a misapprehension 
 with such entire honesty of purpose that his moral nature 
 is quite intact, the misapprehension is undoubtedly a mis- 
 fortune. It is some disaster for any mind to hold any one 
 thing for truth that is untrue, however insignificant it be, or 
 however honestly it be held. It is a greater disaster when 
 the false prejudice bars the way to some truth behind it, 
 which, but for it, would find an entrance to the soul ; and 
 the greatness of the disaster will in this case be measured 
 by the importance of the excluded truth. There are false 
 prejudices which shut out no truth, and which lead to no 
 error. If it is better to be without them, they may be 
 tolerated without much difficulty. But a prejudice which 
 keeps us from knowing a good man, or from recognising 
 a great truth, is to be seriously deplored. What would 
 Xathanael be thinking of his prejudice against Xazareth 
 now, if it had really kept him back from discipleship to 
 the Lord of Life ? 
 
 In the sub-apostolic age, there was a persuasion abroad in 
 heathen society that the Christians devoured little children. 
 This misapprehension was doubtless traceable to the current 
 language employed by the first Christians on the subject 
 of the Eucharist ; their true meaning would never have 
 occurred to a pagan who chanced to hear them. Yet how 
 complete a barrier, not to say against conversion, but against 
 any contact whatever with the " exitiabilis superstitio" 
 must have been erected by a real belief that Christians 
 were guilty of so inhuman a crime ! How many souls may 
 not such a prepossession have kept back, only too effec- 
 tually, from all that Christ's Gospel had to give them ! 
 
 Observe St. Philip's way of dealing with Xathanael. 
 Philip might have argued, either that the prejudice against 
 Xazareth rested on no sure foundation, or that, whatever 
 
8 
 
 Prejudice and Experience. [Serm. 
 
 its truth, Jesus belonged to Nazareth in so limited and 
 temporary a sense, that the reputation of the place did 
 not touch Him or His claim to fulfil the Messianic pro- 
 phecies. This, perhaps, would have been our modern plan 
 of meeting the objection. Philip takes a shorter course. 
 His object is not to put himself arguLaentatively in the 
 right by vindicating Nazareth, or by showing that it does 
 not stand in his way : he only wants to bring Nathanael 
 into the Presence, ay, close to the Person of the Son pf 
 God. He is convinced that if Nathanael can only see 
 Him, speak with Him, breathe the atmosphere that sur- 
 rounds Him, feel the Divine majesty and tenderness which 
 had already won himself, the prejudice against Nazareth 
 will simply be forgotten. " Philip saith unto him, Come 
 and see." The objection might be discussed at another 
 time ; but the immediate value of the objection might be 
 settled at once by the simple process of contact with Him 
 to Whose claims it was apparently fatal. 
 
 II. 
 
 St. Philip's invitation has, obviously enough, a very 
 wide range of applicability. There is no department of the 
 kingdom of truth whose representatives may not echo the 
 "Come and see" of the Apostle. Scientific, historical, 
 moral, as well as theological truth, may and must proclaim, 
 in such terms as these, their anxiety to be approached 
 and examined. Nor would such applications of the text 
 involve an overstraining of it ; since, properly speaking, all 
 truth is in one sense religious truth. It leads ultimately 
 up to God; it is what it is by His Will and authority. 
 As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of 
 the All-Holy ; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate 
 thought, descends from the Eternal Eeason, and ought, 
 when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him. This 
 
I.] Prejudice and Experience. 9 
 
 was a consideration upon which the teachers of the great 
 Christian School of Alexandria were wont to dwell. By 
 means of it they bridged over chasms between much of what 
 was true in the Platonic philosophy, representing as it did 
 the most active speculation of the time, and the Revelation 
 of God in Christ. All truth is indeed the inheritance of the 
 Church of Christ, although she may be long in entering 
 upon some portions of her patrimony, or may even, here or 
 there, through the mistakes of those who act on her behalf, 
 depreciate and for a while disown her share in it. " All 
 things are yours," said an Apostle to his children in the 
 faith ; 1 and Ins words are not less true of the treasures of 
 knowledge than of the treasures of Grace. 
 
 To create the sense of this — the unity and the magni- 
 ficence of truth — is one purpose of an University. The 
 Universities of Europe were creations of the Christian 
 Church. They sprang from her effort to realize the 
 unity of all districts of existing human knowledge, as in 
 harmony with and under the presidency of the knowledge 
 of God revealed in Christ. Faith in the real and ultimately 
 discoverable harmony of all truth is the faith upon which 
 this University was built ; and as a result of this faith, 
 it must aim at encouraging a spirit of generous sympathy 
 between the representatives of and workers in the various 
 departments of knowledge which it has brought together 
 and fosters. 
 
 The intellectual value of such a spirit as this need not be 
 insisted on. It is the crowning grace of a liberal education. 
 AVhen the fields of human knowledge are so various and so 
 vast as is the case in our day, the utmost that can be done by 
 single minds not of encyclopedic range, is to master one 
 subject or branch of a subject as thoroughly as possible, and 
 to rest content with knowing that others are working in 
 regions where neither time nor strength will permit us to 
 
 1 I Cor. iii. 21. 
 
IO 
 
 Prejudice and Experience. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 enter, but where we can at least follow them with interest 
 and respect. To know at least the outline of what may be 
 known; to know accurately the real frontier of his own 
 narrow knowledge ; — this is more distinctively the attribute 
 of an educated man, than the accumulation of any number 
 of facts and figures. It carries with it the power of 
 estimating what is known philosophically; of placing it 
 in something like its true relation to conterminous fields 
 of knowledge ; of anticipating, at least tentatively and 
 partially, that day of cloudless light, when all truth, the 
 highest and the lowest, will be seen in its absolute unity. 
 
 Nor does the moral and religious value of this spirit rank 
 below the intellectual. In a place like this, the good to be 
 gained by intercourse with character is at least as great as 
 the good to be gained by the appropriation and mastery of 
 thought ; the vastness and variety of the moral world 
 around us, if we have eyes to see it, is not inferior to that 
 of the world of knowledge. Each man whom we know has 
 probably at least some one moral beauty in nature or from 
 grace ; while different studies beget their characteristic 
 moral excellences and deficiencies: so that as classes of 
 students, no less than as individuals, we have much to learn 
 from each other. One study demands intellectual integrity, 
 another reverence, another patience, another nerve and 
 determination ; and when mixing with their different repre- 
 sentatives, we may learn, if not all the truth they severally 
 have to teach, at least the specific moral excellence which 
 is developed in attaining it. 
 
 If this be the intellectual and moral value of University 
 life, it is too precious to be imperilled by the temptation 
 to think that no truth or goodness is to be looked for at 
 the hands of certain men, or in the pursuit of certain 
 studies. Have we in Oxford altogether escaped this 
 temptation ? Have those, whom a strong and lofty faith 
 should have rendered generous, always and altogether 
 
I.] Prejudice and Experience. 1 1 
 
 succeeded in escaping it ? Have we never pointed to 
 the Nazareth of the physical sciences ; of some one of 
 them, it may be, which a vagrant materialist has for 
 awhile dishonoured, but which cannot reasonably or 
 justly be so credited with his error, as to warrant us in 
 supposing that no good thing can come out of the 
 laboratories in which it is pursued ? Have we never 
 banned the Xazareth of criticism ; too readily supposing 
 that, because some teachers of Heidelberg or Tubingen have 
 mistaken wild imagination for history in their treatment of 
 the Holy Gospels, no good thing can be expected to come 
 from any critical school ? The loyalty to Eevelation which 
 animates our prejudice does not justify it ; the great 
 Alexandrians who baptized the Platonic philosophy, would 
 have bidden us of to-day welcome, and christen the critical 
 and scientific spirit. We might be assured that, whatever 
 its exaggerations, we have much to learn from it, and that 
 in the Ions: run it must do the work of Him AVhom we 
 
 o 
 
 adore. 
 
 Men who hold a large and exacting creed with earnest- 
 ness, have no doubt, from their very sincerity, to guard 
 against a tendency to narrow judgments. And it is easy for 
 others who have no positive faith whatever to enlarge on 
 deficiencies, the temptation to which, unhappily for them- 
 selves, they have never known ; just as the famishing poor 
 of our great cities are naturally and keenly alive to abuses 
 of property on the part of the wealthy classes. But is 
 there then no liability to narrow prejudices in any sections 
 of the " liberal " world ? Is it never thought or whispered 
 that from the Xazareth of Orthodoxy, with its cherished 
 traditions and s}mrpathies, with its passionate attachment 
 to the past of Christendom, with its undeniable adherence 
 to a fixed body of truths as stamped with Divine and 
 therefore unerring authority, no good can be expected to 
 come ; no real additions to our spiritual and intellectual 
 
Prejudice and Experience. [Serm, 
 
 wealth, no new development or enrichment of our moral 
 energies ? What is the Nazareth of so termed " sacerdo- 
 talism " but the endeavour to treat as serious our Saviour's 
 promises of authorization and support to those weak 
 human agencies by which from age to age He asserts His 
 power and His love among the sons of men ? Yet is not 
 this Nazareth too often banned, as if nothing higher than 
 some unworthy and selfish effort to increase the wealth or 
 power of a clerical order could be expected to come out 
 of it ? And do you suppose, my liberal brethren, that in 
 surrendering your imaginations to such prejudices as these 
 you lose nothing ; that you debar yourselves from access 
 to no wide fields of truth, which else were open to you ; that 
 you cut yourselves off from the enjoyment of no moral 
 beauties, which you too most assuredly would know how 
 to honour and to profit by, not less than we ? 
 
 Certainly the temptation to hold that no good thing 
 can come out of this or that department of human 
 interest and work, be it social, political, philosophical, 
 or religious, is not extinct. But in the name of what- 
 ever truth there may be, and some truth there must be, 
 in each and all of them, the University, as a kindly 
 mother, bids us " come and see." Here we have no 
 excuse for intellectual or moral isolation: interests and 
 states of mind, which elsewhere are unavoidably found 
 apart, are brought into close juxtaposition in Oxford, as 
 a necessary result of our work and circumstances. Here, 
 if anywhere, it might be hoped that explanations might 
 be made, and reconciliations effected, which elsewhere are 
 improbable : between love of the past and aspirations for 
 the future; between the energies of philosophical and 
 scientific enterprise and the claims of faith ; between the 
 intellectual hardness of the critical spirit, and the tender 
 enthusiasms of devotion to our Living Lord. But if this 
 is to be, we must be sufficiently generous, let me rather say 
 
I.] Prejudice and Experience, 1 3 
 
 sufficiently truthful, to conquer prejudice. Some of us 
 might wish that there were no such tasks as these before 
 us ; but we have no more the making of the speculative 
 than of the material world. Our duty is to make the best 
 of what God has given us. 
 
 Nor let me be misunderstood. This willingness to test 
 and to unlearn a prejudice is a very distinct thing from 
 the surrender of a fundamental conviction. A faith which 
 is sufficiently strong and philosophical to lay surrounding 
 thought and knowledge more or less under contributions, 
 is a very different thing from a feeble eclecticism, which 
 goes smiling about the world, paying unmerited compliments 
 to incompatible theories, and ending by the discovery that 
 it is itself able to rely upon no one truth as absolutely 
 certain. It is neither charity to man nor loyalty to God to 
 ignore differences of conviction which are really serious, 
 perhaps vital ; or to attempt to bury them beneath words 
 or acts which imply their insignificance. We should pay 
 dearly for our contact with the many sides of knowledge 
 exhibited here, with the many gifted minds that are at 
 work on it, with the varying opinions that are to be 
 found respecting some of the gravest problems, if we should 
 weaken or lose our hold on those priceless truths which 
 cannot be forfeited with moral and spiritual impunity. To 
 learn that goodness, even the Highest and the Best, could 
 come from Nazareth, was, in Kathanael's case, not to forfeit 
 a faith, but to invigorate and confirm it. 
 
 III. 
 
 " Come and see." From St. Philip's day until now, 
 this invitation has been addressed to mankind by the 
 Church of Christ. It is her first step in meeting our diffi- 
 culties; it is a condition of the cure she would administer 
 
1 4 Prejudice and Experience. [Serm. 
 
 to moral as well as to mental pain. Christianity is not to 
 be really understood, when looked at only in the intellectual 
 landscape, as if it were but one out of the many elements 
 which make up the thought and life of the human race. 
 Kind distance may lend enchantment to a picturesque false- 
 hood; it can be no gain to truth. If the Gospel had really 
 issued from some mystic or scholastic Nazareth, and could, in 
 the last analysis, be accounted for as a natural product of 
 the mind and heart of man, St. Philip's invitation would be 
 an imprudence in the mouth of its preachers. As it is, the 
 Church of Christ pleads ever with humanity : " Give your- 
 selves a chance. Come and see. Do not only talk about 
 the Kingdom and the Power of the Son of God; understand 
 that He is alive ; acquaint yourselves with Him. Ask that 
 you may see Him, not merely with the eye of the natural 
 intelligence, but with the eye of the illuminated spirit. Do 
 not waste life in framing theories of the beautiful, but come, 
 as did JSTathanael, into the presence of Christ. Mark the 
 story of His earthly life in the Gospels, and reflect that what 
 He was then He is now. Speak to Him in prayer as to an 
 all-powerful Friend Who hears, and Who, as He sees best, 
 will answer. Touch the garment of His Humanity in sacra- 
 ments, that upon you too, as upon one of old, virtue may 
 come out of Him. Open your conscience to the purifying 
 and consoling influences of His Spirit ; open your hearts to 
 the constraining generosities of His Dying Love." . . . The 
 real difficulty with thousands in the present day is not that 
 Christianity has been found wanting, but that it has never 
 been seriously tried. They have been interested in it, but 
 have remained at a distance from it. They have passed 
 their best years in supposing that Christ's religion is a 
 problem to be ceaselessly argued about, when, lo ! it is a 
 life to be spent at the feet of a Living Master, and it 
 justifies itself only and completely when it is lived. 
 
i-3 
 
 Prejudice and Experience. 
 
 '5 
 
 At a time like this, 1 when every child understands the 
 tragic interest of what is passing, when events of the first 
 magnitude, and pregnant with incalculable consequences, 
 are almost hourly expected or announced, it might seem 
 that an invitation, which can lay no claim to novelty, 
 and which repeats itself in the language of nineteen cen- 
 turies, has but a slight chance of being listened to. And 
 yet, what is the real lesson of the scene of devastation 
 and slaughter which is absorbing our thoughts and sym- 
 pathies ? Is it not a comment which all can read, 
 written as it is in characters of blood, upon those sunny 
 theories of human progress and perfectibility, by which 
 sometimes commerce, sometimes intellectual culture, some- 
 times even the polish and refinement of the surface of 
 modern life, were supposed not long since to have effected, 
 or almost to have effected, that which the Eternal Christ, as 
 we were told, had failed to work — a real regeneration, a true, 
 lasting elevation and change in the heart and thought of 
 man ? So we were told; so it already was, or was presently 
 to be ; when lo ! the foremost nations of Europe — foremost 
 as leaders of its thought, foremost as producers of all 
 that embellishes its outward life — feel a glow of the old 
 passionate savagery of barbarous man stirring within them 
 in all its ancient force, and bend the whole power of their 
 cultivated thought and their strenuous will, to achieve the 
 largest possible measure of mutual destruction. And thus, 
 already commerce has withered away, and intelligence, ex- 
 cept so far as it is military or political, is silent, and some of 
 the best treasures of art and literature 2 are either perishing 
 or are menaced with impending destruction, and besides 
 the thousands who have been slaughtered on the field of 
 battle, entire populations are threatened with the extremities 
 
 1 The reference is to the Franco-German war of 1870-71. 
 3 The Library at Strasburg had been already destroyed, and the Cathedral 
 seriously damaged. Paris was besieged. 
 
1 6 Prejudice and Experience. [Serm. 
 
 of want. Ay, and an evil which is even worse than these 
 is beginning to show itself; men are growing to be indif- 
 ferent to human suffering, because, forsooth, suffering is on 
 so great scale that the imagination cannot master it in 
 detail, and because national feeling is degraded down 
 to the point at which human life weighs for very little 
 against schemes of military conquest. The true import of 
 this may be disguised beneath high-sounding formulas, but 
 it means the abasement of the leading nations of the world ; 
 it means the political and social depression of the van- 
 quished ; it means, too probably, the moral degradation of 
 the conqueror. 
 
 And think you that we Englishmen shall be or are un- 
 scathed, that we are really uninfluenced, while we gaze from 
 our safe island home on those sieges, those battlefields, 
 those desperate efforts of vengeance, those fierce reprisals ? 
 No ; it is impossible. It is not too much to say that the 
 character of each one of us has been modified, however 
 imperceptibly to ourselves, by the successive incidents of 
 this terrible war. Events of such magnitude and character 
 cannot but have affected our ways of thinking and feeling 
 about the actions of our fellow-creatures and the Divine 
 government of the world; so that if ever there was a 
 moment when the souls of men needed to be brought back 
 to their true bearings, to be disciplined, restrained, upheld, 
 chastened, made strong yet humble, resolute yet tender, by 
 the true sight of the one Perfect Man, of the one Hope and 
 Model of Humanity, of the Everlasting Christ, that moment 
 is now. Much may depend — far more than we think — 
 within the next quarter of a century, on our seriously 
 accepting the invitation to " come and see " Him, as per- 
 haps we have never seen Him yet. History is made up 
 of the action of nations, and nations in their action do but 
 express the collective will of individuals. As learners in 
 the school of Christ, we may do more than we think for 
 
I.] Prejudice and Experience. ij 
 
 others : we cannot fail to improve ourselves. Those of 
 us who know Him least or not at all may forthwith know 
 much of Him, if we will. Those who know something of 
 Him will feel and confess that a nearer approach, a more 
 penetrating sight of Him, is always possible ; so that as 
 the years pass, the soul may, by living experience, take 
 possession more and more completely of that truth which 
 it has hitherto held more or less in deference to authority ; 
 that it may learn to say with the Samaritans of old, " Now 
 we believe, not because of thy saying ; for we have heard 
 Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the 
 Saviour of the world." 1 
 
 1 St. John iv. 42. 
 
 B 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 HUMILITY AND TEUTH. 
 
 I Cok. iv. 7. 
 
 Who malceth thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou hast 
 not received ? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou 
 hadst not received it ? 
 
 rpHIS earnest inquiry was occasioned by the serious 
 divisions which seem to have shown themselves in 
 the Church of Corinth soon after its foundation. Within 
 this local Church there were at least four distinct sections., 
 if not camps. Each had its practical aspirations, its 
 characteristic currents of feeling, its rallying cries, its 
 party names. The great name of St. Peter would have 
 been claimed by the adherents of Jewish observances. St. 
 Paul would have been appealed to by the advocates of an 
 entire — it may be a somewhat antinomian — freedom from 
 the ancient law. Apollos, in all probability, was the 
 favourite teacher of a smaller section, interested in his 
 personal acquirements, and in the attractive graces of 
 Alexandrian culture. Even the holiest of names was not 
 spared. " I am of Christ " was a party cry, apparently put 
 forward by some, who, priding themselves on their superi- 
 ority to all party distinctions, and on their indifference to 
 the claim of any human names, were yet unconsciously 
 narrow, exclusive, uncharitable, even beyond the measure 
 of their brethren. 
 
Humility and Truth. 
 
 19 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that St. Paul is here 
 apostrophising a false teacher: he is appealing to each 
 individual member of this divided and distracted Church. 
 He is not dealing with the arguments, the characteristics, 
 the particular spirit of any one of its sections, but with 
 the fundamental evil, which was common, more or less, 
 to all of them. Iu his eyes the cause of the differences 
 was less corporate than individual, less intellectual than 
 moral. The names of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, were used — 
 we know in one case, we may be very sure in the others — 
 without the permission of their bearers, and by people who 
 differed, as we should say, upon questions of Church 
 policy. The deeper divisions of later times, touching the 
 Person of the Eedeemer and the means of Grace, were 
 unknown in that first age. Despite the vivid pictures 
 winch an imaginative criticism has drawn of essentially 
 different Gospels radiating from the minds of the most 
 prominent Apostles, it is certain that the faith of the earliest 
 Church was essentially one. The questions which divided it 
 were, at least chiefly, of such a character as not to touch 
 the daily inward life of the servants of Christ. 1 St. Paul's 
 language about the Judaizers in the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 and the trenchant references to antinomian exaggerations 
 of St. Paul's doctrine in the messages to the Asiatic 
 Churches of the Apocalypse, alike bear upon individuals 
 and societies which were already severed or were severing 
 themselves from the great body of the faithful. The dis- 
 cussions which were possible without violating Chinch 
 communion were personal and disciplinary, rather than 
 doctrinal, although no doubt they had an increasing 
 tendency, of varying strength in different Chinches, to 
 
 1 In 1 Cor. xv. the Apostle is not "treating with a denial of the 
 Resurrection as a permissible form of Christian opinion." He is pointing 
 out its real character, as fatal to all Christian faith (cf. ver. 17). There 
 is no trace of any large number of persons being definitely committed to it, 
 and yet remaining under Apostolic sanction in communion with the Church. 
 
20 
 
 Humility and Truth. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 raise sooner or later purely doctrinal issues. The Corin- 
 thian party controversies were exactly of this transitional 
 character; and accordingly St. Paul deals with them as 
 involving moral rather than theological error. If the 
 Corinthians were so divided that Christian society was 
 resonant with their war-cries, this was because they were 
 individually false to the Christian character rather than 
 to the Christian Creed. If the Corinthian Christians could 
 only learn to be individually humble, the Church of Corinth 
 would soon again be one. 
 
 It is often as unprofitable to address corporate bodies 
 as to address metaphysical abstractions; and St. Paul 
 therefore, with his practical genius, deals with the Corin- 
 thian Church in the person of each Corinthian. The 
 Corinthians, he says, are puffed up; 1 the new world of 
 thought and feeling to which they had been introduced by 
 the faith of Christ had only furnished them with materials 
 for enhancing their individual self-importance. They ap- 
 proved of this Apostle ; they disliked that Apostle ; they 
 forgot that an Apostle was only a minister by whom the 
 faith was propagated ; they made of him a sectional leader, 
 in whose favour they gave their suffrages. It followed 
 that they were the important people, not he ; it was they 
 who discriminated, who approved, who conferred moral 
 authority ; upon them the success or popularity of their 
 chosen representative was inevitably reflected. Thus each 
 member of the Church became, in his own thought, its 
 centre ; while its real pioneers, and workmen, and rulers 
 — and, what was unspeakably more serious, One infinitely 
 higher and holier than them all — were virtually banished 
 to the circumference. Christianity was already ministering 
 to a temper which it was its business and its triumph 
 to destroy : religious language was the vehicle and the 
 unction of a profoundly irreligious deterioration. 
 
 1 I Cor. iv. 6, eh virtp rod ivbs (pvatovade Kara rod irtpov. 
 
II.] 
 
 Humility and Truth. 
 
 The Apostle does not deal tenderly with so serious an 
 evil : he does not wish to give it any chance of resistance ; 
 he will tread it out at once. He heaps question upon 
 question, without waiting for an answer; he would be 
 guilty perhaps of what the logicians call the fallacy of 
 many questions, if any of his questions could really have 
 been answered. 1 He strips off, with no gentle hand, the 
 disguise which hid the Corinthians from themselves, and 
 which made their self-assertion tolerable. They assumed that 
 they were what they were in virtue of some original and 
 inherent right to be so; they supposed that they possessed 
 what they had as owners of some indefeasible title to pos- 
 session. The truth was that they were simply pensioners ; 
 pensioners upon a Bounty Which had given them their 
 all. And it was necessary that they should be reminded 
 of their dependence. 
 
 " Who maketh thee to differ from another, whether he be 
 a heathen or a brother in the faith ? And what hast thou 
 of social or moral, or mental or spiritual wealth, that thou 
 didst not receive ? Now, if thou didst receive it, why 
 dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it ? " As we 
 think over St. Paul's question, we perceive that its range 
 of application is wider than that which the Apostle's first 
 readers would have assigned to it. It does not merely 
 deal with an incidental and local form of moral mischief; 
 it probes, and to the quick, a constant and world-wide 
 tendency in human beings. It is addressed not merely to 
 Corinthian, but to human nature ; and as we stand before 
 the Apostolic examiner, the Church of Corinth, with its 
 chiefs, its parties, its heart-burnings, recedes from view 
 and disappears ; we hear this master of moral truth speak- 
 ing to us of to-day — speaking to us all — speaking to each 
 of us. 
 
 1 I Cor. i. 13. 
 
22 
 
 Humility and Truth. [Serm. 
 
 I. 
 
 There are probably two leading objections in a great 
 many minds to cultivating humility ; objections which lie 
 generally against the whole of the self-repressing side of 
 Christian ethics. In plain words, humility seems to in- 
 volve a risk of tampering with sincerity, and a risk of 
 losing moral force. Now, the first of these objections 
 takes it for granted that humility is something dramatic 
 and unreal ; that it consists in word or manner which is 
 put on for an occasion, without being dictated by sincere 
 feeling or conviction. This is, however, no more humility, 
 than an outward semblance of reverence in church, while 
 the mind is wandering everywhere except in the direction 
 of God's Throne, is devotion. Humility is essentially the 
 recognition of truth ; it is the taking in act and word and 
 thought that low estimate of ourselves which is the true 
 estimate. If we do not seriously think that such an 
 estimate is the true one, it is only because we have never 
 seen ourselves as we really are. We have yet to learn our 
 real relationship to the Being to Whom we owe our existence, 
 and the weakness which impairs our moral force, and the 
 evil that clings to us within.' In the meantime, no doubt, 
 it is better not to pretend that we have done so ; while it 
 is certain that such pretence, if we should be guilty of it, 
 would not be rightly termed humility. The same notion of 
 humility, as something necessarily dramatic and fictitious, 
 is at the bottom of the apprehension that it involves a loss 
 of moral strength. Of course moral force is lost by every 
 form of untruthfulness, even the least ; but genuine humi- 
 lity is in its essence the planting our foot upon the hard 
 rock of truth and fact, and often when it costs us a great 
 deal to do so. To confess ignorance, to confess wrong, to 
 admit incapacity, when it would be useful to be thought/ 
 
II.] 
 
 Humility and Truth, 
 
 23 
 
 capable, to decline a reputation to which we have no right, 
 — these things, and others of the same kind, are humility in 
 action. They are often notoriously hard and painful ; they 
 are always of the greatest possible value in bracing the 
 character ; they are so far from forfeiting moral force that 
 they enrich us with it just as all approximations to false- 
 hood forfeit it. If we are weak, sinful, corrupt, it is better 
 to learn and to feel the true state of the case, than to 
 live in a fool's paradise. The great and unfortunate 
 country which now lies wounded and bleeding on the soil 
 of Europe, must surely feel that she would not at this 
 moment be worse off if she had discovered and confessed to 
 herself the real truth as to her resources seven months ago. 1 
 Every man is the stronger for knowing the worst he 
 can know about himself, and for acting on this knowledge. 
 And if religious men such as David and St. Paul use 
 language 2 about themselves which seems to any of us 
 exaggerated in the excess of its self-depreciation, this is 
 because they saw much more of the Holiness of God, and 
 of the real nature of moral evil, than we do : to them such 
 language is only the sober representation of a plain fact. 
 These great servants of God were not dazzled by any of 
 the inherited or acquired decorations which hide from so 
 many of us our real selves, and which the Apostle in the 
 text is so determined to strip off from us. 
 
 H. 
 
 The founder of this Sermon 3 was probacy of opinion 
 that there were particular reasons for addressing it year 
 by year to an academical audience. If we may form an 
 estimate from the drift of the somewhat restricted number 
 
 1 The allusion is to the later stage of the Franco-German war, 1870-71. 
 9 Ps. li. 1-3. 1 Cor. xv. 9. 
 
 * The Humility Sermon, preached on Quinquagesima Sunday. 
 
24 
 
 Humility and Truth. [Serm. 
 
 of passages from Holy Scripture which he has prescribed 
 for the preacher's use on this occasion, he would seem to 
 have thought that there were three features of University 
 life which make humility more or less difficult of attain- 
 ment. Although a change has taken place within the last 
 quarter of a century, those who study here still belong for 
 the most part to the wealthy classes. And the culture of 
 the intellect, which is the proper work of the students 
 at a University, has dangers which are too obvious to be 
 disputed. Nay, more, the interest in religious questions, 
 which is a product of all intellectual activity, may very 
 easily combine loyalty to truths which men have sincerely 
 at heart, with an estimate of self and an estimate of others 
 which these truths condemn. 
 
 a. " Who maketh thee to differ from another ? And what 
 hast thou that thou hast not received ?" How does this 
 question apply to the case of a young man who comes to 
 Oxford with good social connections, perhaps with a title, 
 with a large allowance, and a prospect of a fortune in 
 course of time ? If we could dissect his thought about 
 his position and means, what is the idea which underlies 
 all the rest, and upon which he habitually dwells ? It is 
 the idea of right. He has a right to his position ; to have 
 what he has ; to be what he is. And, legally and politically 
 speaking, he is not mistaken. There is no flaw in the 
 title-deeds of his estate ; and the law will guarantee him 
 and his heirs in its possession until the law itself shall 
 have been fundamentally modified, or altogether repealed 
 by some social revolution. Nay, he is morally justified in 
 resting on this conviction of his right, at least in a certain 
 measure. The idea of property, provided that there be 
 an adequate sense of responsibility in the possessor, is a 
 moral idea. Unless property have a moral basis, the 
 eighth and the tenth commandments are unmeaning. 
 
II. ] Humility and Truth, 
 
 25 
 
 Property is a product of moral laws, and of circumstances 
 which operate inevitably in human society. Thus it 
 belongs to the Divine Government of the world ; and an 
 indistinct apprehension of this truth sanctions more power- 
 fully than any legal technicality or document that idea of 
 right which lies at the bottom of the young man's mind 
 about his fortune and place among his fellows. So far 
 there is no fault to be found with him: but then, what 
 are his thoughts about the origin of this right which he 
 has to his position and property ? Upon the answer which 
 he gives to that question in his daily thoughts will depend 
 his bearing before God and men. If he pays no heed to 
 this matter ; if he says to himself, " Fact is fact, and right 
 is right ; I find myself in these circumstances ; I am a 
 fortunate man, and mean to make the best of my good 
 luck then it is probable that he will presume upon what 
 he has, and is, in his dealings with his fellow-creatures, 
 and in his thoughts towards his God. He tacitly assumes 
 that there is some indefeasible title, some necessity rooted 
 in the nature of things, for his having and being what 
 he has and is. He cannot, it seems, so far exercise his 
 imagination as to picture the world and society to himself, 
 with himself in a different position — say quite at the other 
 end of society. Hence he naturally deals with his position 
 and income as giving him a right to all the superiorities 
 which he can assert over others, and especially as giving 
 him a right to feel independent ; independent of his fellow- 
 men ; independent of all but extraordinary circumstances ; 
 yes, — he would not say it, but such are his secret 
 thoughts — independent of his God. The poor, he thinks, 
 may well be anxious, and anxiety is the mother of prayer : 
 but he, why should he be anxious, when all the luxuries 
 of life are secured to him ? and if he is not anxious, why, — 
 except as a matter of pathetic sentiment or of early habit, 
 — why should he pray ? Prayer is the language of a con- 
 
26 
 
 Humility and Truth. [Serm. 
 
 sciously dependent being, and he cannot pretend to say 
 that he feels himself dependent upon anybody. Prayer 
 is the language of humility, and it would be affectation in 
 him to act as if he were humble, or thought it desirable 
 to be so. 
 
 Yet what is the truth ? The truth is that his idea of 
 right, upon which all else reposes, is a caricature of the 
 real right which he has to his position. His real right 
 is that not of an original landlord, but of a tenant at will. 
 Speaking strictly, there is only One Landlord in this world : 
 it is He Who made it. All else are but His tenantry ; and 
 although He ejects His tenants when it pleases Him, 
 sometimes very summarily indeed, they have against Him, 
 neither in right nor in fact, any plea or remedy. They 
 have indeed the rights of tenants at will, but that is all. 
 They are in every sense His pensioners, and to take any 
 other view of their position is to incur the risk, or rather 
 the certainty, of being one day rudely undeceived. 
 
 There are in the literature of the Church few treatises 
 more abounding in noble and invigorating thoughts than 
 that " On Consideration," which was addressed by St. Ber- 
 nard to Pope Eugenius III. Eugenius had been a Cistercian 
 monk ; and in raising him to the Papal Throne after the 
 violent death of Lucius EL, the Eoman Court may have 
 been anxious to avail itself of the vast political influence 
 which was wielded beyond the Alps by the Abbot of 
 Clairvaux. The consciousness of this will in part explain 
 the freedom of St. Bernard's words. But Eugenius was not a 
 man to be any one's tool, and at that date the Eoman 
 Chair was surrounded with a halo of prestige and power 
 to which the modern world affords no parallel. Yet St. 
 Bernard does not merely write as an old friend, frankly 
 discussing the details of a new position ; he does not merely 
 point out the vices, the extortions of the Eoman Court, 
 the corrupt traditions of the Papal administration at home 
 
II.] 
 
 Humility and Truth. 
 
 27 
 
 and abroad. He addresses himself to Eugenius personally, 
 and in terms which few men in such a station often listen to. 
 Let Eugenius strip from his eyes all the veils and bandages 
 which may disguise from him the true state of his case. 
 He is still merely a man and a sinner, only charged with 
 heavier responsibilities than his fellows. Grant that he is 
 the heir of the Apostles, the first of the Christian Bishops ; 
 grant that Abel and Noah, and Abraham and Melchisedek, 
 and Aaron and Moses, and Samuel and Peter, and One infi- 
 nitely Higher than them all, are represented in him ; what 
 does this mean ? Not pre-eminence in dignity, so much 
 as pre-eminence in labour. Dignity of itself, exclaims 
 St. Bernard, is not a certificate of virtue. Let Eugenius 
 look to it, that he be in spirit the successor of Peter, not 
 the successor of Constantine. 1 If he is chiefly thinking 
 of his honours, he has his part, not with the Apostle, but 
 with Nebuchadnezzar, with Alexander of Macedon, with 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, with Herod. Let him forget the 
 robes he wears, the gems which sparkle in his tiara, the 
 plumes which wave around him, the precious metals which 
 adorn his palace, his vast influence over the Western world. 
 These, exclaims St. Bernard, are but as the mists of the 
 morning. They are already passing ; presently they will 
 have passed for ever. " Dele fucum fugacis honoris hujus, 
 et male coloratae nitorem glorias, ut nude nudum consi- 
 ders quia nudus egressus es de utero matris time." 2 All 
 that has been superadded will as certainly be removed, 
 and beneath all there remains, on the Papal Throne as in 
 the humblest of peasant dwellings, " man that is born of 
 woman, having a short time to live, and being full of 
 misery ; man that cometh up, and is cut down as a flower, 
 and fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in 
 one stage." 
 
 1 De Consid. p. 76. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 40, ed. Berlin. Cf. Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. iii. p. 396. 
 
28 
 
 Humility and Truth. [Serm. 
 
 It may be thought that the social foes of humility are 
 less powerful now than in bygone years, that good taste on 
 this side, and the strong and strengthening current of 
 political democracy on that, have in this matter already 
 done, or bid fair to do, the proper work of the Gospel. But 
 this is to forget that the essence of all true moral excellence 
 lies not in external conformity to a conventional standard, 
 but in an inward disposition under the control of recog- 
 nised principle. The formulas of good taste are merely 
 an elegant translation of the common opinion of contem- 
 porary society. The humility of good taste is strictly an 
 affair of appropriate phrases, gestures, reserves, withdrawals; 
 it is the result of a socially enforced conformity to an outward 
 law. The humility of democratic feeling is often a very 
 vigorous form of pride, which is scarcely at pains to disguise 
 its real character. The demand for an impossible social 
 equality, which has done so much to discredit some of the 
 noblest aspirations for liberty that the modern world has 
 known, is due to the temper which creates a tyranny, only 
 working under circumstances which, for the moment, forbid 
 it. The impatience of an equal in the one case is the 
 impatience of a superior in the other. The humility of a 
 democracy is largely concerned with enforcing an outward 
 conformity to this virtue on the part of other people ; and 
 both it and the humility of good taste may remind us of those 
 cannibals who have walked in our parks clothed in the dress 
 and affecting the manners of European civilization, and yet 
 have found it difficult to restrain themselves from indulg- 
 ing old habits when there has been much to tempt them. 
 Humility, to be genuine, must be based on principle; and 
 that principle is suggested by the Apostle's question, which 
 warns every human being that, be his wealth, his titles, his 
 position, his name among men, what they may, they afford 
 no real ground for self-exaltation, because they are external 
 to his real self, and are in fact bestowed on him from above. 
 
II.] 
 
 Humility and Truth, 
 
 29 
 
 /3. " Who maketh thee to differ from another ? And 
 what hast thou that thou hast not received ? " This is a 
 question too for those who have good abilities, and who 
 have made the best of them. The day has probably gone 
 by when clever idleness was of more account in this place 
 than hardworking mediocrity. We have ceased to think 
 that there is anything intrinsically respectable in the 
 possession of abilities which men do not use. But then 
 this higher and more moral estimate of mental accom- 
 plishments, which has more reverence for the hardly won 
 results of patient work than for the flashes of genius, 
 which cost men nothing, is not unlikely to obscure the truth 
 before us. To those who believe in a Creator at all, Who 
 made us all and each exactly what we are, there can be 
 no question as to the true source of natural ability. But 
 work is the activity of a human agent, and the results of 
 work are the products of that activity, and these results 
 are not, like inherited income or titles, external to the real 
 man ; they become the furniture of one very important part 
 of his being : his memory and his understanding are per- 
 manently enriched by them. Is it possible to say in the 
 case of the hard-working student, who has disciplined and 
 stored his mind, that he too has nothing which he has not 
 received ? Has he not won a great deal that he possesses ? 
 is not his knowledge, as well as his capacity, a result 
 of his persevering energy ? And is he not on this account 
 entitled in reason to a regulated self-confidence, which 
 proclaims that he is the creation of his own efforts ; which 
 asserts his superiority, in this very respect, to men who 
 are only what God and circumstances have made them ? 
 
 Undoubtedly we here meet with a feature which is 
 wanting in the case already considered ; here is the active 
 co-operation of a self-determining will. But if we except 
 the will, all besides is independent of the worker. Tor 
 instance, to intellectual success in this place, three con- 
 
30 
 
 Humility and Truth, 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 ditions, speaking generally, are essential; preparatory 
 training, abilities of a certain order, and fairly good health. 
 Certainly, in some cases one or more of these conditions 
 have been dispensed with. Some men have succeeded by 
 dint of sheer perseverance, although their education may 
 almost be said to have begun here. Others have done 
 well whose abilities have appeared at the time and after- 
 wards — to their great credit — altogether below the level of 
 their honours. Others again have distinguished themselves 
 whose work has cost them hours of weary pain, and who 
 have triumphed at last only to sink into an early grave. 
 Such cases will occur to the memories of those of us who 
 have resided in Oxford for any number of years. But 
 these cases are exceptions to the general rule ; and in each 
 one of these cases there is generally some physical or 
 mental endowment which enables the student to conquer 
 his disadvantages, and which is itself God's gracious gift. 
 But the will : is that His gift too ? Surely it is ; only 
 here His generosity is of that delicate kind which conceals 
 His Hand, and allows His pensioner to imagine for a 
 moment that he has something which he can really look 
 upon as originally his own. The kindly stranger who 
 would not wound the sensitiveness of an impoverished 
 gentleman, hid the purse of gold at a spot in the garden 
 where it could not but presently be found, and then retired 
 to a thicket from which, without risk of being observed, 
 he might enjoy the sight of the discovery. And thus 
 God allows man for the moment to imagine that the will 
 is a power for which he is indebted to no other being, 
 since it is the movement and energy of the man's own 
 self, of his inmost being. So it is : but then, is man his 
 own creator ? Does he indeed ow T e his central, his deepest 
 life to no other ? Is his personal self-determining spirit 
 self-originating ? Is there, in short, anything in man which 
 makes him differ so vitally from other creatures that he 
 has in it that which he has not received ? 
 
II.] 
 
 Httmility and Truth. 
 
 3i 
 
 It is often said, and more frequently thought, that such 
 rank weeds as pride of intellect grow more readily and 
 more thickly in the soil of University life than elsewhere. 
 Nor do I deny that there are reasons for such an appre- 
 hension, especially when life is passed in cultivation of 
 the intellect for its own sake, without any corresponding 
 discipline of the heart and character, and without any 
 sufficient recognition of the fact that no man has any right 
 to cultivate his intellect without reference to his duties to 
 his fellowmen. But is this necessarily or generally the 
 case ? Surely not. University life offers some advantages 
 for learning humility which are scarcely attainable else- 
 where. It is a misfortune for a man to be placed early 
 in life in a position where he has few or no equals, 
 while a number of inferior minds constantly depend on 
 and defer to him. In such a position, even good men 
 have imperceptibly acquired an estimate of themselves, 
 of their judgment, their abilities, their services to God 
 and to their fellows, which is inconsistent with fact, and 
 fatal to humility. To those who spend life here this danger 
 can hardly present itself. Probably no body of men is less 
 controlled by conventional and fictitious standards of im- 
 portance than are the resident members of the University. 
 Here a man's intrinsic worth, or what is believed to be 
 such, is the measure of the consideration extended to him. 
 Every resident must feel that he lives in the presence 
 of men who are in some ways his superiors. Even the 
 most accomplished must recognise those who excel himself, 
 if not in investigating this department of truth, yet in 
 mastering that; if not in the cultivation of this faculty, 
 yet in disciplining another ; if not in mental, at least in 
 moral attainments ; if not in this form of moral beauty, 
 then in that. How great this blessing is, any man can 
 say, who, while living here, has been taking pains with his 
 character, and using the opportunities for training it which 
 
32 
 
 Humility and Truth. [Sekm. 
 
 God has thus put in his way. And indeed, if this aid to 
 humility were wanting in Oxford, there is another, which 
 must occasionally obtrude itself with painful importunity 
 upon the thoughts of all of us. Living, as we do here, with 
 more or less power of controlling our time, with learning 
 in so many ways made easy to us, with libraries, teachers, 
 traditions around that invite us so gracefully, so persuasively, 
 to make some little portion of truth our own ; can we forget 
 — we cannot forget — the thousands, the tens of thousands, 
 of working men who toil in our great centres of industry ; 
 men with hearts not less warm, with an interest in life and 
 a sense of its capabilities not less keen, with intellects, be 
 sure, at the very least, not less strong or less acute than our 
 own, yet denied by their circumstances the very least of 
 our advantages, and knowing full well what this exclusion 
 implies, and wondering that we who live in what seems to 
 them a very paradise, do not make more of it. What 
 would they not achieve, if they too, instead of working with 
 their hands for bread throughout each long day, could take 
 our places ? What might not we do, if we would but 
 steadily reflect on the simple fact that there is absolutely 
 no reason whatever, save the free and unmerited bounty of 
 God's Providence towards us, against our taking theirs ? 
 Well; what we or they would do under other than our 
 actual circumstances is an intricate question, which it may 
 be useless to discuss ; but one result should surely follow 
 from the most passing and superficial consideration of such 
 a subject; if it did nothing else, it should make us humble. 
 
 y. "Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what 
 hast thou that thou hast not received?" The question 
 especially concerns those who possess, or believe that they 
 possess, religious truth and religious advantages. It was 
 to such persons that the Apostle himself addressed 
 it. The Corinthian of whom the Apostle is thinking 
 
II.] 
 
 Humility and Truth. 
 
 believed himself to differ from his fellow-Christians, not 
 in social standing or intellectual culture, but specifically 
 in the possession of a truer religious faith. If the Apostle 
 had shared some modern opinions as to the importance 
 of Christian doctrine, he would have epigrammatically 
 dismissed the several points that were discussed at 
 Corinth as having no real claim to serious consideration. 
 But although St. Paul knew how to insist upon the non- 
 essential character of certain open questions, which weak 
 or narrow brethren, to the detriment of the Church's true 
 comprehensiveness, would fain have closed, 1 he was far 
 too keenly alive to the conditions under which alone 
 intellectual loyalty to a Revelation claiming to be from 
 God is possible, to affect or encourage indifference about 
 matters that might even remotely touch its substance. 2 
 The personalities that were exchanged at Corinth did 
 conceal tendencies towards really divergent convictions ; 
 and all these tendencies could not be equally directed 
 towards truth, since some of them were mutually ex- 
 clusive of each other. St. Paul, then, does not tell the 
 Corinthian that the idea of his differing from another is of 
 itself a presumptuous absurdity ; he assumes the difference 
 to exist, and even to be legitimate; he concentrates the 
 point and strength of his question upon the source of the 
 difference. " Who maketh thee to differ ?" The Corinthian 
 of whom he is thinking had taken it for granted that his 
 religious orthodoxy, supposing it to be such, was, like a 
 conquest of the natural intellect, simply a result of his 
 own industry or sharpsightedness. Even if this had been 
 the case, the natural faculty and the strength which em- 
 ployed it would still have been God's gifts. Yet, when 
 religious truth is learnt to any purpose, it is learnt not 
 merely as a problem which is grasped by the understand- 
 ing, but as a rule of thought and life which is freely 
 
 1 Rom. xiv. 3. 1 Cor. viii. 9. n - Gal. i. 8, 9 ; v. 2-4. Tim. i. 19, 20. 
 
34 
 
 Humility and Truth. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 accepted by the will, and especially as a tender devotion 
 towards an unseen Person that can possess and govern 
 and absorb the heart. These things are separable in 
 treatises on religious psychology; they are inseparable 
 in the practical experience of the living Christian to whom 
 his creed is a serious reality. They carry us, if we are to 
 account for them in their entirety, far beyond the range 
 of any human energy or forethought. We are here on 
 the traces of the work of the inward Teacher, Whose 
 task was already heralded by prophecy ; Who was to write 
 the Will of God upon the hearts of men ; Who was to 
 supplement, and at times to supersede, natural methods of 
 inquiry by an inward illumination. We are here close 
 to a phenomenon, higher, more complex, more beautiful, 
 in every way more worthy of attention, than any which 
 we find within the frontiers of the natural universe. We 
 are already thinking of Divine Grace. Apart from Grace 
 the religious life of Christendom is a thick tangle of un- 
 intelligible mysticism : in view of it, antecedents and 
 effects are scarcely less clearly traceable than in the 
 heavens above us, or in the beautiful clothing of the earth 
 beneath our feet, or in the machinery and functions of 
 our bodies. Or, to be more exact, Grace may remind us 
 of the action of such mysterious forces in nature as is 
 electricity, which, although ever under the governance 
 of law, is at one while so independent of us as to threaten 
 us from the clouds with ruin and death, and at another so 
 wholly within our power that, like a public messenger 
 or a household servant, it does our bidding with docile 
 precision. 
 
 But if there be one thing more than another characteristic 
 of Grace, it is that we have nothing to do with winning it. 
 We may co-operate with it ; we may forfeit it if we neglect 
 it ; we may or may not have predispositions for receiving 
 it. But in itself it is, as its name implies, a free gift ; it 
 
II.] 
 
 Humility and Truth. 
 
 is given by Him Who might withhold it. We cannot 
 either claim it as a right ; or possess ourselves of it sur- 
 reptitiously ; or galvanize our natural faculties into doing 
 its work, so as to diminish our sense of obligation towards 
 the Giver. In its wider and its narrower sense, Grace 
 is His Gift. The whole economy of Redemption, the 
 Incarnation of the Divine Son, His perfect Teaching, His 
 sinless Example, His Expiatory Death, His Rising from 
 the Grave, His Ascension on High, His perpetual pleading 
 in that world beyond the stars ; whence is all this but from 
 the free, undeserved bounty of the Infinite Mercy thus 
 lavished upon us, the children of the Eall ? And Grace, 
 in the specific sense of the action of the Holy Spirit, by 
 Whom the whole Church is governed and sanctified ; by 
 Whom the individual heart is filled with light and love ; 
 and Whose work especially it is, sometimes freely, some- 
 times through channels accurately defined and known, 
 such as are the Sacraments, to knit our frail and perishing 
 nature to the Divine Humanity of the Saviour ; what is 
 Grace, in this narrower and more accustomed sense but a 
 free gift from first to last ? Assuredly, if there be aught 
 good in us, Grace has made us what we are, and without 
 it our life is as nothing, or worse than nothing before the 
 Sanctity and the Justice of God. 
 
 " What hast thou that thou hast not received ? " So far as 
 the spiritual life is concerned, there is but one answer to 
 that question. And when that answer is sincerely meant, 
 it makes the assumption of personal superiority, on the 
 ground of possessing a higher truth or fuller religious 
 privileges than others, utterly impossible. For there is 
 indeed one possession which we have not received, and 
 which is wanting to none of us. We can reasonably call 
 it our own, since He Who gave us all else would most 
 assuredly never have given us this. It is the fatal product 
 of our misused liberty: it is the wrong-doing which we 
 
36 
 
 Humility and Trtcth. 
 
 [Seem. 
 
 individually have contributed to increase the stock of moral 
 evil which God for wise purposes permits, but which 
 nevertheless is an affront and a dishonour to Him. Sin is 
 the one thing which we have, and which we have not 
 received. Think well on this, and you will learn the spirit 
 of the fifty-first Psalm, which is the essential spirit of 
 humility. Make this truth your own, and you will under- 
 stand the lines which Copernicus traced for his tomb- 
 stone — 
 
 " Non parem Pauli gratiam requiro, 
 Veniam Petri neque posco, sed quam 
 In Cruris ligno dederas latroni 
 Sedulus oro." 
 
 Forget this ; and sooner or later you will be a Pharisee. 
 
 The fundamental thing in Pharisaism was not the sus- 
 tained acting of a part with a view to keeping up appear- 
 ances before the eyes of men ; it was rather the fond claim 
 and boast, cherished in secret thought, and proclaimed in 
 the ears of men, that the religious position and privileges 
 of Israel were of themselves a ground of merit and honour. 1 
 Such a boast would have been silenced if the Pharisee had 
 had any true sight of an All-Holy God, or any accurate 
 estimate of the strength and variety of the forms of moral 
 evil within himself. And when the spirit of Pharisaism, 
 which lives on in the human heart with energetic vitality, 
 has reared itself beneath that Cross which rebukes all 
 human self-sufficiency, it has been sustained by this same 
 insensibility to the Sanctity above, and to the evil within 
 us. Christian Pharisaism is possible only when men have 
 forgotten that they have received all that God can accept 
 hereafter, and that all that will embarrass and confound 
 them before Him is indisputably their own. 
 
 " What hast thou that thou hast not received ?" It is a 
 searching question; but the true answer to it ought to 
 leave us other men than perchance we are; more con- 
 siderate and generous towards our fellows, more tender 
 
 1 Rom. ii. 17-20. 
 
II. J Humility and Truth. 
 
 37 
 
 and sympathetic, more capable of making allowance for 
 difficulties which we have ourselves experienced, or for 
 difficulties which we can at least imagine, more slow to con- 
 demn what looks like evil, more eager to acknowledge merit 
 and to proclaim superiority, more considerate and respectful 
 when dealing with inferiors, more resolute in the endeavour 
 to crush and cast out the scorn and bitterness that wells 
 up too readily from an unhumble heart. It is not easy 
 all this, but it is humility in practice; and persevering 
 endeavours after a true self-knowledge, together with con- 
 stant recourse to a Higher Power, will, in God's good time, 
 help us on our way. For as the years pass, and first one 
 friend and then another is withdrawn, and the home circle is 
 so gradually narrowed up as to leave a man almost alone 
 in his generation, and the ideals which sustained energy in 
 earlier life have one by one been broken, and the interests 
 which were absorbing have lost their charm or have faded 
 quite away, and disease has already laid its heavy hand on 
 this frame which the spirit still tenants ; there is one 
 virtue among many — pre-eminently one — that he needs and 
 will need increasingly, — Eesignation. Eesignation, — not 
 to a whirlwind of inexorable forces, not to a brutal fate 
 or destiny, not to powers who cannot see or hear or feel, 
 but to One Who lives for ever and Who loves us well, and 
 Who has given us all that we have, ay, life itself, that 
 we may at His bidding freely give it back to Him. " Into 
 Thy Hands I commend my Spirit ! " They are the last 
 words of Christian Eesignation, most majestic in its self- 
 content, most lowly in its recognition of the fact that we 
 are recipients from first to last ; they are the last words of 
 a Eesignation which He practised most perfectly Who is 
 the Model and Prince of the humble; Who, being the 
 Infinite and the Eternal, " made Himself of no reputation, 
 and took upon Him the form of a servant." 1 
 1 Phil. ii. 7. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 IMPORT OF FAITH IN A CREATOR, 
 
 (SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY.) 
 Gen. i. i. 
 
 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 IT is natural to inquire why we should begin to read 
 the first chapter of Genesis on Septuagesima Sunday, 
 when the Christian year is already some nine or ten weeks 
 old. And the answer to that question is not to be found 
 in any personal tastes or predilections on the part of 
 the compilers of the Prayer Book. In this, as in much 
 else, they simply handed on what they had received. The 
 first chapter of Genesis had been for centuries read on 
 this Sunday at Matins in the Breviary of the Western 
 Church, before it occupied a corresponding place in the 
 English Prayer Book. It is not altogether easy to say 
 how the truths of the Christian Creed came to be laid 
 out liturgically in the order which has come down to us, 
 and which extends over rather more than half of the 
 solar year. Work which in later ages has been formally 
 undertaken by a Commission of Divines or by a Congre- 
 gation of Rites was in earlier days produced by some 
 prominent Church or by some leading Bishop, whose repu- 
 tation for sanctity or for wisdom ensured the assent of his 
 contemporaries. In a yet more primitive time liturgical 
 
Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 39 
 
 arrangements, when they were not suggested by the Older 
 Dispensation, would seem to have been arrived at in- 
 stinctively by the Church's common spiritual sense of 
 what was due to the truth she guarded. Here we see what 
 it is that imparts so high an interest to the study of early 
 liturgical documents. They spring from the fresh soul of 
 early Christendom; they reveal the deep currents and 
 impulses which swayed its collective life ; they proclaim 
 not merely the truths which were held by the Christian 
 Church, but also the moods and character of the passion 
 with which she pressed them to her heart. 
 
 The sudden change, then, from Isaiah to Genesis, is 
 probably to be explained by the consideration that on 
 Septuagesima Sunday we pass a great dividing line in the 
 Church's year ; and, as the name of the day implies, every- 
 thing henceforth is relative to and preparatory for the 
 great Easter Festival. Before again considering those 
 stupendous facts which constitute the very heart and 
 centre of the Christian Creed — the Passion and Resur- 
 rection of the Incarnate Son of God — we are led to take 
 the measure of our own place in this universe, and of our 
 relation to the Being Who made it. We fall back on these 
 elemental truths that we may do justice to one important 
 aspect of the Christian Creed, as rilling up an outline, 
 and affording relief from difficulties, which natural religion 
 or elementary primitive traditions cannot fail to suggest. 
 A serious Theism, like a reverent study whether of thought 
 or of nature, is a true preparation for the Gospel. To know 
 what God is, and what we are, is to know truths which 
 will lead us on to other truths beyond; it is to have 
 found a schoolmaster who, unless we are unhappily in- 
 genious in misreading his directions, will, like the Jewish 
 law of old, sooner or later bring us unto Christ. 
 
 Wlien man looks out from himself upon the wonderful 
 home in which he is placed, upon the various orders of 
 
4Q 
 
 Import of Faith in a Creator. [Serm. 
 
 living things around him, upon the solid earth which he 
 treads, upon the heavens into which he gazes, with such 
 ever-varying impressions, by day and by night ; when he 
 surveys the mechanism of his own bodily frame, fashioned 
 in this precise shape and endowed with these faculties, with 
 these limbs, and no other ; when he turns his thought, as 
 he can turn it, in upon itself, and takes to pieces by subtle 
 analysis the beautiful instrument which places him in con- 
 scious relation to the universe around him, — his first and 
 last anxiety is to account for the existence of all that thus 
 interests him ; he must answer the question, How and why 
 did it come to be ? Nor is this anxiety diminished, much 
 less is it destroyed, when man has become familiar with the 
 wonders around him; when he has multiplied his oppor- 
 tunities for observing them, and has catalogued his observa- 
 tions; when he has apparently reached general truths, 
 and has tested them by experience, and feels himself to 
 be making some acquaintance with his dwelling-house 
 under the leadership of Science. 
 
 Certainly Theology, if she understands her own interests, 
 can have no wish to disparage or discountenance this 
 kind of knowledge. She will indeed decline to revise 
 the Creed or the Bible in deference to some tentative 
 hypothesis which the imagination rather than the positive 
 knowledge of this or that eminent writer may suggest. 
 But the mental habits which in its higher moods physical 
 science encourages are all her own. Love of positive truth; 
 perseverance under difficulties; intrepid accuracy — are 
 virtues which Theology also cultivates. And she knows 
 that there is a momentous problem near to her heart, and 
 on which she has much to say, but which natural science 
 also cannot but keep constantly before the mind of its 
 votaries. It is the problem of the origin of the Universe. 
 For whatever be the conquests of physical science in detail ; 
 whatever amount of light it may pour upon the working 
 
III. 
 
 Import of Faith in a Creator. 4 1 
 
 and structure of the material world, — all this does not 
 dispose of the serious question, " How and why did this 
 vast system of being come to be?" Science may unveil 
 in nature regular modes of working, and name them laws ; 
 she may show that effects supposed to be due to some 
 immediate interference from above are traceable to ascer- 
 tained agencies below ; she may substitute, and to a 
 degree beyond present anticipations, some doctrine of 
 gradually developed forms of life for the older belief in 
 permanent distinctions between living species. But the 
 great question still awaits her. Who furnished the original 
 material for the presumed development ? Who gave it the 
 first impact, who has conducted it through the successive 
 stages of its history ? Why, in short, do we witness it 
 at all ? 
 
 Now, this question is answered by the first verse of the 
 Bible, " In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth." And that answer is accepted by every believer 
 in the Christian Creed : " I believe in One God, the Father 
 Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things 
 visible and invisible." 
 
 t 
 
 What is meant by Creation ? Nothing less than the 
 giving being to that which before was not. The Hebrew 1 
 word which is used to describe the Divine act of giving 
 existence to the heavens and the earth does not of itself 
 exclude the idea of some pre-existing material ready to the 
 Hand of the Creator. But the text does not allow us to 
 think of any such material ; it carries us back to that 
 
 1 which in the Piel means to cut, hew, in Kal means always to 
 
 create. When used, e.g., of the creation of man (Gen. i. 27), or of the new 
 heart of the penitent (Ps. li. 10), the word doubtless describes a process of 
 making out of something, but this idea of pre-existent material lies not in 
 the word but in the context. 
 
42 Import of Faith in a Creator. [Serm. 
 
 primal act whereby something that was not God first 
 began to be. The expression " the heavens and the earth" 
 is the most exhaustive phrase that the Hebrews could 
 employ to name the universe; the universe is regarded 
 as a twofold whole, consisting of very unequal parts. 
 Writing for men, Moses writes as a man ; an angel might 
 have described the work of God very differently. But 
 the moral importance of the earth, considered as the scene 
 of man's probation, is a sufficient reason for the form 
 which the phrase assumes. The word " heavens " includes 
 not merely the material bodies which astronomy has in 
 view, but those immaterial essences whose existence and 
 activity were revealed gradually to Israel, and who are, 
 as we know, much more ancient than man. The work of 
 the fourth " day," or period, presupposes a creation of the 
 "heavens," since the Hebrew word 1 translated "lights" 
 might be rendered " light bearers," and might thus suggest 
 that the work of that period consisted in placing the 
 already existing heavenly bodies in such a complete 
 relation to the planet which was to be the abode of man 
 as to influence its development. 
 
 How the Jews have understood the first verse of Genesis 
 is sufficiently notorious. " Those," says Maimonides, " who 
 believe in the laws of our' master Moses, hold that the 
 whole world, which comprehends everything except the 
 Creator, after being in a state of non-existence, received 
 its existence from God, being called into existence out 
 
 of nothing It is a fundamental principle of our 
 
 law that God created the world from nothing." The 
 mother of the Maccabean martyrs, when endeavouring to 
 
 1 i s a luminous or light-bearing body. In Numb. iv. 9 it is used 
 
 of a candelabrum. The sun and moon already existed ; the work of the 
 fourth ' ' day " may have consisted in removing some intercepting atmo- 
 sphere or other cause which hitherto had prevented them from giving light 
 to the earth. 
 
III.] Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 43 
 
 strengthen her youngest son for his last agony, bids 
 him look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that 
 is therein, and consider that God made them out of 
 things that were not. 1 If the Alexandrian author of the 
 Book of Wisdom speaks of God's making the Cosmos out 
 of shapeless matter, 2 it does not follow that, like Philo 
 afterwards, he had so yielded to Platonic ideas as to sup- 
 pose that matter was eternal ; he is speaking of God's later 
 creative action, which gave form to matter that had been 
 made before. Justin Martyr uses the phrase in the same 
 sense; and St. Clement of Alexandria speaks of matter 
 having no relation to time, 3 not meaning that matter is 
 eternal, but that it had been created at a period when there 
 were no " times or seasons or days or years." Tertullian 
 holds that the Carthaginian artist Hermogenes, who pro- 
 bably had never unlearnt his heathen creed, really teaches 
 the existence of a second God when he asserts the eternity 
 of matter : " Duos Deos infert," says Tertullian, " materiam 
 parem Deo infert." 4 And the common sense of Christian 
 antiquity is expressed in the devout reasoning of St. Augus- 
 tine : "Thou, 0 Lord, hast made heaven and earth; yet 
 not out of Thine own Substance, for then heaven and earth 
 would be equal to Thine Only Begotten, and, besides 
 Thyself, there was nought else out of which Thou couldst 
 make it : therefore ha«t Thou made heaven and earth out 
 of nothing." 5 
 
 In the Mosaic account of the Creation the sentence 
 which rises high above all else, and compared with which 
 all else is subordinate detail, is this : " In the beo-innin^ 
 God created the heaven and the earth." Here is a truth 
 which governs the theology of the Old and New Testament. 
 It is vividly opposed to current doctrines in heathendom, 
 
 1 ovk 6vtuv, 2 Mace. vii. 28. 2 Wisd. xi. 17, e£ d/xopepov vXrjs. 
 
 3 Photius attributes to him the expression v\rj axpovos. 
 
 4 Tert. adv. Hcrraog. c. 4. 5 Conf. xii. 7. 
 
44 Import of Faith in a Creator. [Serm. 
 
 which regarded the world as emanating from a divine 
 substance, or which ascribed all life and living beings to 
 some unaccountable modification of primeval self-existing 
 matter, or which took refuge from sterner thought in some 
 graceful or grotesque legend, and traced both gods and 
 men to a world egg, or a chaos. It may have influenced 
 the formation of some heathen cosmogonies, as not im- 
 probably that of the Etruscan, which is ascribed by Suidas 
 to a foreign source, and still more that of the Zendavesta, 
 inspiring or shaping them through channels of intercourse 
 of which there would have been no lack when men could 
 travel or think at all. At the present day the truth of 
 the creation is confronted sometimes indeed with avowed 
 Atheism, sometimes with systematized Pantheism, but 
 much more generally and frequently, at least in England, 
 with a habit of mind which declines the question altogether, 
 as lying beyond the range of experience, and belonging 
 entirely to abstract speculation. Who has not fallen in 
 with books which to an earnest Theist or Christian again 
 and again suggest this grave subject, as the necessary issue 
 of many a fruitful vein of thought, but in which, again and 
 again, the Creator is significantly passed by, until at last 
 He can be avoided no longer ? And then we find ourselves 
 suddenly enveloped in phrases of studied, nay, of profound 
 reverence; phrases in which the writer bends before a 
 something which is never named, we know not — perhaps 
 he knows not — what. It may be that his purpose is to 
 make all secure in case Theistic truth should turn out 
 to be true after all ; it may be that he desires, on grounds 
 of early association, to stand well with the millions who 
 still believe in a Creator ; it may be that he is endeavour- 
 ing to veil an embarrassment which inwardly shrinks from 
 the whole subject, but which reflects that it can lose nothing 
 by being graceful. 
 
 As for us Christians, " through faith, we understand that 
 
III.] 
 
 Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 45 
 
 the universe was framed by the word of God, so that it 
 was not out of things that are apparent to the senses that 
 the visible world came into existence." 1 Creation is a 
 mystery, eminently satisfactory to reason, but strictly be- 
 yond it. Nothing within the range of our experience 
 enables us to understand the process of calling beings into 
 existence out of nothing. We men can do much in the 
 way of modifying and controlling existing matter. But we 
 cannot create the minutest particle of it. That God sum- 
 moned it into being is a truth which we believe on God's 
 authority, but which we never can verify. If, as is 
 probable, the Mosaic cosmogony is much older than Moses, 
 and was embodied in the Thorah as being a primeval 
 revelation, still it must have been, to whomever given, 
 strictly a revelation. No created being can have witnessed 
 the act by which the Creator ended the solitariness of 
 His Eternity, and surrounded Himself with forms of de- 
 pendent life. And that which it is now important to insist 
 on, is the practical value of this belief in Creation; its 
 value in thought and its value in practice. 
 
 II 
 
 Belief in the creation of the universe out of nothing 
 is the only account of its origin which is compatible with 
 belief in a personal and moral God. 
 
 Mankind may conceive, has conceived, of the relation 
 between the universe or world and a higher Power in four 
 
 o 
 
 1 In Heb. xi. 3 e/c y.r\ {paivnfxlvuv is understood by St. Chrysostom and Theo- 
 doret to mean "out of nothing." If by "nothing" is meant "nothing 
 material," the sense thus yielded is indisputable, though not that which the 
 word suggests. The /av; (paivo/meva are the Divine ideas from which the visible 
 universe sprang into being, and which were drawn from their seclusion in 
 the Divine Mind by the act of creation. A fundamental doctrine of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews is that there is an archetypal heavenly world, 
 containing the types and ideas of this (Heb. viii. 5). Compare Delitzsch, 
 Hcbracrbr. in loc. 
 
46 Import of Faith in a Creator. [Seem. 
 
 different ways. 1 Either God is a creation of the world — 
 that is to say, of the thinking part of it — or God and the 
 world are really identical ; or God and the world, although 
 distinct, are co-existent ; or God has created the world out 
 of nothing. 
 
 Now if God is a product of the human and thinking 
 world ; if He is produced by and only exists in the thought 
 or the imagination of a certain section of the inhabitants of 
 this planet, He is on a par with any other pure hypothesis. 
 You may pay compliments to a creation of the human 
 mind, or you may dislike and denounce it as mischievous 
 and superstitious ; but in either case you do not mistake 
 it for something which it is not. Whatever may be the 
 popular power of what you know to be only a form of 
 current opinion, you do not reckon with it as if it were a 
 substantial or living thing when you think or act. Your 
 loyalty to truth naturally leads you to dismiss somewhat 
 impatiently a phantom which might well have daunted 
 the childhood of our race, but which has no business to flit 
 about the brain of its manhood. If instead of believing 
 in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, 
 you believe in the human mind as the maker of God, the 
 conclusion is obvious. If God is not a real objective Being, 
 apprehended by man's thought, but Himself utterly in- 
 dependent of such apprehension, then it follows that the 
 universe is self-existent, and that it alone exists. A purely 
 subjective deity is in truth no deity at all. 
 
 If, again, God and the world are two names for the 
 same thing ; if the universe is only the self-development 
 of the Infinite, and man only that point in its self-evolution 
 at which the Infinite attains self-consciousness ; then surely 
 we are playing with words in giving to this " Infinite " 
 the solemn name of God. This Infinite is not God in the 
 sense of the Bible ; it is not God in the sense of the human 
 
 1 I owe thi3 method of stating the problem to Dr. Pusey. 
 
III. J Import of Faith in a Creator. 47 
 
 heart. The name is retained; the reality has vanished 
 just as truly as in the blankest Atheism. For such a 
 deity is neither personal nor moral. He is not personal, 
 since he lacks the first elements of personality : he is not 
 an individual free-will or a self-consciousness ; he is only 
 a force which, for some unexplained reason, ultimately 
 becomes self-conscious in a number of thinking subjects. 
 The philosophy which cradles him is intolerant of the very 
 idea of personality. And, apart from the difficulties of 
 supposing morality in an impersonal subject, this deity is 
 not moral, because he is, by the hypothesis, identified with 
 all that is done by all the agents in the universe. The 
 revealed belief in the Divine Omnipresence, which sees 
 God everywhere, and therefore recognises His upholding 
 Hand in the evil beings which war against Himself, is yet 
 ever careful to distinguish between the perverted will, in 
 whose activity alone evil is resident, and the action of the 
 All-holy Creator. This last distinction is annihilated by 
 the philosophy which identifies its god with the universe; 
 and the necessary consequence is the annihilation of 
 morality. Murder and adultery become manifestations of 
 the life of the Infinite One as truly and in the same sense 
 as benevolence or veracity. 
 
 But if, to avoid this revolting blasphemy, we suppose 
 God and the world to be distinct, yet eternally co-existent, 
 do we thereby secure in human thought a place for a 
 moral and personal God ? Surely not. For this last 
 hypothesis involves a sacrifice of that which lies at the 
 base of any real idea of God in our minds at all, namely, 
 His solitary self-existence. If the universe had, from 
 eternity, co-existed along with Him, though it were only 
 as force and matter, so that the gradual elaboration of form 
 and life was still reserved to Him, as being: within these 
 limits the all-controlling A^ent, He would have been a 
 different being from God. A second self-existence is 
 
48 Import of Faith in a Creator, [Serm. 
 
 a supposition which annihilates God. God has ceased to 
 be if we are right in imagining that there never was 
 a time when something else did not exist independently 
 of Him. In the theogony of Hesiod it was possible to 
 conceive of the gods as coming into existence at the same 
 time as the world ; but then God, in the Christian and 
 Theistic sense, was not even conceived of, and the Greek 
 mythologists do not attempt to account seriously for the 
 origin of the universe. The supposition before us belongs 
 in fact to a transitional stage of thought, when men are 
 provisionally attempting intellectual compromises which 
 cannot be permanently maintained. It necessarily throws 
 us back upon a universe without a God, Who transcends 
 while He sustains it in being, or upon a universe which is 
 itself God ; it leads inevitably to Atheism or Pantheism ; 
 it renders any serious belief in God impossible. 
 
 It is necessary, then, to believe in the creation of the 
 universe out of nothing if we are to believe also in God's 
 self-existent, personal, moral Life. But this faith in God's 
 original act of creation does not exclude belief in some 
 subsequent modification of His works through a progressive 
 development, guided by more or less ascertainable law. 
 The assertion of a recent writer, that the Jews failed 
 to understand the full significance of creation because i 
 Judaism the world is regarded as creatura, not as natura 
 as KTLcrig, not as (pv<ri<}, can only be understood of late 
 Jewish tradition. It is inapplicable to the language of th 
 Bible. Certainly the Biblical account of the creation 0 
 light and of the animals stands in sharp contrast to the Gree 
 conceptions of life and freedom fighting out their wa 
 by their own inherent powers from among the blind force 
 of nature ; but the narrative of Moses includes a cosmogon 
 as well as a creation : it describes modifications of existin 
 matter as well as the creative act which summoned it int 
 being. The recognition of God's continuous working 
 
III.] 
 
 Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 49 
 
 nature, in the form and according to the methods of law, 
 is not a concession which has been wrung from theology 
 by the advance of science. In a remarkable passage, 
 where he is describing the opinions which may be held 
 respecting the creative activity of God, Peter Lombard 1 
 employs terms which almost read like a tentative antici- 
 pation of Dr. Darwin's doctrine of the origin of species ; 
 although of course the Master of the Sentences, with his 
 eye on the text of Genesis, would have often hesitated 
 or demurred where the modern physicist is confident or 
 aggressive. 
 
 But, even if we could reasonably and religiously carry 
 evolutionist theories so far as to trace back all living beings 
 to some germ or monad, the real question — the question of 
 questions — would still confront us. How did the monad, 
 whose development we can, as we may think, trace 
 through successive stages of self-expansion, ever originally 
 come to be ? And upon the answer to this question 
 depends nothing less than a man's belief in the Being 
 Who, if He exists at all, must have infinitely more im- 
 portant claims on our attention than any one of the 
 creatures which He has made, or than all of them together. 
 
 Again, belief in the creation of the universe by God out 
 of nothing naturally leads on to belief in God's continuous 
 Providence, and Providence in turn, considering the depth 
 of man's moral misery, suggests Eedemption. Xo such 
 anticipation would be reasonable, if we could suppose that 
 the world emanated from a passive God, or that, per 
 impossibile, it had existed side by side with Him from 
 everlasting. But if He created it in His freedom, the 
 
 1 Sentent. lib. ii. distinct, xv. : " Qusedam vero non formaliter seel 
 materialiter tunc facta f uisse, quse post per temporis accessura formaliter 
 distincta sunt ; ut herbae, arbores, et forte animalia. Omnia ergo, in ipso 
 temporis initio facta esse dicunt ; sed qusedam formaliter et secundam 
 species quas habere cernimus, ut majores mundi partes ; quoedam verb 
 materialiter tantum." 
 
 D 
 
5<d Import of Faith in a Creator. [Serm. 
 
 question will inevitably be asked, why did He create it ? 
 Could it add anything to His Infinite Blessedness and 
 Glory ? could it make Him more powerful, more happy, 
 more wise ? Revelation answers the question, by ascribing 
 creation to that attribute of God which leads Him to 
 communicate His life; that generous attribute which is 
 goodness in its relation to the irrational and inanimate 
 universe, and love in its relation to personal beings. 
 " I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore 
 with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." 1 But if love 
 or goodness was the true motive for creation, it implies 
 God's continuous interest in created life. If love urged 
 God to reveal Himself by His work under finite con- 
 ditions — and both David and St. Paul insist upon the 
 high significance of creation as an unveiling of the hidden 
 life of God — surely love might urge Him to reveal Himself 
 yet more distinctly under finite conditions, as " manifest in 
 the flesh." 2 The formula that "time has no meaning for 
 God," is sometimes used even by writers of consideration, 
 in senses which are incompatible with the idea of creation. 
 If it is not beneath God's dignity to create a finite world 
 at all, it is not beneath His dignity to accept the con- 
 sequences of His work ; to take part in the development 
 of His creatures ; to subject Himself, in some sense, to 
 the conditions imposed by His original act. If in His 
 knowledge He necessarily anticipates the development of 
 His work, so that to Him a " thousand years are as 
 one day;" 3 by His love, on the other hand, which led Him 
 to move out of Himself in creation at the first, He travails 
 with the slow onward movement of the world and of 
 humanity ; and His Incarnation in time, when demanded 
 by the supreme needs of the creatures of His hand, is 
 in a line with that first of mysteries, His deigning to 
 create at all. For thus, God having created the rational 
 and human world, so loved it, that He gave His only 
 
 1 Jer. xxxi. 3. - 1 Tim. iii. 16. 8 2 Peter iii. 8. 
 
III.] Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 5i 
 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life. 1 
 
 Of this property of the Life of God there is on earth 
 one most beautiful and instructive shadow — the love of 
 a parent for his child. That love is the most disin- 
 terested, the purest, if not the strongest of human passions. 
 The parent hopes for nothing from his child ; yet he will 
 work for it, suffer for it, die for it. If you ask the reason, 
 it is because he has been the means of bringing it into 
 existence. Certainly, if it lives, it may support and com- 
 fort him in his old age ; but that is not the motive of his 
 anxious care. He feels the glory and the responsibility 
 of fatherhood ; and this leads him to do what he can for 
 the helpless infant which depends on him. Our Lord 
 appeals to this parental instinct when He teaches us the 
 efficacy of prayer. If men, evil as they are, give good 
 gifts unto their children, how much more shall not a 
 moral God — your heavenly Father — give the best of gifts, 
 His Holy Spirit, to them that ask Him. 2 But in truth the 
 principle is of wider application ; and it explains how it 
 was that " the philanthropy and love of God our Saviour 
 toward man appeared, when, not by works of righteous- 
 ness which we had done, but according to His mercy, He 
 saved us." 3 
 
 Belief in creation indeed must govern the whole reli- 
 gious thought of a consistent believer. It answers many 
 a priori difficulties as to the existence of miracle, since 
 the one supreme, inexplicable miracle, compared with 
 which all others are insignificant, is already admitted. It 
 precludes difficulties on the score of the condescension of 
 God in the Incarnation, in the Crucifixion, in the Sacra- 
 ments ; for the greatest condescension of all was the act 
 which at the first summoned creatures into being. If the 
 doctrine of final causes be discredited for a while in this 
 or that region of human thought, it will reassert its claims 
 
 J St. John iii. 16. 2 St. Matt. vii. 11. St. Luke xi. 13. 3 Tit. iii. 4, J. 
 
5 2 Import of Faith in a Creator. [Serm. 
 
 in a higher atmosphere. The creation of the world by a 
 free, personal, living God, cannot be contemplated apart 
 from such a doctrine ; and reason is already prepared for 
 the statements of Scripture, that God's own Glory, His own 
 Being or Self, was, as it could not but be in the case of 
 the Supreme, His own end in creating. 1 And thus creation 
 prepares us to see a purpose, whether fully or partially 
 discernible, running through the whole course of human 
 history, and we find it easy to understand that every single 
 human soul — as its life lies out in all the complexity 
 of movement and will and passion, before the All- Seeing 
 One — is to Him a matter of the tenderest concern, so that 
 each one of the sons of men mio^ht exclaim with the 
 Apostle, " He loved me, and gave Himself for me." 2 
 
 Once more, belief in Creation is of high moral value. 
 Such a belief keeps a man in his right place ; it is not 
 less powerful in controlling his secret thought than his out- 
 ward action. The disinclination to be under an obligation 
 is always more or less natural to us, and it is particularly 
 natural to those who are in rude health and high spirits, who 
 have never yet known anything of real sorrow or of acute 
 disease. It grows with that jealous sentiment of personal 
 independence which belongs to an advanced civilization ; 
 and if it is distantly allied to one or two of the better 
 elements of human character, it is more closely connected 
 with others that are base and unworthy. The Eastern 
 emperor executed the courtier who, by saving his life, had 
 done him a service which could never be forgotten, perhaps 
 never repaid ; but this is only an extreme illustration of 
 what may be found in the feelings of everyday life. A 
 darker example of the same tendency is seen in the case of 
 men who have wished a father in his grave, not on account 
 of any misunderstanding, not from a coarse desire of 
 succeeding to the family property, but because in the 
 father the son saw a person to whom he owed not education 
 
 1 Prov. xvi. 4. 2 Gal. ii. 20. 
 
III.] Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 merely, but his birth into the world, and felt that so vast 
 a debt made him morally insolvent so long as his creditor 
 lived. 
 
 If men are capable of such feeling towards each other, 
 we can understand much that characterizes their thought 
 about and action towards God. By His very Existence He 
 seems to inflict upon them a perpetual humiliation. To 
 feel day by day, hour by hour, that there is at any rate 
 One Being before "Whom they are as nothing ; to Whom 
 they owe originally, and moment by moment, all that 
 they are and have ; Who so holds them in His Hand that 
 no human parallel can convey a sense of the completeness 
 of their dependence upon His good pleasure ; and against 
 Whose decisions they have neither plea nor remedy : — this 
 they cannot bear. Yet if God exists, this, and nothing less 
 than this, is strictly true. The truth is not diminished by 
 any of the intellectual projects whereby men instinctively 
 endeavour to lessen the sense of an overwhelming obligation. 
 Evolution implies an original impulse ; physical law im- 
 plies a Lawgiver ; God is recalled to human thought by 
 the expedients which man invents that he may hide out of 
 sight the mighty, all-including, all-conferring activity of 
 the Creator. After all, brethren, " it is He that hath made 
 us, and not we ourselves." 1 Xot we ourselves. Of course 
 we never should say in so many words that we were our 
 own creators ; but we may morally assume it. We may 
 ignore the One Being Who made us and all besides, and 
 Who will judge us : we may forget Him so entirely as to 
 live as if He did not exist at all. Thousands do so forget 
 Him : it is written on their lives that they have no notion 
 that they have a Maker to think about and to live for. 
 Yet, even if such forgetfulness had no lasting consequences, 
 it were surely better to be true — true to the real law of this 
 universe, true to a truth which alone can keep us in our 
 proper place, of humble, submissive, resigned, obedient, 
 
 1 Ps. C. 2. 
 
Import of Faith in a Creator. 
 
 yet withal hopeful and thankful and diligent service. The 
 service of the Great Creator may well be hopeful and thank- 
 ful, for a moral God will not despise the work of His own 
 hands, and Creation leads up to Eedemption. 
 
 A traveller in Cornwall, when gazing at the masses of 
 granite rock which defy, and look as if they might defy 
 for ever, the continuous onset of the Atlantic, has ex- 
 pressed a thought which comes to most men at some 
 time in their lives. The magnificence and the awe of 
 nature fills him with an oppressive sense of the relative 
 insignificance of man. A few years hence and he will be 
 beneath the sod ; but those cliffs will stand, as now, facing 
 the Ocean, incessantly lashed by its waves, yet unshaken, 
 immoveable ; and other eyes will gaze on them for their 
 brief day of life, and then they too will close. Yes, at first 
 sight man is insignificant when thus confronted with ex- 
 ternal nature. The purely material world seems to have 
 more in common than we with the unchanging and everlast- 
 ing years of the Great Creator. Yet we know that it is not 
 so. In reality the rocks are less enduring than man. Each 
 man's personal self will still survive for weal or woe, when 
 another catastrophe shall have utterly changed the surface 
 of this planet, and the elements shall have melted with 
 fervent heat, and the earth also and all things that are 
 therein shall have been burnt up. 1 Let us think of that 
 day, warranted by His Word, Who has made all that we see. 
 It may be deferred for ages, but it will surely come at last; 
 it will not tarry. 2 Practically speaking, there are for 
 each one of us two supreme realities — God and the soul. 
 The heavens and the earth will pass away. But the soul 
 will still remain, face to face with God ; and the Word of 
 the Creator, His Word of Mercy, as well as His Word 
 of Justice, will not pass away. 3 
 
 1 2 St. Peter iii. 12, 13. 2 Hab. ii. 3. 3 I St. Peter i. 24, 25. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 WORTH OF FAITH IX A LIFE TO COME. 
 Rev. vii. 9, 10. 
 
 I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all 
 nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, 
 and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their 
 hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God Which 
 sittcth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 
 
 AS a man passes into middle life, or beyond it, autumn, 
 it has been said, whispers more to his soul than any 
 other season of the natural year. It is not difficult to see 
 why this should be, if it be, the case. The few hours of 
 sunlight, the generally beclouded sky, as 
 
 " Chill and dun, 
 Falls on the moor the brief November day," 1 
 
 the cold damp atmosphere, the sense of advanciug collapse 
 and dissolution which the withered and decaying leaf 
 everywhere suggests, and the knowledge that, as the days 
 succeed each other, the season will pass into a yet deeper 
 gloom — these features of November dispose us to think 
 of the close of human life, and of the world which follows 
 it. And the Church, with her fine practical instinct, 
 seems to have made the most of such characteristics 
 of the month as these, by placing at its commencement 
 the festival which guides our thoughts upwards to the 
 
 1 Christian Year, Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity. 
 
56 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 home of all the Saints in glory, and by closing it with 
 Advent Sunday, — that yearly anticipation of the great day 
 of doom, when all that belongs to the present order of 
 things here below will finally pass away. 
 
 Let us then endeavour to bring our thoughts into some 
 sort of harmony with the time of year by considering a 
 commonplace but always important subject, namely, the 
 value of a serious belief in a life to come. Time was, and 
 that not long past, when it might have been deemed need- 
 less, and even inexpedient, to insist upon such a topic as this. 
 But none who know what is being said and written in our 
 midst will be of this opinion now. The reality of a life 
 after death is nowadays discussed, and indeed disputed, in 
 popular reviews and in general society ; and one con- 
 sequence of such indiscriminate discussion, upon a not 
 inconsiderable number of minds, is too patent and too 
 serious to be overlooked. Men are endeavouring to 
 persuade themselves that, whether true or false, the 
 doctrine of a life to come may be treated as a purely 
 speculative question, which has no necessary or indispen- 
 sable relation to our present life and its duties. Whether 
 we exist after death or not, this life at any rate, they 
 argue, may be viewed as a thing complete in itself : we 
 may live it, and make the most of it, without committing 
 ourselves too definitely to any hypothesis as to what will 
 or will not follow it. This life, they think, needs no motives 
 drawn from the imagery of a distant world or of a super- 
 sensuous future; it can dispense with all stimulants to 
 action or to self-control which it does not of itself suggest. 
 A physical basis has been provided for morals which 
 renders them independent of any theological sanction ; or, 
 at least, a ground has been cleared for so much morality as 
 is really wanted upon a common-sense estimate of human 
 existence. And for the rest, human society is no longer 
 young; it has now had time for a great deal of varied 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 57 
 
 experience ; and it may be trusted to take care of itself, 
 and to guard the lives and property of its members by the 
 resources which are at the command of law. This being 
 so, it is contended, the question of a future life may be 
 postponed ; it cannot be considered urgent ; although, no 
 doubt, it will always be interesting to speculative minds 
 of a certain type, and will at least take rank with the 
 inquiry whether the planets are inhabited, and by what 
 kind of creatures. 
 
 Here then we have to consider the question what it is 
 that faith in a life to come does, or in reason oudit to do, 
 for the man who seriously entertains it. And in order to 
 limit the subject, I will not enter upon the connected 
 topics of a judgment which awaits us, or of the sterner side 
 of that doctrine of the future life which natural reason 
 suggests and which the Christian Faith so distinctly pro- 
 claims. Let us think to-day of the prospect of sharing in a 
 sublime and blessed existence such as is portrayed in the 
 text of the Apocalypse before us, and let us ask ourselves 
 whether it should or should not make any difference in 
 our present state of being. 
 
 L 
 
 First, then, reflect upon the importance to every think- 
 ing agent of forming an accurate estimate of his powers, of 
 taking a true measure of himself. It is fatal enough, we 
 all of us know, and it is not uncommon, to think that we 
 are of more importance, cleverer, wiser, better, than we are. 
 This is a mistake as to the nature of which the Gospel and 
 the social common sense of man are entirely agreed. But 
 it is only less fatal not to recognise the powers and 
 opportunities which God has really given us, and to bury 
 in a napkin some talent which is part of the endowment 
 of our being. In this, as in all other matters, simple 
 
Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 truthfulness is of the first importance. And life is worthily- 
 lived when a man has ascertained what his stock of capa- 
 cities really are, and has resolved, God helping him, to 
 make the best of them. 
 
 Thus, then, it is plain that the question whether we 
 exist or not after death challenges attention on utilita- 
 rian grounds. It enters directly into any serious estimate 
 of what is meant by human life, and to form such an 
 estimate cannot be other than a matter of the first practical 
 importance to all of us. Tor man as a moral being is a 
 workman, working at himself; and a workman must know 
 what he has to handle if he is to do his work well. 
 What is this creature for the improvement of which we 
 are each of us responsible ? You and I find ourselves at 
 this moment endowed with the blessed but awful preroga- 
 tive of life. There was no necessity for our existing, and 
 yet here we are. We may indeed pass days, weeks, months, 
 years, without reflecting on what it is to live. But there 
 are times, I believe, in almost every life, when thought is 
 turned back upon itself, by some shock or sorrow, and when 
 a man stands consciously face to face with the dread 
 mystery of his own existence. What is it that we mean 
 by that which each of us terms so lightly "I;" that inner 
 being which thinks and feels and acts ; which knows that 
 it thinks and feels and acts ; which determines its thought 
 and its feeling and its action ? What is this essence, the 
 seat of reflection and memory and will, which, although far 
 removed from the touch -of sense, is yet everywhere present 
 behind the senses ; which looks out from itself upon the 
 beings and things around it, and knows itself to be utterly 
 distinct from each and all of them ? This inner essence is 
 a fact; it is at least *as recognisable a fact as some lump of 
 matter which lies passive and helpless as you handle it. 
 It is not less a fact, because it is endowed with the pre- 
 rogative of being conscious that it is what it is ; and we 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 59 
 
 ask, what is it worth, both in itself and as compared 
 with things and beings around it ? how long will it last ? 
 why is it here ? whither is it going ? what is its origin ? 
 what its destiny ? 
 
 We are told that the difference between belief and dis- 
 belief in a life after death is only a difference between two 
 theories about the relation of human nature to a remote 
 future, and to an abstract conception of existence. Two 
 theories ! My brethren, there are theories and theories. 
 There are theories, no doubt, high up in the air of specu- 
 lation which do not touch, ever so lightly, the practical 
 interests of human beings. But there are also theories 
 which are not thus remote and ornamental; theories 
 the subjects of which penetrate the very bone aud 
 marrow, the inmost recesses of our life, so that, if we 
 would, we cannot detach and thrust them from us, and 
 affect towards them the polite indifference which may 
 be awarded to purely abstract speculations. In fact, we do 
 not think or speak of them as theories ; we call them by 
 the graver name of doctrines. As doctrines they are for 
 us either true or false ; if false, then in varying degrees 
 mischievous falsehoods; if true, then very solemn and 
 momentous truths. And surely this question, whether we 
 become extinct at death or exist continuously after it, in 
 a higher and freer form of life, comes too directly home 
 to every human being to be discussed, as our neighbours 
 would say, academically ; as if forsooth it were only to 
 be thought of as furnishing opportunity for skilful fencing 
 between one set of intellectual combatants and another. 
 
 If, when a man tries to take stock of his existence, he says 
 to himself, " I am a higher sort of animal, who will certainly 
 have ceased to exist altogether in the course of some twenty 
 or thirty years," then he will probably do the best that can 
 be done with life from a purely animal point of view. 
 The outlook is closely bounded by a lofty fence, on which 
 
6o Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 is traced the word " Annihilation ; " and there is much in 
 nature which whispers the old advice — 
 
 " Dona prsesentis rape lsetus horse, 
 Linque severa " — 
 
 or which bids him, in more modern phrase, enjoy to the full 
 the successive sensations, one by one, of his fleeting period 
 of animation. 
 
 But suppose, on the other hand, that a man's thoughts 
 run thus : " I am here, clothed in a frame of flesh and 
 blood which must soon be subjected to decay and dissolu- 
 tion. But this stage of my existence is only a brief 
 preface to another which will follow it, and of which there 
 will be no end." To think thus, most assuredly, is to form 
 another estimate of the best use to make of the remaining 
 years of life. That vast illimitable existence beyond the 
 grave already casts across a man's path some shadows, at the 
 least, of its own magnificence ; and it is felt that there is 
 solemn work to be done, within and without him, while 
 the day of preparation lasts. To say that the question at 
 issue is theoretical or abstract is to disguise very serious 
 issues beneath the pedantries of phrase. It is not a matter of 
 merely abstract interest whether Newton ceased altogether 
 to exist on March 20, 1727; or whether he is living some- 
 where at this moment, and, it may be, in the splendour of 
 of a higher intellectual and moral life. The real question 
 in dispute is whether man is a creature of one kind, or a 
 creature of another and an utterly different kind ; whether 
 he is to think of his life and its duties as may befit a 
 perishing and on the whole a very unfortunate animal, — 
 unfortunate, because too highly endowed for purely animal 
 wellbeing, — or whether he is to measure his opportunities 
 as a spirit should measure them which knows itself to be 
 confronted by high hopes and by terrific possibilities; 
 which knows that it already belongs by the tie of an im- 
 perishable existence to an eternal world. 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 61 
 
 EL 
 
 Secondly, liuinan beings, as such, require a prospect of 
 something beyond the immediate present, and are power- 
 fully acted upon by possessing it. Xo one who has ever 
 observed human nature, either in himself or in others, 
 can doubt the importance to every man of his having 
 something before him of which he is not yet in actual 
 enjoyment. The present, at its very best, does not 
 satisfy : it only appears to satisfy when it is reinforced 
 by the assurance that it is to be succeeded. It is haunted 
 by the sense of imperfection, by the thirst for that 
 which it imperfectly suggests ; its outlook is bounded 
 somewhat abruptly by the material and the perishing; 
 and there is that in the depths of the human soul which 
 is capable of and was made for something greater. "I 
 sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet ac- 
 quainting mine heart with wisdom ; and to lay hold on 
 folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of 
 men, which they should do under the heaven all the days 
 of their life. I made me great works : I builded me 
 houses : I planted me vineyards : I made me gardens and 
 orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of 
 fruits : I made me pools of water, to water therewith the 
 wood that bringeth forth trees : I got me servants and 
 maidens, and had servants bom in my house : also I had 
 great possessions of great and small cattle above all that 
 were in Jerusalem before me : I gathered me also silver 
 and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the 
 provinces : I gat me men singers and women singers, 
 and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, 
 and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more 
 than all that were before me in Jerusalem : also my 
 wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes 
 desired I kept not from them : I withheld not my heart 
 
62 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: 
 and this was my portion of all my labour " 
 
 And what was the conclusion of this writer, — the wisest 
 probably of the sons of men ? 
 
 " Then I looked on all the works that my hands had 
 wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: 
 and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and 
 there was no profit under the sun." 1 
 
 Such is the law of our existence : we do not find real 
 satisfaction in the temporary and the evanescent, and, as 
 a consequence, we look forward. We look forward, as is 
 natural, first of all, to reaching the nearest horizon that 
 bounds our view. As little children, we look forward to 
 the strength and capacity of boyhood ; as boys, we anti- 
 cipate the freedom and completeness — for such in the 
 distance it seems — of being men. As men, we are still 
 expectant ; when we have gained the range of hills which 
 from a distance seemed erewhile so blue and picturesque, 
 we are at least partly disappointed ; and, moreover, we have 
 caught sight of another range beyond it. Thus we pass 
 through life; anticipating first this and then that stage 
 of our career, until at last the warning — if it be deferred 
 so long — comes to us, that there is not much more, at least 
 here, to be anticipated. We may perhaps attempt to con- 
 tinue the life of expectation by embarking it in the 
 fortunes of those who will succeed us on earth ; but this 
 precaution does not satisfy a being who cannot but be 
 conscious of himself possessing an existence which is 
 utterly and necessarily distinct from all around it. Lucre- 
 tius does not disguise his vexation at the reluctance of 
 human nature to acquiesce in the fiat of extinction at 
 death which is pronounced by the materialist philosophy: — 
 
 " Quid tibi tantopere est, mortalis, quod nimis segris 
 Luctibus indulges ? quid mortem congemis, ac fles ? 
 
 1 Eccles. ii. 3-1 1. 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 
 
 63 
 
 Cur non, ut plenus vitae con viva, recedis, 
 
 iEquo animoque capis securam, -stulte, quietem ? " 
 
 No ! this refusal to be satisfied with the banquet of our 
 earthly life is an honourable discontent ; it is the instinct 
 of a being who cannot suppress the promptings of a 
 higher destiny; who even on the threshold of death 
 must look forward still and demand a future. 
 
 How this requirement of our nature is provided for in 
 the Christian Revelation is familiar to all of you. The well- 
 known sarcasm of Gibbon, when he is discussing the second 
 of his five causes of the growth of Christianity, 1 is, in fact, 
 the statement of a simple truth. That which philosophy 
 could not do, notwithstanding some noble efforts, towards 
 giving man assurance of his true destiny, was achieved 
 by the Gospel. In words which haunt the memories even 
 of those who have ceased to believe that they are words of 
 God, the Bible warrants, by an ascending series of proclama- 
 tions, the bright and cherished prospect of the life after 
 death. It is already hovering before the vision of Hebrew 
 psalmists : " As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteous- 
 ness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." 2 
 " With Thee is the fountain of life : and in Thy light shall 
 we see light." 3 " Thou wilt show me the path of life : in 
 Thy Presence is the fulness of joy, and at Thy right hand 
 there are pleasures for evermore." 4 It underlies the language 
 of prophets, even when they are thinking of some nearer 
 blessings: "The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and 
 come with singing unto Zion ; and everlasting joy shall be 
 upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and 
 sorrow and mourning shall flee away." 5 " Thy sun shall 
 no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself : 
 
 1 Bed. and Fall, c. xv. vol. ii. p. 170, ed. 1862. 
 
 2 Ps. xvii. 15. 3 Ps. xxxvi. 9. 
 4 Ps. xvi. 11. ' Isa. li. 11. 
 
Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days 
 of thy mourning shall be ended." 1 It is rendered certain 
 by the words of our Lord Jesus Christ : " In My Father's 
 house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have 
 told you : I go to prepare a place for you." 2 He it is Who 
 foretells a time when " the righteous shall shine forth as 
 the sun in the kingdom of their Father." 3 It is He Who 
 draws the picture of a future in which His first disciples 
 are to " sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of 
 Israel." 4 He Whose presence is itself heaven, yet ex- 
 claims in prayer, " Father, I will that they whom Thou hast 
 given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold 
 My glory." 5 His is the precept, " Lay up for yourselves 
 treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth 
 corrupt." 6 His the assurance, " The righteous shall go 
 away into life eternal." 7 His the forecast of a state of 
 existence where " they neither marry nor are given in 
 marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." 8 
 His the promise, "He that loseth his life for My sake 
 shall find it." 9 
 
 And thus His first servants live in view of the prospect 
 which He has opened to them. " It doth not yet appear," 
 they say, " what we shall be ; but we know that, when He 
 shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as 
 He is." 10 " We are joint-heirs," they reflect, " with Christ ; 
 if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also 
 glorified together." 11 " The sufferings of this present time 
 are," they argue, " not worthy to be compared with the glory 
 that shall be revealed in " Christians. 12 " The exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory" is triumphantly contrasted by them 
 with the "light affliction which is but for a moment." 13 "An 
 
 1 Isa. lx. 20. 2 St. John xiv. 2. 3 St. Matt. xiii. 43. 
 
 4 St. Luke xxii. 30. 5 St. John xvii. 24. 6 St. Matt. vi. 20. 
 
 7 St. Matt. xxv. 46. 8 St. Matt. xxii. 30. 9 St. Matt. x. 39. 
 
 10 1 St. John iii. 2. 11 Rom. viii. 17. 12 Rom. viii. 18. 
 13 2 Cor. iv. 17. 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 65 
 
 inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth 
 not away/' is reserved in heaven, so they proclaim, for those 
 who through grace persevere unto the end. 1 Nay, heaven 
 is open to them in ecstasy, and they tell us what they 
 see and what they hear. " There shall be no night there ; 
 and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for 
 the Lord God giveth them light : and they shall reign for 
 ever and ever." 2 The martyred and blessed dead are 
 " before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night 
 in His temple : and He that sitteth on the throne shall 
 dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither 
 thirst any more : neither shall the sun light on them, nor 
 any heat." 3 "God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes ; there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
 crying, neither shall there be any more pain." 4 And, in 
 the vision of the text, " a great multitude, which no man 
 could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
 tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, 
 clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands ; and 
 cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God 
 Which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." 
 
 Yes, this is the great anticipation of the human soul : 
 this is the great announcement of the Gospel. It gathers 
 up into itself all that is best in the enthusiasm and poetry 
 of our race ; it consecrates each glimpse of true beauty that 
 ever has visited the spirit of man. All that has seemed in 
 past years to flit before us, as though a gleam of light from 
 a brighter world ; all that has lifted us for the moment, we 
 knew not how, above our natural selves, into a region of 
 thought and feeling which was strange and exquisite ; all 
 the presentiments, the ideals, the outlines of higher exist- 
 ence, which did but tarry for an instant with us and 
 forthwith vanish away, are to be recalled, realized, perpet- 
 uated, surpassed. That subtle and various pleasure which 
 
 1 1 St. Pet. i. 4. 2 Rev. xxii. 5. 3 Rev. vii. 15, 16. 4 Rev. xxi. 4. 
 
 E 
 
66 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 underlies the buoyant spirits of youth, and the strength of 
 manhood, and the ripe wisdom and well-earned reverence 
 of age, will be extracted, condensed, eternalized. What if 
 those who know not God's revelation of Himself in Christ 
 have anticipated a heaven which should correspond with 
 their debased conception of " the best on earth" ? Surely 
 this does not prevent Christians from acknowledging that, 
 though heaven is no creation of man's imaginative faculty, 
 though its existence is just as objective as our own, yet 
 God's heaven is all that is really best on earth, and more 
 besides. The highest aspects of each condition of life are 
 to heaven what the types of the Old Covenant were to the 
 Messiah ; they foreshadow, now one, now another side of a 
 perfectly comprehensive excellence, till they lose themselves 
 in that which they so variously portray. 
 
 Now, to maintain that serious belief in such a future as 
 this is not calculated to make a great difference in the life 
 and character of the man who holds it is to contradict all 
 that we know about our common nature. In different 
 / senses of the saying, men in all ages are saved through hope : 
 in other words, the anticipation of a better future is the 
 leverage of their being. Even when it is only a dim future 
 resting not even upon human assurances, but on some pre- 
 carious calculation of possibilities, it is, at times, sufficient 
 to mould a life. What was it that roused the young 
 Hannibal to become the intrepid leader whom we meet 
 in history, but the prospect set before him when a boy 
 that one day he might avenge the wrongs of his country ? 
 What was it that has led discoverers like Columbus to 
 attempt a perilous voyage into unknown seas, but the 
 reports of a land beyond which might possibly reward 
 persevering enterprise ? How have those other, and 
 scarcely less noble, discoverers who have enriched our! 
 world with the gifts of science been nerved to their work, 
 but by the sustained expectation that there were secrets 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 
 
 67 
 
 waiting to be wrung from nature if only men would 
 seek them ? How could even a John Howard have spent 
 his days in what at first might well have seemed a thank- 
 less task, the rescue of thousands of prisoners from an 
 aggravated wretchedness, and of society from the thought- 
 less barbarism which sanctioned it, had it not seemed to him 
 to be within reach of his untiring philanthropy ? What 
 else indeed has supported all the men who have done most 
 and best for their kind, under the pressure of difficulties 
 and against appearances, but this faith in a possibly im- 
 proved condition of things, for which they must needs 
 labour and for which they might well be content to w^ait ? 
 And, if this be a true account of the matter, who shall call 
 in question the moral importance of faith in a future 
 life, or the immense moral loss which must result if it 
 be renounced ? That faith rests, as Christians believe, on 
 stronger bases than any of the probabilities which in this 
 life move good and enterprising men to vigorous action; 
 md Christianity does the highest service to human nature 
 :iere and now, when it tells man, without faltering and 
 .ucessantly, that he has to live for another world. 
 
 It may indeed be asked whether the true satisfactions 
 )f religion are not present satisfactions ? whether virtue is 
 lot its own reward ? whether God is not the present 
 )Ossession of the Christian soul ? whether the things that 
 ye hath not seen, nor ear heard, but w T hich God has 
 prepared for them that love Him, are not things to be 
 njoyed on earth by the spirit of man ? 1 whether, in fine, 
 xpectation of something yet to come is not the note of 
 treparatory and imperfect dispensations, and unworthy of 
 he Gift which was made to man by the Divine Incarnation ? 
 
 To this it must be replied that Christianity, as a matter 
 •f fact, does not profess in this life to satisfy all the 
 spirations of man. It does a great deal for him, yet it 
 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 9. 
 
68 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 leaves something still to be done ; it holds something in 
 reserve ; and that for man's own sake, and with a view to 
 his best interests. Thus, the Christian is an adopted son 
 of God ; 1 yet, since the redemption of the body from the 
 empire of death is still future, he is also " waiting for the 
 adoption." 2 The Christian is justified ; 3 yet it is St. Paul 
 who tells him that we Christians, "through the Spirit," 
 still "wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." 4 
 Christians are said now to " have been made to sit together 
 in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," 5 and yet, " when Christ, 
 Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with 
 Him in glory." 6 A Christian has eternal life ; 7 and yet, 
 although to live is Christ, to die is still, in some sense, 
 " gain." 8 The conversation of a Christian is in heaven ; J 
 he has come to mount Zion, to the city of the living God, 
 and to an innumerable company of angels, and to the 
 general assembly of the church of the firstborn, and to the 
 spirits of the just made perfect ; and to Jesus the Mediator 
 of the New Covenant; 10 the supernatural world is about 
 him, and he belongs to it. And yet " we that are in this 
 tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; " " earnestly desiring 
 to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven." 1 
 Thus the satisfaction which Christianity affords to th< 
 \ human soul is at once present and future ; present in part 
 \ but future in its completeness : we have eternal life, yet w 
 \ expect it ; we possess God, yet we look forward to seein 
 \Him as He is; we are in heaven in one sense, while i: j 
 Wother we have yet to win it. The Treasure of the Gospf 
 is ours, but only in part ; enough is left to look forward t< 
 to feed the high grace of hope, to exert upon the natui 
 which God the Creator has given us that strong attraction 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 15. Gal. iv. 5. Eph. i. 5. 2 Rom. viii. 2 
 
 3 Rom. v. 1, 9. 1 Cor. vi. II. 4 Gal. v. 5. 5 Eph. ii. 6. 
 
 6 Col. iii. 4. 7 1 St. John v. 13. 8 Phil. i. 21. 
 
 9 Phil. iii. 20. 10 Heb. xii. 22-24. 1J 2 Cor. v. 4, 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 69 
 
 that indispensable stimulus, which belongs to anticipation 
 of the future. 
 
 III. 
 
 Once more, the doctrine of a life to come affords entire 
 and permanent satisfaction to the social instincts of man. 
 
 By the terms of his nature man is a social being; his 
 social instincts are originally due not to what he has made 
 himself, but to his manhood. In its three forms, — the 
 family, the country, the race, — society takes possession of us. 
 We are born into a family ; long before we can determine 
 and shape our course, other human beings are acting upon 
 us with decisive power, and our affections are drawn out 
 towards and engaged by them beyond recall. Then, as our 
 horizon extends, we associate ourselves with society in the 
 larger form of our country ; its frontier, its enthusiasms, its 
 apprehensions, its dangers, its aspirations become, in a sense, 
 our own ; a whole world of passion and interest which had 
 slept unsuspected in the depths of our being is roused into 
 activity, and we find ourselves capable of much whereof 
 we little dreamt. But the human soul knows no limits to 
 its higher aspirations, and the social instinct, in all noble- 
 minded men, endeavours to be as wide in its range of exer- 
 cise as the human race. To be a man, as heathens have felt, 
 is to have sympathy with everything that is truly human. 
 
 When, then, our Lord Jesus Christ came to do the best 
 that Divine Wisdom could do for us, He made provision 
 Tor the social instinct in man. He knew what was in us, 
 md He ordered accordingly. The new life which He 
 Drought us is not only a personal bond between each of 
 is and our Maker, it is also a social bond between 
 ?ach of us and our brethren who share it. Thus Chris- 
 tianity becomes concrete and actual, not merely in the 
 )elieving Christian, but in the organized and universal 
 Jhurch. A Christian is not only a man who is of a par- 
 
70 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 ticular moral type and temper, or who knows and can say- 
 how man can come to be as he should be before God : he 
 is also a man who knows and remembers that he is a 
 member of a divinely-constituted society of men. For, if 
 any one thing is written plainly in the New Testament it 
 is that our Lord came to found a society ; that He called 
 this society by no less a name than that of the Kingdom 
 of Heaven, in order to remind men of its true object and 
 character; and that in well-ordered membership of this 
 society, no less than in sincere personal faith and love 
 towards the Author and Restorer of our being, does the 
 true Christian life essentially consist. 
 
 But do these provisions in nature and in grace afford 
 satisfaction to the social instinct ? Must we not confess 
 that they are even very far from doing so ? How con- 
 stantly is the family the scene of disagreements which are 
 bitter in proportion to the sacredness of the ties which are 
 violated ! How often is patriotism only a name for party ; 
 how often is it, as in France under the First Napoleon, 
 associated with enterprises which a strong sense of right 
 cannot possibly approve ! How often do cosmopolitan 
 theories shade off into an unhealthy sentimentalism, if 
 indeed they do not take the form of some subtle variety 
 of selfish aggrandizement ! 
 
 Nor can it be maintained that the social instinct is 
 adequately, or rather finally, provided for in the Christian 
 Church militant. The Catholic Church is indeed, by the 
 will of its Divine Founder, " one body and one spirit, even 
 as its members are called in one hope of their calling." 1 
 But in practice, even while Apostles are living and ruling, 
 " every one " of its members "saith, I am of Paul, and I of 
 Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ." 2 Its divisions 
 are chronic ; they are reinforced by the strongest passions 
 that can move mankind ; they crystallize into separations 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 4. 2 1 Cor. i. 12. 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 71 
 
 that last for centuries ; they create barriers which are fatal 
 to the ebb and flow of the charities of Christ. We may 
 well wish it had been otherwise ; we must indeed pray that 
 it may be otherwise. We may say, in our less reverent 
 moods, that if the world was to be won to the Gospel, it 
 ought to have been otherwise. We do not really escape 
 from the difficulty by taking refuge in the largest but not 
 the least changeful fragment of a divided Christendom, and 
 by burying our heads ostrichwise in the sands of a 'priori 
 theories, if haply we may persuade ourselves that this 
 fragment is the whole. In these matters we have to 
 submit to the empire of facts ; and facts do not adjust 
 themselves to our impetuous assumptions. Although the 
 Church of Christ militant is bound up with all the best 
 hopes for truth and charity which our race can entertain, it 
 does not correspond to the ideal aspirations of the social 
 instinct. It is the home of Divine grace ; but it is also the 
 home of human nature. And even in the Church human 
 nature asserts its fallen propensities towards separation; 
 even on this sacred ground the practical result disappoints 
 the higher longings of man for a perfect society on earth. 
 
 And therefore for the social instinct, as for the need of 
 a future, provision is made finally and adequately in the 
 world to come. In that world there will be a reunion 
 around the throne of Christ of all who have been separated 
 here by the misunderstandings which are more or less 
 inevitable in the twilight. The saintly characters, the high 
 and pure intelligences, whose names are perhaps familiar 
 to us, the outlines of whose thought or life have reached 
 us through dim tradition, or whom we know through their 
 writings, and have longed — as did St. Chrysostom when he 
 read St. Paul — to have seen and heard in the flesh ; these 
 will be in that company. And others whom we ourselves 
 have known in life, and who have passed away, and have 
 never since on one single day been unremembered in our 
 
j 2 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 prayers, and have left in our memories an impression which 
 is as fresh now as when they parted from us, and which 
 will be what it is until we too lie down to die, — these too 
 will be present in that vast assemblage as our fellow-citizens 
 for ever, as members of the same great family of immortal 
 beings. Is it conceivable that such a prospect of introduc- 
 tion to all who have been really great and noble among the 
 sons of men should not influence those who enjoy it ? is it 
 possible that they are living and acting only in the same 
 moral world as are those for whom all that follows death is 
 a dreary blank ? 
 
 No, it is impossible. For closely allied to our desire for 
 a future life, and for a purer association with other beings 
 than we can here enjoy, is our desire for personal perfection. 
 In some degree this passion lives in every human soul ; 
 if it has been trodden out or suffered to die away, it onee 
 was there ; if it is too vague to have any clear account to 
 give of itself, it is not the less an original feature of our 
 nature. It gives impulse to all that moves upward in 
 human life; it inspires art, it reconstructs society, it 
 endeavours to renew individual character. It is at once a 
 pleasure and a torment, an enjoyment and a reproach ; and 
 it is never satisfied in this life, — never. Certainly, we are 
 bidden even here to be perfect; 1 we are told, in a variety 
 of ways, that in this life, God, the Perfect Being, may be 
 possessed by the human soul. " If a man love Me he will 
 keep My words, and My Father will love him, and We 
 will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." 2 
 But, in fact, the present possession of God by a soul in 
 grace is, although a most real and priceless blessing, yet 
 accompanied by drawbacks arising from our clinging 
 imperfections, which will no longer exist in a better state. 
 "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to 
 face." 3 There will then be nothing between us and 
 
 1 St. Matt. v. 48. 2 St. John xiv. 23. 3 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 73 
 
 Himself. Certainly, He is now what He will be then ; the 
 same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 1 But we shall have 
 been changed. 2 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, 
 and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know 
 that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we 
 shall see Him as He is." 3 
 
 IV. 
 
 Until, then, human nature ceases to be what it is, 
 the question whether there is, or is not, a life after death 
 cannot but have great practical importance for mankind. 
 Doubtless there have been, and are, men who have been, 
 according to their light, conscientious and upright without 
 believing it ; just as there have been, and are, men who have 
 professed to believe it without being upright and conscien- 
 tious. But the question is as to the mass of men, not as to 
 the exceptions. ISTo one can doubt that in the case of the 
 great majority of human beings, the presence or absence 
 of such a belief as this must make all the difference in the 
 world. Not that it would be a sufficient reason for assert- 
 ing the doctrine to say that it is a doctrine of the highest 
 ethical value ; my position is, that being true, it is also of 
 the greatest value, and that, if it could be disproved, the 
 loss to mankind would be incalculably great. 
 
 And yet, we must all know, there are generous hearts 
 in which the sad whisper is uttered, " Would that it were 
 certain, but is it after all more than a beautiful dream 1 " 
 
 My brethren, it is, probably useless, nowadays, for the 
 purpose of producing or recovering this great conviction, to 
 insist upon such abstract considerations as those which are 
 put forward in the Phaedo of Plato, and from which so 
 much has been so well developed in modern spiritualist 
 philosophies, as to the intrinsic nature, the immateriality, 
 
 1 Heb. xiii. 8. 2 i Cor. xv. 51. 3 1 St. John iii. 2. 
 
74 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 the indivisibility, the indestructibility of the soul. Many 
 hard things have been said, and are being said, about the 
 worth of these arguments ; and of these modem criticisms 
 themselves it may be said also that men who come after 
 us are not likely to take them all for granted. But the 
 intellectual temper of our day is unquestionably ill-dis- 
 posed towards a priori argument dealing with subjects 
 where there is great room for the mistakes which are due 
 to necessary ignorance. Let me, however, suggest two 
 considerations by means of which a man who has lost it 
 may hope to recover faith in an existence after death. 
 
 Of these the first is the steady contemplation of the idea 
 of justice, an idea of which no man can utterly divest him- 
 self, if indeed he would. It is a part of his humanity ; if 
 it is not born with his mind, yet it is inevitably admitted, 
 like a mathematical axiom, when once placed before him. 
 A man can neither reject it in theory nor dispute its 
 right to practical ascendency; and yet, when he reviews 
 our everyday human life by the light of this imperious 
 idea, what is his conclusion ? The success of crime, the 
 misfortunes of virtue, are the commonplaces of experi- 
 ence. They are too numerous and too serious to be 
 explained away. If anything is clear, it is that there is no 
 sufficient room for the idea of justice in our present sphere 
 of being. Justice demands some more extended sphere ; 
 justice demands an immortality; and if there be a moral 
 Being of Whose intrinsic nature justice is a ray, then the 
 immortality of man is a necessary truth. 
 
 Think well, brethren, on this idea of justice ; and then, 
 secondly, go into the presence of death, the death of one, it 
 may be, in whose life we have felt — it is not difficult to feel 
 this just now in Oxford 1 — what a beautiful and majestic 
 thing a human life may be. Up to the last there is every- 
 thing to betoken the unimpaired activity of a living spirit, 
 
 1 The reference is to the late Mrs. Acland, Nov. 1878. 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 75 
 
 whose moral fervour and high intelligence have conspired 
 to prove how little the pains of the dissolution which is 
 taking possession of the body can disturb the lofty calm of 
 its immaterial tenant. But at last a moment comes when 
 the voice has failed, and the eye is dim, and the features 
 are ri^id in death. Is it conceivable that all which a few 
 moments since carried us beyond ourselves into a higher 
 world is buried beneath the folds of inanimate matter which 
 lie before us ? No, it is inconceivable. Is it whispered that 
 this is an intrusion of human feeling upon ground where 
 science only has a right to teach ? I answer, that feeling 
 is only thus confident and daring, because feeling is here 
 the drapery of man's higher reason; and that reason protests 
 against an assumption for which no really scientific warrant 
 can be shown, and which is contradicted by all that is best 
 worthy of trust in the instinctive judgment of the hunian soul. 
 
 And then, when we have cross-questioned the idea of 
 justice, and gazed upon the face of the saintly dead, let us 
 go in thought to the empty Sepulchre outside Jerusalem, 
 and ask ourselves the meaning of the event which actually 
 took place there eighteen centuries ago, — an event war- 
 ranted by testimony which in all ordinary matters of 
 human concern would be deemed conclusive. That event 
 it was which opened the kingdom of heaven to all 
 believers. Over the door of that Sepulchre we Christians, 
 not without reason, will ever read the words of the first 
 Apostle : " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, Which according to His abundant mercy 
 hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Piesurrec- 
 tion of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance 
 incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." 1 
 
 Suffer me to add in conclusion a few words which may 
 be remembered in days to come. 
 
 1 1 St. Pet i. 3, 4. 
 
7 6 Worth of Faith in a Life to come. [Serm. 
 
 The expectation of a life after death enables us to am 
 tilings in their true proportions. The future life furnishes 
 us with a point of view from which to survey the 
 questions, the occupations, the events of this. Until we 
 keep it well before us, we are like those persons who have 
 never travelled, and have no standard by which to estimate 
 what they see at home. Next to positive error, a mistake 
 as to the relative proportions of truths is the greatest 
 misfortune. Yet who does not feel, every day of his exist- 
 ence, how easily this mistake is made ? Some occurrence 
 which touches us personally appears to be of world-wide 
 importance. Some book which we have fallen in with, and 
 have read with sympathy, or perhaps have helped to write, 
 seems to mark an epoch in literature or in speculation. 
 Some controversy, with its petty but absorbing ferocities, 
 lying far off the main current of tempestuous thought 
 which is sweeping across our distracted generation, appears, 
 through its present relation to ourselves, to touch all 
 interests in earth and heaven. Self magnifies and distorts 
 everything; the true corrective is to be found in the 
 magnificent and tranquillizing thought of another life. As 
 men draw near to the threshold of eternity they see things 
 more nearly as they are ; they catch perspectives which are 
 not perceived in the days of business and of health. 
 When Bossuet lay a-dying, in great suffering and exhaus- 
 tion, one who was present thanked him for all his kindness, 
 and using the Court language of the day, begged him when 
 in another world to think of the friends whom he was 
 leaving, and who were so devoted to his person and his 
 reputation. At this last word, Bossuet, who had almost 
 lost the power of speech, raised himself from the bed, and 
 gathered strength to say, not without an accent of indig- 
 nation, " Don't talk like that. Ask God to forgive a sinner 
 his sins." 
 
 And surely those occupations should claim our first 
 
IV.] Worth of Faith in a Life to come. 77 
 
 attention which prepare us for that which after all is 
 the really important stage of our existence. All kinds 
 of earthly duty may indeed be consecrated to this work 
 by a worthy motive ; but direct preparation for the future 
 is made in worship. In the most solemn moments which 
 we can spend on earth, we hear the words, " The Body of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve 
 thy body and soul unto everlasting life." Nay, all Chris- 
 tian worship is in proportion to its sincerity an anticipation 
 of the life of the world to come. Worship is the earthly act 
 by which we most distinctly recognise our personal immor- 
 tality: men who think that they will be extinct a few 
 years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our 
 insignificant life, which yet is the w^ork of the Creator's 
 hands, and the purchase of the Eedeemer's Blood, before the 
 Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners 
 of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship 
 with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the 
 Face of God. Worship is the common sense of faith in a 
 life to come ; and the hours we devote to it will assuredly 
 be among those upon which we shall reflect with most 
 thankful joy when all things here shall have fallen into a 
 very distant background, and when through the Atoning 
 Mercy our true home has been reached at last. 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 (WHITSUN-DAY.) 
 
 St. John iii. 8. 
 
 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound tloereof, but 
 canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. 
 
 WHO has not felt the contrast, the almost tragic 
 contrast, between the high station of the Jewish 
 doctor, member of the Sanhedrin, master in Israel, and 
 the ignorance of elementary religious truth, as we Chris- 
 tians must deem it. which he displayed in this interview 
 with our Blessed Lord ? At first sight it seems difficult to 
 understand how our Lord could have used the simile in 
 the text when conversing with an educated and thoughtful 
 man, well versed in the history and literature of God's 
 ancient people ; and, indeed, a negative criticism has 
 availed itself of this and of some other features in the 
 narrative, in the interest of the theory that Nicodemus 
 was only a fictitious type of the higher classes in Jewish 
 society, as they were pictured to itself by the imagination 
 of the fourth Evangelist. Such a supposition, opposed 
 to external facts and to all internal probabilities, would 
 hardly have been entertained, if the critical ingenuity of 
 its author had been seconded by any spiritual experience. 
 Nicodemus is very far from being a caricature; and our 
 Lord's method here, as elsewhere, is to lead on from 
 
Influences of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 79 
 
 familiar phrases and the well-remembered letter to the 
 spirit and realities of religion. The Jewish schools were 
 not unacquainted with the expression a " new creature ; " 
 but it had long since become a mere shred of official 
 rhetoric. As applied to a Jewish proselyte, it scarcely 
 meant more than a change in the outward relations of 
 religious life. Our Lord told ISTicodemus that every man 
 who would see the kingdom of God which He was found- 
 ing must undergo a second birth ; and JSTicodemus, who 
 had been accustomed to the phrase all his life, could not 
 understand it if it was to be supposed to mean anything 
 real. " How," he asks, " can a man be born when he is old ? 
 can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and 
 be born ? " Our Lord does not extricate him from this 
 blundering literalism ; He repeats His own original asser- 
 tion, but in terms which more fully express His meaning : 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and 
 that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that 
 I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Our Lord's 
 reference to water would not have been unintelligible to 
 Mcodemus ; every one in Judasa knew that the Baptist- 
 had insisted on immersion in water as a symbol of the 
 purification of the soul of man. Certainly, in connect- 
 ing "water" with the Spirit and the new birth, our 
 Lord's language, glancing at that of the prophet, 1 went 
 very far beyond this. He could only be fully under- 
 stood at a later time, when the Sacrament of Baptism had 
 been instituted, just as the true sense of His early allusions 
 to His death could not have been apprehended until after 
 the Crucifixion. But Nicodemus, it is plain, had not yet 
 advanced beyond his original difficulty; he could not 
 conceive how any second birth was possible, without alto- 
 
 1 Ezclc. xxxvi. 24, 25. 
 
80 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 gether violating the course of nature. And our Lord 
 penetrates his thoughts and answers them. He answers 
 them by pointing to that Invisible Agent Who could 
 achieve, in the sphere of spiritual and mental life, what 
 the Jewish doctor deemed so impossible a feat as a second 
 birth. Nature, indeed, contained no force that could 
 compass such a result; but nature in this, as in other 
 matters, was a shadow of something beyond itself. 
 
 It was late at night when our Lord had this interview 
 with the Jewish teacher. At the pauses in conversation, 
 we may conjecture, they heard the wind without as it 
 moaned along the narrow streets of J erusalem ; and our 
 Lord, as was His wont, took His creature into His service 
 — the service of spiritual truth. The wind was a figure of 
 the Spirit. Our Lord would have used the same word for 
 both. The wind might teach Mcodemus something of the 
 action of Him Who is the real Author of the New Birth of 
 man. And it would do this in two ways more especially. 
 
 On a first survey of nature, the wind arrests man's 
 attention, as an unseen agent which seems to be moving 
 with entire freedom. " The wind bloweth where it listeth." 
 It is fettered by none of those conditions which confine 
 the swiftest bodies that traverse the surface of the earth I 
 it sweeps on as if independent of law, rushing hither and 
 thither, as though obeying its own wayward and momen- 
 tary impulse. Thus it is an apt figure of a self-determining 
 invisible force ; and of a force which is at times of over- 
 mastering power. Sometimes, indeed, its breath is so 
 gentle, that only a single leaf or blade of grass will at 
 distant intervals seem to give the faintest token of its 
 action ; yet, even thus, it " bloweth where it listeth." Some- 
 times it bursts upon the earth with destructive violence ; 
 nothing can resist its onslaught ; the most solid buildings 
 give way ; the stoutest trees bend before it ; whatever is 
 frail and delicate can only escape by the completeness of 
 
V.] Influences of the Holy Spirit. 8 1 
 
 its submission. Thus, too, it " bloweth where it listeth." 
 Beyond anything else that strikes upon the senses of man, 
 it is suggestive of free supersensuous power ; it is an appro- 
 priate symbol of an irruption of the Invisible into the world 
 of sense, of the action, so tender or so imperious, of the 
 Divine and Eternal Spirit upon the human soul. 
 
 But the wind is also an agent about whose proceedings 
 we really know almost nothing. " Thou nearest the sound 
 thereof;" such is our Lord's concession to man's claim to 
 knowledge. " Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and 
 whither it goeth ; " such is the reserve which He makes 
 in respect of human ignorance. Certainly we do more than 
 hear the sound of the wind ; its presence is obvious to three 
 of the senses. "We feel the chill or the fury of the blast ; 
 and, as it sweeps across the ocean, or the forest, or the field 
 of corn, we see how the blades rise and fall in graceful 
 curves, and the trees bend, and the waters sink and swell into 
 waves which are the measure of its strength. But our 
 Lord says, " Thou nearest the sound thereof." He would 
 have us test it by the most spiritual of the senses. It 
 whispers, or it moans, or it roars as it passes us ; it has a 
 pathos all its own. Yet what do we really know about it ? 
 "Thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
 goeth." Does the wind then obey no rule ; is it a mere 
 symbol of unfettered caprice ? Surely not. If, as the Psal- 
 mist sings, " God bringeth the winds out of His treasuries," 1 
 He acts, we may be sure, here as always, whether in nature 
 or in grace, by some law, which His own perfections 
 impose upon His action. He may have given to us of 
 these later times to see a very little deeper beneath the 
 surface of the natural world than was the case with our 
 fathers. Perchance we explain the immediate antecedents 
 of the phenomenon ; but can we explain our own explana- 
 tion ? The frontier of our ignorance is removed one stage 
 
 1 Ps. cxxxv. 7. 
 F 
 
82 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 farther back ; but " the way of the wind " is as fitting an 
 expression for the mysterious now as it was in the days of 
 Solomon. 1 We know that there is no cave of JEolus. We 
 know that the wind is the creature of that Great Master 
 Who works everywhere and incessantly by rule. But, as 
 the wind still sweeps by us who call ourselves the children 
 of an age of knowledge, and we endeavour to give our 
 fullest answer to the question, "whence it cometh, and 
 whither it goeth ? " w r e discover that, as the symbol of a 
 spiritual force, of whose presence we are conscious, while 
 we are unable to determine, with moderate confidence, 
 either the secret principle or the range of its action, the 
 wind is as full of meaning still as in the days of Nicodemus. 
 
 When our Lord has thus pointed to the freedom and the 
 mvsteriousness of the wind, He adds, " So is every one that 
 is horn of the Spirit." The simile itself would have led us 
 to expect — " So is the Spirit of God." The man born of 
 the Spirit would answer not to the wind itself, but to 
 the sensible effect of the wind. There is a break of cor- 
 respondence between the simile and its application. The 
 simile directs attention to the Divine Author of the new 
 birth in man. The words which follow direct attention to 
 the human subject upon whom the Divine Agent works. 
 Something similar is observable when our Lord compares 
 the kingdom of heaven to a merchantman seeking goodly 
 pearls; the kingdom really corresponds not to the merchant- 
 man, but to the pearl of great price which the merchant- 
 man buys. 2 In such cases, we may be sure, the natural 
 correspondence between a simile and its application is 
 not disturbed without a motive. And the reason for this 
 disturbance is presumably that the simile is not adequate to 
 the full purpose of the speaker, who is anxious to teach 
 some larger truth than its obvious application would 
 
 1 Eccles. xi. 5, where however the Authorized Version renders "spirit." 
 
 2 St. Matt. xiii. 45, 46. 
 
V.] Influences of the Holy Spirit. 83 
 
 suggest. In the case before us, we may be allowed to 
 suppose, that by His reference to the wind our Lord desired 
 to convey something more than the real but mysterious 
 agency of the Holy Spirit in the new birth of man. His 
 language seems designed, not merely to correct the 
 materialistic narrowness of the Jewish doctor, not merely 
 to answer by anticipation the doubts of later days as to the 
 spiritual efficacy of His own Sacrament of Regeneration, 
 but to picture, in words which should be read to the end 
 of time, the general work of that Divine Person Whose 
 mission of mercy to our race was at once the consequence 
 and the completion of His own. 
 
 It may be useful to trace the import of our Lord's simile 
 in three fields of the action of the Holy and Eternal 
 Spirit ; His creation of a sacred literature, His guidance of 
 a Divine society, and His work upon individual souls. 
 
 I. 
 
 As, then, we turn over the pages of the Bible, must we 
 not say, " The wind of heaven bloweth where it listeth " ? 
 If we might reverently imagine ourselves scheming before- 
 hand what kind of book the Book of God ought to be, how 
 different would it be from the actual Bible ! There would 
 be as many Bibles as there are souls, and they would differ 
 as widely. But in one thing, amid all their differences, they 
 would probably agree : they would lack the variety, both 
 in form and substance, of the Holy Book which the Church 
 :of God places in the hands of her children. The self- 
 assertion, the scepticism, and the fastidiousness of our day 
 would meet like the men of the second Roman triumvirate 
 on that island in the Reno, and would draw up their lists 
 of proscription. One w T ould condemn the poetry of Scrip- 
 ture as too inexact; another its history as too largely 
 ■secular ; another its metaphysics as too transcendental, or 
 is hostile to some fanciful ideal of " simplicity," or as likely 
 
84 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 to quench a purely moral enthusiasm. The archaic history 
 of the Pentateuch, or the sterner side of the ethics of the 
 Psalter, or the supernaturalism of the histories of Elijah 
 or of Daniel, or the so-called pessimism of Ecclesiastes, or 
 the alleged secularism of Esther, or the literal import of 
 the Song of Solomon, would be in turn condemned. Nor 
 could the Apostles hope to escape : St. John would be too 
 mystical in this estimate ; St. James too legal in that ; St. 
 Paul too dialectical, or too metaphysical, or too easily 
 capable of an antinomian interpretation ; St. Peter too 
 undecided, as if balancing between St. Paul and St. James. 
 Our new Bible would probably be uniform, narrow, 
 symmetrical ; it would be entirely made up of poetry, or 
 of history, or of formal propositions, or of philosophical 
 speculation, or of lists of moral maxims ; it would be 
 modelled after the type of some current writer on English 
 history, or some popular poet or metaphysician, or some 
 sentimentalist who abjures history and philosophy alike 
 on principle, or some composer of well-intentioned religious 
 tracts for general circulation. The inspirations of heaven 
 would be taken in hand, and instead of a wind blowing 
 where it listeth, we should have a wind, no doubt, of some 
 kind, rustling earnestly enough along some very narrow 
 crevices or channels, in obedience to the directions of some 
 one form of human prejudice, or passion, or fear, or hope. 
 
 My brethren, the Bible is like nature in its immense, its 
 exhaustless variety ; like nature, it reflects all the higher 
 moods of the human soul, because it does much more; 
 because it brings us face to face with the infinity of the 
 Divine Life. In the Bible the wind of heaven pays scant 
 heed to our anticipations or our prejudices ; it " bloweth 
 where it listeth." It breathes not only in the Divine charities 
 of the Gospels, not only in the lyrical sallies of the Epistles, 
 not only in the great announcements scattered here and 
 there in Holy Scripture of the magnificence, or the coin- 
 

 
 V.] Influences of the Holy Spirit. 85 
 
 passion, or the benevolence of God ; but also in the stern 
 language of the prophets, in the warnings and lessons of the 
 historical books, in the revelations of Divine justice and 
 of human responsibility which abound in either Testament. 
 " Where it listeth." Not only where our sense of literary 
 beauty is stimulated, as in St. Paul's picture of charity, 1 
 by lines which have taken captive the imagination of the 
 world, not only where feeling and conscience echo the 
 verdict of authority and the promptings of reverence, but 
 also where this is not the case; where neither precept 
 nor example stimulates us, and we are left face to face with 
 historical or ethical material, which appears to us to inspire 
 no spiritual enthusiasm, or which is highly suggestive of 
 critical difficulty. Let us be patient ; we shall understand, 
 if we will only wait, how these features of the Bible too 
 are integral parts of a living whole ; here, as elsewhere, the 
 Spirit breathes ; in the genealogies of the Chronicles as in 
 the Last Discourse in St. John, though with an admitted 
 difference of manner and degree. He " bloweth where He 
 listeth." The Apostle's words respecting the Old Testament 
 are true of the New : " All Scripture is given by inspiration 
 of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- 
 rection, for instruction in righteousness." 2 And, "Whatso- 
 ever things were written aforetime were written for our 
 learning, that we through patience and comfort of the 
 Scriptures might have hope." 3 
 
 Yet " thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
 whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." The majesty of 
 Scripture is recognised by man, wherever there is, I will 
 not say a spiritual faculty, but a natural sense of beauty. 
 The " sound " of the wind is perceived by the trained ear, 
 by the literary taste, by the refinement, by the humanity of 
 every generation of educated men. But what beyond ? What 
 of its spiritual source, its spiritual drift and purpose, its 
 1 1 Cor. xiii. 2 2 Tim. iii. 16. 3 Rom. xv. 4. 
 
86 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 half-concealed but profound unities, its subtle but imperi- 
 ous relations to conscience ? Of these things, so precious 
 to Christians, a purely literary appreciation of Scripture 
 is generally ignorant ; the sacred Book, like the prophet of 
 the Chebar, is only " as a very lovely song of one that hath 
 a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument." 1 
 Or again, the "sound thereof" is heard in the admitted 
 empire of the Bible over millions of hearts and consciences ; 
 an empire the evidences of which strike upon the ear in 
 countless ways, and which is far too wide and too secure 
 to be affected by the criticisms that might occasionally 
 seem to threaten it. What is the secret of this influence 
 of Scripture ? Not simply that it is the Book of Eevela- 
 tion ; since it contains a great deal of matter which lay 
 fairly within the reach of man's natural faculties. The 
 "Word or Eternal Eeason of God is the Pievealer; but 
 Scripture, whether it is a record of Divine revelations or 
 of naturally observed facts, is, in the belief of the Christian 
 Church, throughout " inspired " by the Spirit. Inspiration 
 is the word which describes the presence and action of the 
 Holy Spirit everywhere in Scripture. But what does the 
 Christian Church exactly mean by Inspiration ? Many have 
 been the attempts to answer that question precisely. It has 
 been said of the late Dr. Arnold that during the later years 
 of his life he spent more thought in the effort to construct a 
 perfectly satisfactory theory of inspiration than on any other 
 subject. In the Church of Borne there are at least three 
 permitted opinions as to the nature of Biblical Inspiration. 
 The more rigid, advocated by some Dominican theologians, 
 regards the sacred writers as simply passive instruments of 
 the Inspiring Spirit, so that every word and comma and point 
 was dictated from heaven. 2 Other understand by inspira- 
 
 1 Ezek. xxxiii. 32. 
 
 2 Rabaudy, Ord. Prsed. Excrc. de Script. Sac. ii. 3, sub fin., quoted by 
 Perrone, Frcel. TJicol. ii. 1082, ed. Migue. 
 
v.i 
 
 Influences of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 87 
 
 tion a general 'positive assistance, prescribing what to write, 
 what to omit, and guiding the general choice of language 
 and of periods without dictating each separate expression. 1 
 The Jesuit divines of Louvain, Hamel and Lessius, con- 
 fined inspiration to the purely negative function of pro- 
 tecting the inspired writer from error.- In the English 
 Church the differences on the subject are, at least, as con- 
 siderable as in the Church of Eome. The demand for an 
 exact theory is natural enough, especially on the part of 
 sincerely religious men, who have lost sight of the provi- 
 dential guidance of the Church, and who desire to enhance 
 as far as possible the definite force of the authority of 
 Scripture. Yet surely it is a matter for thankfulness that 
 no part of the Catholic Church has formally committed 
 itself to an authoritative doctrine of Biblical Inspiration, 
 whatever may have been attempted by private writers of 
 more or less consideration. Xot merely because any possible 
 definition would almost certainly add to difficulties which 
 are suggested by negative criticism ; but much more because, 
 from the nature of the case, we are not really able to deal 
 ab intra with such a subject. That Divine inspiration 
 must postulate certain momentous results, positive as well 
 as negative, may indeed be taken for granted; some positive 
 informing guidance, as well as immunity from any moral 
 or doctrinal error. But when we go beyond this, and 
 endeavour to hold the balance between mechanical and 
 dynamical theories, in other words, to determine how the 
 Divine Spirit has acted upon the human, we are in a region 
 where nothing is really possible beyond precarious con- 
 jecture. AVe know not how our own spirits, hour by hour, 
 • are acted on by the Eternal Spirit, though we do not ques- 
 tion the fact ; we content ourselves with recognising what 
 we cannot explain. If we believe that Scripture is inspired, 
 
 , 1 So Valentia, Estins in 2 Tim. iii. 16, quoted by Perrone, Prcel. Thcol. 
 ii. 1082, ed. Migne. 2 Cf. Peri oue, ubi sup. 10S3, note (3). 
 
88 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 we know that it is instinct with the Presence of Him Whose 
 voice we might hear in its every utterance, but of Whom 
 we cannot tell whence He cometh or whither He goeth. 
 
 IT. 
 
 The history of the Church of Christ from the days of the 
 Apostles has been a history of spiritual movements. Doubt- 
 less it has been a history of much else ; the Church has been 
 the scene of human passions, human speculations, human 
 errors. But traversing these, He by Whom the whole body of 
 the Church is governed and sanctified, has made His Presence 
 felt, not only in the perpetual proclamation and elucidation 
 of truth, not only in the silent, never-ceasing sanctification 
 of souls, but also in great upheavals of spiritual life, by 
 which the conscience of Christians has been quickened, or 
 their hold upon the truths of Eedemption and Grace made 
 more intelligent and serious, or their lives and practice 
 restored to something like the ideal of the Gospels. Even 
 in the apostolic age it was necessary to warn Christians 
 that it was high time to awake out of sleep; that the 
 night of life was far spent, and the day of eternity was 
 at hand. 1 And ever since, from generation to generation, 
 there has been a succession of efforts within the Church 
 to realize more worthily the truth of the Christian creed, 
 or the ideal of the Christian life. These revivals have 
 been inspired or led by devoted men who have represented 
 the highest conscience of Christendom in their day. They 
 may be traced along the line of Christian history; the Spirit 
 living in the Church has by them attested His Presence 
 and His Will; and has recalled lukewarm generations, 
 paralyzed by indifference or degraded by indulgence, to 
 the true spirit and level of Christian faith and life. 
 
 In such movements there is often what seems, at first 
 sight, an element of caprice. They appear to contemporaries 
 
 1 Rom. xiii. n, 12. 
 
V.] Influences of the Holy Spirit. 89 
 
 to be onesided, exaggerated, narrow, fanatical. They are 
 often denounced with a passionate fervour which is so 
 out of proportion to the reality as to border on the grotesque. 
 They are said to exact too much of us, or to concede too 
 much. They are too contemplative in their tendency to 
 be sufficiently practical, or too energetically practical to do 
 justice to religious thought. They are too exclusively 
 literary and academical, as being the work of men of books ; 
 or they are too popular and insensible to philosophical 
 considerations, as being the work of men of the people. 
 Or, again, they are so occupied with controversy as to forget 
 the claims of devotion, or so engaged in leading souls to a 
 devout life as to forget the unwelcome but real necessities 
 of controversy. They are intent on particular moral 
 improvements so exclusively as to forget what is due to 
 reverence and order ; or they are so bent upon rescuing the 
 Church from chronic slovenliness and indecency in public 
 worship as to do less than justice to the paramount interests 
 of moral truth. Sometimes these movements are all feeling; 
 sometimes they are all thought ; sometimes they are, as it 
 seems, all outward energy. In one age they produce a 
 literature like that of the fourth and fifth centuries ; in 
 another they found orders of men devoted to preaching or 
 to works of mercy, as in the twelfth ; in another they enter 
 the lists, as in the thirteenth century, with a hostile 
 philosophy; in another they attempt a much-needed 
 Reformation of the Church ; in another they pour upon the 
 heathen world a flood of light and warmth from the heart 
 of Christendom. It is easy, as we survey them, to say 
 that something else was needed ; or that what was done 
 could have been done better or more completely ; or that, 
 had we been there, we should not have been guilty of this 
 onesidedness, or of that exaggeration. We forget, perhaps, 
 Who really ivas there, and Whose work it is, though often 
 overlaid and thwarted by human weakness and human 
 
90 
 
 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 passion, that we are really criticising. If it was seemingly 
 onesided, excessive or defective, impulsive or sluggish, 
 speculative or practical, aesthetic or experimental, may not 
 this have been so because in His judgment, Who breatheth 
 where He listeth, this particular characteristic was needed 
 for the Church of that day ? All that contemporaries know 
 of such movements is "the sound thereof;" the names 
 with which they are associated, the controversies which 
 they precipitate, the hostilities which they rouse or allay, 
 as the case may be. Such knowledge is superficial enough ; 
 of the profound spiritual causes which really engender 
 them, of the direction in which they are really moving, of 
 the influence which they are destined permanently to exert 
 upon souls, men know little or nothing. The accidental 
 symptom is mistaken for the essential characteristic ; the 
 momentary expression of feeling for the inalienable con- 
 viction of certain truth. The day may come, perhaps, 
 when more will be known ; when practice and motive, 
 accident and substance, the lasting and the transient, will 
 be seen in their true relative proportions ; but for the time 
 this can hardly be. He is passing by "Whose way is in the 
 sea, and His paths in the deep waters, and His footsteps 
 unknown." 1 The Eternal Spirit is passing ; and men can 
 only say, " He bloweth where He listeth." 
 
 Those who take God at His word will not doubt where 
 His Holy Spirit is given. In sacraments which He has 
 ordained ; in a message which He has authorized ; in 
 prayer, public and private, to which He has pledged His 
 presence, 2 this great gift is certainly to be found. The 
 Spirit is the soul of the Church, and whatever be the weak- 
 nesses or diseases of parts of the body which He deigns 
 to inhabit, the soul asserts itself as life in its furthest 
 extremities. 
 
 But is His mission wholly confined to the Body of 
 1 Ps. lxxvii. 19. 2 St. Matt, xviii. 20. 
 
V.] Influences of the Holy Spirit. 91 
 
 Christ ? has He no relations to separated groups of 
 Christians, to seekers after truth in heathen lands, to lower 
 forms of truth as well as higher, to philosophy, to science, 
 to art, to all departments of human energy ? Surely in 
 recognising this larger sphere of His energy we do not blur 
 the lines of His covenanted action; to believe in the 
 mighty gift of Pentecost is not to deny that " the Spirit of 
 the Lord filleth the world." 1 Doubtless in His activity 
 there are many methods, many degrees of intensity, many 
 ends in view. His influence is vouchsafed to those who 
 hold only portions of truth, that they may be led on to 
 that which as yet they do not hold ; He prevents men 
 with His most gracious favour before He furthers their 
 efforts by His continual help. This may be understood 
 most easily by those who most firmly believe in the 
 revealed constitution and claims of the Church of Christ ; 
 and it suggests happier prospects than are otherwise possible 
 amid the existing confusions of the w T orld and of Christen- 
 dom. Last year tw r o American preachers 2 visited this 
 country, to whom God had given, together with earnest 
 belief in some portions of the Gospel, a corresponding 
 spirit of fearless enterprise. Certainly they had no such 
 credentials of an apostolic ministry as a well-instructed 
 and believing Churchman would require. They knew 
 little or nothing of God's revealed Will respecting those 
 sacramental channels whereby the life of grace is planted 
 and maintained in the soul ; and their test of ministerial 
 success appeared sometimes to mistake physical excitement 
 or inclination for a purely spiritual or moral change. And 
 yet, must not we, who through no merit of our own, have 
 enjoyed greater spiritual advantages than theirs, feel and 
 express for these men a sincere respect, when, acting 
 according to the light which God had given them, they 
 
 1 Wisd. i. 7. 
 
 2 The allusion is to the visit of Messrs. Moody and Sankey, in 1875. 
 
92 
 
 Influences of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Serm. 
 
 threw themselves on our great cities with the ardour of 
 Apostles; spoke of a higher world to thousands who pass 
 the greater part of life in dreaming only of this ; and made 
 many of us feel that we owe them at least the debt of an 
 example, which He Who breatheth where He listeth must 
 surely have inspired them to give us ? 
 
 III. 
 
 Our Lord's words apply especially to Christian character. 
 There are some effects of the living power of the Holy 
 Spirit which are invariable. When He dwells with a 
 Christian soul, He continually speaks in the voice of con- 
 science ; He speaks in the voice of prayer. He produces 
 with the ease of a natural process, without effort, without 
 the taint of self-consciousness, " love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
 ance." 1 Some of these graces must be found where He 
 makes His home. There is no mistaking the atmosphere 
 of His presence : in its main features it is the same now 
 as in the days of the Apostles. Just as in natural 
 morality the main elements of "goodness" do not change; 
 so in religious life, spirituality is, amid great varieties of 
 detail, yet in its leading constituent features, the same 
 thing from one generation to another. But in the life of 
 the individual Christian, or in that of the Church, there 
 is legitimate room for irregular and exceptional forms of 
 activity or excellence. Natural society is not strengthened 
 by the stern repression of all that is peculiar in indi- 
 vidual thought or practice ; 2 and this is not less true of 
 spiritual or religious society. From the first, high forms 
 of Christian excellence have often been associated with 
 unconscious eccentricity. The eccentricity must be un- 
 conscious, because consciousness of eccentricity at once 
 
 1 Gal. v. 22, 23. 2 Mill's Essay of Liberty, chap. iii. 
 
Y.J Influences of the Holy Spirit. 93 
 
 reduces it to a form of vanity which is entirely incon- 
 sistent with Christian excellence. How many excellent 
 Christians have been eccentric, deviating more or less from 
 the conventional type of goodness which has been re- 
 cognised by contemporary religious opinion ! They pass 
 away, and when they are gone men do justice to their 
 characters; but while they are still with us how hard 
 do many of us find it to remember that there may be a 
 higher reason for their peculiarities than we think We 
 know not the full purpose of each saintly life in the 
 designs of Providence ; we know not much of the depths 
 and heights whence it draws its inspirations ; we cannot 
 tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Only we know 
 that He Whose workmanship it is bloweth where He 
 listeth ; and this naturally leads us to remark the practical 
 interpretation which the Holy Spirit often puts upon our 
 Lord's words by selecting as His chosen workmen those 
 who seem to be least fitted by nature for such high service. 
 The Apostle has told us how in the first age He set Himself 
 to defeat human anticipations. " Not many wise men 
 after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are 
 called ; " 1 learned academies, powerful connections, gentle 
 blood did little enough for the Gospel in the days when it 
 won its first and greatest victories. The Holy Spirit, as 
 Nicodemus knew, passed by the varied learning and high 
 station of the Sanhedrin, and breathed where He listed on 
 the peasants of Galilee ; He breathed on them a power 
 which would shake the world. And thus has it been 
 again and again in the generations which have followed. 
 When the great Aquinas w r as a student of philosophy 
 under Albertus Magnus at Cologne, he was known among 
 his contemporaries as " the dumb Ox ; " so little did they 
 divine what was to be his place in the theology of Western 
 Christendom. And to those of us who can look back upon 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 26. 
 
94 Influences of the Holy Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 the memories of this University for a quarter of a century 
 or more, few things appear more remarkable than the sur- 
 prises which the later life of men constantly afford; 
 sometimes it is a failure of early natural promise, but more 
 often a rich development of intellectual and practical 
 capacity where there had seemed to be no promise at all. 
 We can remember, perhaps, some dull quiet man who 
 seemed to be without a ray of genius, or, stranger still, 
 without anything interesting or marked in character, but 
 who now exerts, and most legitimately, the widest influ- 
 ence for good, and whose name is repeated by thousands 
 with grateful respect. Or we can call to mind another 
 whose whole mind was given to what was frivolous, or 
 even degrading, and who now is a leader in everything 
 that elevates and improves his fellows. The secret of 
 these transfigurations is ever the same. In those days 
 these men did not yet see their way; they were like 
 travellers through, the woods at night, when the sky is 
 hidden and all things seem to be other than they are — 
 
 " Quale per incertam luriam sub luce maligna 
 Est iter in silvis, ubi coelum condidit umbr4 
 Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem." 
 
 Since then the sun has risen and all has changed. The 
 creed of the Church of Christ, in its beauty and its power, 
 has been flashed by the Divine Spirit upon their hearts 
 and understandings ; and they are other men. They have 
 seen that there is something worth living for in earnest ; 
 that God, the soul, the future, are immense realities, com- 
 pared with which all else is tame and insignificant. They 
 have learned something of that personal love of our crucified 
 Lord, which is itself a moral and religious force of the 
 highest order, and which has carried them forwards without 
 their knowing it. And what has been will assuredly 
 repeat itself. Some of you who listen, if you are living 
 
V.] Influences of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 95 
 
 thirty years hence, will verify their experiences by your 
 own. 
 
 In conclusion, our Lord's words suggest many lessons, 
 but one of especial and incontrovertible importance; 
 reverence for the presence and work of that Holy Visitor 
 Whose festival this is. Reverence for Him, in the Bible 
 w 7 hich He inspires ; in the Church which He governs and 
 sanctifies ; in the souls, whether thy own or another's, which 
 He deigns to tenant. It is easy to become familiar with the 
 outward tokens of His presence ; to use language which has 
 no meaning apart from Him ; to forget that He is the 
 Lord and Giver of Life, without Whom Holy Scripture, 
 the Church, the New Birth, the New Life, would be 
 empty phrases. If nature is full of interest and wonder ; if 
 the bodily frame which we inhabit, like the sea or the 
 sky, are ever presenting to us new material for thought; 
 much more is this the case with the mysterious depths of 
 the human soul. And few things, perhaps, weigh more 
 heavily on those of us who know 7 that life is already on the 
 wane, and that the greater number of the years for which 
 we shall answer hereafter must have already passed, than 
 the recollection which at times steals over us, of that almost 
 unnoticed multitude of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, 
 pointing upwards and onwards, which have presented 
 themselves in the presence-chamber of the soul, and then 
 have vanished away, and left no trace behind. Whence 
 came they ? Those glimpses of nobler truth, those sudden 
 cravings after a higher existence, those fretful uneasy 
 yearnings, full of wholesome dissatisfaction with self, those 
 whisperings, those voices, which would not for a while 
 allow us to rest, but which, as the years have passed — is it 
 not often thus ? — have died away into silence. Whence 
 ' came they ; and whither should they have led us on ? 
 Ah ! we have said to ourselves, or the world has said to 
 
g6 Influences of the Holy Spirit, [Serm. 
 
 us, that the foolish enthusiasm of youth has passed, aud 
 that with middle age we have succeeded to common sense 
 and to ripe discretion. It may be so ; but there is, at least 
 in some cases, another way of reading the result. It is 
 too possible that something more than fervid indiscretion 
 has been lost with youth; that the bloom of the soul, 
 the freshness and tenderness of the conscience, has been 
 succeeded by a condition of thought and feeling, the true 
 character of which we conceal from ourselves and from 
 others when we label it " discretion " and " common sense." 
 Depend upon it, my younger brethren, the bright, self- 
 sacrificing enthusiasms of early manhood are among the 
 most precious things in the whole course of human life. 
 They may have their illusions, but they have their safe- 
 guards also ; and when they emancipate us from all that 
 would force us down, when they clear the spirit's eye and 
 nerve the bodily arm, when they enable us to tread under 
 our feet some clinging mischief which has made us 
 wretched for years, and open out horizons of disinterested 
 effort from which we already draw the inspiration of a 
 higher life, surely we do well to cherish them. Amidst 
 much which is depressing in the religious circumstances 
 and prospects of this place, Christians have signal reason 
 humbly to thank God the Holy Ghost for the impulse 
 which He has given of late to missionary enterprise; for 
 the noble men, known to not a few of us as teachers or as 
 friends, whom He has sent out from our midst within the 
 last two years to rule His flock in heathen lands ; 1 and 
 for the young, warm, and generous hearts whom human 
 affection, deepened and sanctified by the supernatural 
 love of God, has gathered around them as a band of 
 devoted sons and workers. This assuredly is the " sound I 
 of the wind from heaven, of that Eternal Spirit Who marks 
 in every generation predestined souls for His higher 
 1 Dr. Coplestone, Bishop of Colombo, and Dr. Mylne, Bishop of Bombay. 
 
Influences of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 97 
 
 service ; of Whom none can exactly say whence He comes 
 to them or whither He is leading them ; Who breatheth 
 where He listeth, not in caprice or by accident, but be- 
 cause He knows exactly whereof each of His creatures 
 is made, and apportions His distinctions with the unerring 
 decision of perfect Love and perfect Justice. 
 
 " If you make it a rule to say sincerely the first verse 
 of the Ordination Hymn every morning without failing, 
 it will in time do more for you than any other prayer 
 1 know, except the Lord's Prayer." They were the words 
 of one who had a right to speak from experience, and who 
 has now gone to his rest. 
 
 " Veni, Creator Spiritus, 
 Mentes Tuorum visita, 
 Imple superna gratia, 
 Quae Tu creasti pectora. " 
 
 Certainly this prayer does not take long to say; and 
 perhaps, fifty years hence, in another state of existence, 
 some of us will be glad to have acted on the advice. 
 
 a 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 GROWTH IN THE APPREHENSION OF TRUTH. 
 Heb. vi. i. 
 
 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto 
 perfection. 
 
 HERE we may see the germ of what afterwards became 
 at Alexandria and elsewhere the catechetical sys- 
 tem of the Primitive Church. When adult converts to 
 Christianity were the rule, it was necessary to protect the 
 Sacrament of Baptism against unworthy reception by a 
 graduated system of preparation and teaching, each stage 
 in which represented an advance in moral and intellectual 
 truth. Hence the several classes of catechumens; the 
 hearers, who were allowed to listen to the Scriptures and 
 to sermons in church ; the kneelers, who might stay and 
 join in certain parts of the Divine service ; and the elect, 
 or enlightened, who were taught the Lord's Prayer, — the 
 language of the regenerate, and the Creed, — the sacred 
 trust committed to the regenerate — since they were now on 
 the point of being admitted by Baptism into the Body of 
 Christ. Then at last, when baptized, as the reXeioi, or 
 perfect, they entered on the full privileges of believers; 
 they learnt all that was taught respecting the great doc- 
 trines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and 
 the Eucharist, and were thus placed in possession of the 
 
Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 99 
 
 truths and motives which shape most powerfully Christian 
 thought and life. 
 
 This was the system elaborated by great minds who suc- 
 cessively taught or ruled at Alexandria, and whose influence 
 spread so widely throughout the East. But its principle had 
 been already sanctioned in the Apostolic age, and in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews w T e see it in its earliest form. 
 In this Epistle we have before us two stages of teaching 
 and two classes of learners. 
 
 There is, first of all, the initial or rudimentary stage of 
 Christian teaching, which the sacred writer describes some- 
 times as "the elements of the beginning of the oracles 
 of God," 1 sometimes as the "first discourse about Christ/' 2 
 sometimes by metaphors, familiar to St. Paul, intended to 
 point out its facility of comprehension or its early place in 
 a system of Christian teaching, such as "milk" 3 or "the 
 foundation." 4 The later and complete stage of Christian 
 teaching is designated as the " discourse of righteousness," 5 
 as "the solid meat," 6 in contrast with "milk," or, as in the 
 words before us, as "perfection." 7 The Christians who are 
 receiving elementary instruction are termed babes, vrjirioi ; 8 
 they cannot understand, much less utter, the " discourse of 
 righteousness." The Christians who have received the 
 higher instruction are the "perfect;" 9 they can digest the 
 solid food of Christian doctrine ; their spiritual senses have 
 been trained by habit to appreciate the distinction between 
 the good and the evil, which in this connection are only 
 other names for the false and the true. 10 
 
 The readers, to whom all this is addressed, are themselves 
 in an equivocal position. It is a long time since they were 
 
 1 Heb. v. 12, to. aroix^o- Trjs apxys T & v Xoylcju rod Geou. 
 
 2 Heb. vi. I, rbv Trjs apxys rod Xpiarov \6yov. 
 
 Heb. v. 13, yd\a.KTo$. 
 
 4 Heb. vi. 1, 6e/j.4\iov. 
 
 6 Heb. v. 14, i] aTepea rpocpr). 
 
 8 Heb. v. 13. 
 
 10 Heb. v. 14. 
 
 5 Heb. v. 13, \6yov diKaioavprjs. 
 7 Heb. vi. 1, t?> Te\€i6rr)Ta. 
 9 Heb. v. 14, re\e<W. 
 
ioo Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 first converted, so long indeed, that they ought ere now to 
 be busily teaching other converts. 1 But, in fact, they still 
 need to be taught themselves. They do not know what 
 the rudiments of "the discourse about Christ" really are. 
 They ought to be among "the perfect;" they are only 
 "babes." They have gone backward instead of going forward, 2 
 and indeed because they have not gone forward ; and, if the 
 Apostolic writer is to continue the high argument of his 
 Epistle with any hope of their accompanying him intelli- 
 gently, they must at this point make a serious effort, or 
 rather they must surrender themselves to impulses and a 
 guidance which will carry them onward, if they will. There- 
 fore, he exclaims, leaving the principles or the first dis- 
 cussion about Christ, — let us go on, or be "borne on/' 
 unto perfection. 3 
 
 Perfection ! what does he mean by it ? Certainly not here 
 moral perfection, the attainment of conformity to the will 
 of God in general character and conduct. For this would 
 be no such contrast to the first principles of the doctrine 
 of Christ as the sentence of itself implies : the perfection 
 must itself be a doctrinal perfection, in other words, the 
 attainment of the complete or perfect truth about Christ, 
 as distinct from its first principles. Of these first or 
 foundation principles six are enumerated ; 4 and they are 
 selected for the practical reason that they were especially 
 needed by candidates for Baptism. First come the two 
 sides of the great inward change implied in conversion to 
 Christ; repentance from all such works as are "dead," 
 because destitute of a religious motive, and faith resting 
 upon God as revealed in His Son. Then follow the two 
 ordinances whereby the converted soul enters upon the 
 
 i Heb. v. 12. 2 Heb. v. ii, vtadpol yeydvare. 
 
 3 The whole passage, Heb. v. n — vi. 20, is a digression, by which the 
 argument respecting Christ's Melchisedekian priesthood is interrupted. 
 It is resumed at vii. 1. 4 Heb. vi. 1, 2. 
 
VL] Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 101 
 
 privileges of full communion with Christ; the doctrine 
 about Baptism, which distinguishes the Christian sacra- 
 ment from the mere symbols of purification insisted on for 
 proselytes by the Baptist and by the Law, and the laying 
 on of hands in what we now call Confirmation. Finally, 
 there are the two momentous truths which from the first 
 must be motive powers in the life of a sincere believer ; 
 the coming resurrection of the dead, and the judgment 
 whose issues are eternal. These three pairs of truths are 
 precisely what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 meant by the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. 
 And therefore by "perfection" he meant something be- 
 yond these truths. He meant no doubt a great deal else, 
 but he was referring specifically and at the moment to 
 the doctrine of Christ's Melchisedekian priesthood, in its 
 majestic contrast to the temporary and relatively ineffi- 
 cient priesthood of Aaron, and with its vast issues in a 
 Mediatorial work, whether of atonement or of sanctifica- 
 tion, as carried out, the latter to the very end of time, by 
 the Great High Priest of Christendom. 
 
 I 
 
 Now the point on which the text insists is the duty of 
 going forward from the first principles to the truths beyond 
 — eis rrjv reXeiorrjra (pepcojueOa. What are the intrinsic 
 reasons which point to this ? Undoubtedly the first is 
 that a Christian, as such, believes himself to be in posses- 
 sion, partly or altogether, of a Revelation which God has 
 made to man. Revelation is one of those momentous 
 words which has lost its edge in these later times through 
 being used by accommodation in new connections. No 
 Christian can be concerned to deny what St. Paul teaches, 
 that God has of old instructed all men through nature and 
 
102 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 conscience, 1 and that, as a consequence, elements of Divine 
 truth are embedded, in different degrees of purity, in the 
 various beliefs of the heathen world. But, the moral 
 nature of man being what it is, there is a veil in all 
 heathen religions over the face of God and the true mean- 
 ing of human life. And the true Revelation is distin- 
 guished from these surrounding conglomerates of little truth 
 and much error by a twofold note : as it comes to us from 
 God it is without any accompanying error ; and its arrival 
 is certificated by miracle, which proclaims the identity of 
 the Author of Nature with the Euler of the Moral World 
 speaking in the Revelation. Ask yourselves, brethren, what 
 we of to-day can do, what others have done, and are doing, 
 if Revelation be discarded. What, indeed, but enter on a 
 weary round of guesses and retractations ? Whence do we 
 come ? Whither are we going ? Why are we here at all ? 
 These are irrepressible questions, to which Reason does her 
 best, from age to age, to furnish replies : but at her best 
 she hesitates, she falters, she contradicts herself, she is 
 perpetually discouraged by the sense of her powerlessness, 
 she hastily affirms, and then forthwith she is frightened at 
 her affirmation, she sinks back in perplexity and silence. 
 So it was among the cultivated heathen before Christ came ; 
 so it is still where modern thought has rejected Christianity. 
 Agnosticism is not a term of reproach to those whose 
 opinions it describes ; yet what is it but a confession of 
 their impotence, face to face with the most vital problems 
 that can engage the mind of man ? And therefore — to 
 quote language which is not strictly theological, but 
 which may be taken to represent the broad aspects of the 
 fact before us — " Divine Providence, in compassion to the 
 frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, 
 hath been pleased, at sundry times and in divers manners, 
 to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and 
 
 1 Rom. i. 19, 20. 
 
VI. 
 
 Growth in the Apprehensio7i of Trtcth. 103 
 
 direct Revelation. The doctrines thus delivered we call 
 the Revealed or Divine Law, and they are to be found only 
 in the Holy Scriptures." 1 
 
 With those who dispute the fact that God has spoken 
 thus to man, not merely through nature or conscience, or 
 both, but through His Son Jesus Christ, and through other 
 teachers on whom Christ set the seal of His Divine 
 authority, I am not for the moment disputing. Enough 
 to say that the supreme certificate of the reality of the 
 Christian Revelation is the fact that Christ rose from the 
 dead. Deny this fact, and — forgive a stern word for the sake 
 of its truth — the moral consistency of Christ, no less than 
 His redemptive power, must forthwith disappear from 
 earnest thought. Admit this fact, and the religion which it 
 attests must mean not only much more than, but some- 
 thing altogether distinct in kind from, the highest lessons 
 God has ever taught to the best heathen through nature 
 and conscience ; — you are in presence of a supernatural 
 Revelation. 
 
 And if such a Revelation, as we Christians maintain, 
 has indeed been given, then man's wisdom and business is 
 to make the most of it. If such a body of truth is really 
 within our reach, it is of importance, not merely to theolo- 
 gians, but to human beings as such ; it cannot be neglected 
 with impunity. As knowledge it is worth more than any 
 other knowledge. It enables us to know a Being Who is 
 infinitely greater, wiser, more powerful, and more nearly 
 related to us than any other being. It touches us more 
 closely in our deepest and most lasting interests than any 
 other department or kind of knowledge. Surely if God 
 speaks, reverence bids us listen until we have heard all 
 that He is saying. Surely if God speaks, the common 
 sense which He has given us bids us listen until we know 
 what is the bearing of His utterance on ourselves. The 
 
 1 Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Introduction, § 2. 
 
104 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 man in the parable who sells all that he has that he may 
 buy the field in which the treasure is hid, will surely do 
 his best to appreciate the treasure when he has found it. 1 
 If it was prudent to make the original effort, it is prudent 
 to follow it up : if it is our wisdom to be Christians at all, 
 it is not less our wisdom to make the most we can of the 
 Creed of Christendom. 
 
 This then is a first reason for going on to what the text 
 calls " perfection : " everything in a Eevelation which comes 
 from God must, from the nature of the case, be worth the 
 best attention that we can give it. But another reason 
 will be found in the nature of Eevealed Truth itself. 
 Eevealed Truth is not a series of propositions, having no 
 relation to each other, and out of which the human intellect 
 may take its choice. It is not like a scrap-book, made up 
 of extracts from all the religions of the world, which have 
 been brought together by some master of eclectic industry. 
 Nor is it like a museum of statues, in which each com- 
 position is complete and has no necessary relation to the 
 figures around it. It is an organic whole, every portion of 
 which is as perfectly connected with the rest as are 
 the limbs of a living creature with its trunk and heart. 
 Thus there is a nexus between all truths which fairly 
 belong to the substance of Eevelation ; a relationship at 
 once so intimate and so persuasive that the believing soul 
 cannot but be drawn onward from truth to truth. The 
 vital principle of a Divine authority which belongs to each 
 truth is common to all ; the intrinsic dependence of each 
 truth upon the others is profound and reciprocal: and 
 thus a believer passes from one truth to another, not by 
 a fresh intellectual jerk or effort, but in obedience to a 
 sense of sequence which he cannot resist. 
 
 Yes ! It is on this account that the believing soul, clinging 
 to the first principles of Christian doctrine, must needs 
 
 1 St. Matt. xiii. 44. 
 
VI.] Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 105 
 
 advance to perfection. The Apostolic writer does not say, 
 " Let us go on unto perfection ; " he does say, " Let us be 
 borne on," — (pepwimeOa. He does not say, " Be courageously 
 logical : push forward your premises to their last conclu- 
 sions." He does say, " Let us all, teachers and taught, trust 
 ourselves to the guidance of such truth as we already 
 hold," — (pepwjueOa. It will carry us on as we try to make 
 it our own : it will lead us to the connected and derived 
 truths which expand, explain, support it. We cannot 
 select some one shred of this organic whole, baptize it by 
 such names as " primary " or " fundamental," and then say, 
 "This, and this only, shall be my creed." If the metaphor 
 be permitted, the trunk whose limbs are cut off thus 
 arbitrarily will bleed to death. Where spiritual life de- 
 pends on spiritual activity, non progredi est regredi ; and 
 they who shrink from Apostolic perfection will forfeit their 
 hold, sooner or later, on Apostolic first principles. 
 Let us trace this somewhat more in detail. 
 
 We have seen what were the six first principles insisted 
 on among the first readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 They belonged to the disciplinary system of the Church, 
 and were selected on practical rather than theological 
 grounds. But what would probably be the first principles 
 of an inquirer feeling his way upwards towards the light 
 under the circumstances of our own day ? What would be 
 the truths that would greet him on the threshold of faith, as 
 the catechumen of our time, whom conscience and thought 
 are training for the full inheritance of believers ? 
 
 They would be, in all probability, first — belief in a moral 
 God. The inquirer discovers within himself an indestruc- 
 tible sense of the value and beauty of holiness, of justice, 
 of truth, of love. He admires these excellences in others 
 
ro6 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 even when he is conscious of being himself without them; 
 and he rises out of himself to conceive a Being in Whom 
 they exist as in their source, and in an undimmed perfec- 
 tion. It is something to believe in a Cause Who is the 
 cause of all that is besides Himself. It is more to believe 
 in an Intelligence, the parent of all other intelligences. 
 But religion properly begins when a man bows before One 
 W T ho, being boundless Power and Wisdom, is also Justice, 
 Sanctity, and Love. 
 
 At the same time the modern catechumen would pro- 
 bably be attracted by the character of Jesus Christ as it 
 lies on the surface of the Gospels. He need not yet be a 
 believer in order to discover that in the Gospels the human 
 soul meets with that which it meets nowhere else — an ideal 
 of moral beauty at once so winning and so awful as to 
 command its homage. Eenan will tell him that Jesus will 
 never be surpassed ; 1 and Goethe, that Jesus is the type 
 and model for all men ; 2 and Eousseau, that if the life and 
 death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of 
 Jesus are those of a God. 3 A working carpenter, Who 
 dies when He is thirty-three years old ; Who has neither 
 education, nor patronage, nor wealth at his command; 
 Who lives, let us note it once again, poor, as it seems, 
 inexperienced, unknown, unbefriended, yet speaks to the 
 conscience of all time, and offers an example before which 
 even those who reject His claims are silent, — awed into 
 involuntary reverence, almost into love. 
 
 These, we will suppose, are the inquirer's two first prin- 
 ciples, the goodness of God, and the perfection of Christ's 
 character. They are now beyond controversy, at least for 
 him. They seem to be all that he needs ; and he says to 
 himself that a simple faith like this, which perhaps he will 
 be told is Christian Theism, is a working faith. He can at 
 least live it, or try to live it, and leave the spheres of abstract 
 1 Vie de Jesus, p. 325. 2 Dial, with Eckermann, vol. iii. 3 Emile, 1. vl 
 
VI.] Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 107 
 
 and metaphysical controversy to those who like to explore 
 thern. 
 
 But if he thinks, a time will come when he finds that 
 he must go forward if he is not to fall back. For he 
 observes, first of all, that this world, the scene of so nmch 
 wickedness and so much suffering, is hard to reconcile 
 with the idea of God, All-good and All-powerful, if indeed 
 He has left or is leaving it to itself. If God is All-good, 
 He surely will unveil Himself further to His reasonable 
 creatures ; nay, He will do something more, His revelation 
 will be, in some sense, a cure. Exactly proportioned to 
 belief in the morality of God is the felt strength of this 
 presumption in favour of a Divine intervention of some 
 kind : and the modern catechumen asks himself if the 
 Epicurean deities themselves would not do almost as well 
 as a moral God, Who yet, in the plenitude of His power, 
 should leave creatures formed by Himself to think and 
 to struggle without the light or the aid they so greatly 
 need. 
 
 This is a first observation, and a second is that, if the 
 character of Jesus Christ be attentively studied, it implies 
 that His life cannot be supposed to fall entirely within the 
 limits or under the laws of what we call " nature." For if 
 anything is certain about Him, this is certain, that He 
 invited men to love Him, trust Him, obey Him even to 
 death, and in terms which would be intolerable if after all 
 He was merely human. Human nature has had time to 
 take the measure of itself, and it knows what is com- 
 patible with the just limits of its pretensions. Christ, as 
 judged by His claims on others, is very much more than 
 a mere man, or it is impossible to maintain that He was 
 a good man. And therefore our modern catechumen feels 
 that it is not enough to admire, even warmly, the char- 
 acter of Christ; a necessity, moral as well as logical, is 
 laid upon his apprehension of it ; he must let himself be 
 
io8 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 borne on to a perfection that yet awaits him; he must 
 ascend to a higher truth beyond. 
 
 ISTor is this advance inevitable, only on account of the 
 claims which Christ makes upon mankind. It is made 
 necessary by His sayings about Himself. Thus, He ex- 
 pressly foretold that He should be crucified and should 
 rise from the dead. 1 As a matter of fact, the Christian 
 Church exists at this hour because it has been believed for 
 eighteen centuries and a half that His words were verified 
 by the event. Had He been crucified, only then to rot, 
 whether in an undistinguished or in a celebrated grave, the 
 human conscience would have known w 7 hat to say of Him. 
 It would have traced over His sepulchre the epitaph 
 " failure ; " and it would have forthwith struck a significant 
 balance between the attractive elements of His character and 
 the utterly unwarranted exaggeration of His pretensions. 
 
 But our modern catechumen's reflections could not end 
 here. For the character of God, and of Jesus Christ in 
 the Gospels, is in one respect like the old Mosaic law; 
 it provokes a sense of guilt by its revelation of what 
 righteousness really is. The more we really know about 
 God, — about our Lord, the less can we be satisfied with 
 ourselves. It is not possible for a man whose moral sense 
 is not dead only to admire Jesus Christ as if He were an 
 exquisite creation of art, — a painting in a gallery or a statue 
 in a museum of antiquities, — and without the thought, 
 What do His perfections say to me ? For Jesus Christ 
 shows us what human nature has been when at its best; and 
 in showing us this He reveals us individually to ourselves. 
 Of His character we may say what St. Paul says of the 
 law, that it is a schoolmaster to bring us to Himself. It 
 makes us dissatisfied with our own attainments, if anything 
 can do so : it forces us to recognise the worthlessness and 
 
 1 St. Matt. xii. 39, 40; xx. 19; xxvii. 40, 63. St. Mark xiv. 58. 
 St. John ii. 19. 
 
VI.] Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 109 
 
 poverty of our natural resources ; it throws a true, though 
 it be an unwelcome light upon the history of our past 
 existence ; and thus it disposes us to listen anxiously and 
 attentively for any further disclosures of the Divine Mind 
 that may be either in store for us or already within our 
 reach. 
 
 In this way the " first principles " which we have been 
 attributing to an inquirer of our day may prepare him for 
 truths beyond themselves. That Divine Goodness, those 
 perfections of the character of Christ, bear the soul onwards 
 towards Christ's true Divinity, and, as a consequence, to 
 the atoning virtue of His death upon the Cross. These 
 momentous realities rest on grounds of their own : but they 
 bring satisfaction, repose, relief to souls who have atten- 
 tively considered what is involved in such truths as those 
 which lie on the threshold of the life of faith. They pro- 
 claim that God has not left men to themselves : that He 
 does not despise the work of His own hands. They unveil 
 His heart of tenderness for man. They justify the language 
 which Jesus Christ used about Himself, and His claims on 
 the faith and the obedience of mankind. And they enable 
 us to bear the quickened consciousness of personal sin which 
 follows upon true insight into His human character, because 
 we now know that, in the garden of the Agony and on the 
 Cross, He was made "to be sin for us Who knew no sin ? 
 that Ave might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 1 
 
 But does the advance toAvards perfection cease at this 
 point ? Surely not. Where so much has been done, there 
 is a presumption in favour of something more, if more 
 be needed. The Divine Christ has died on the Cross a 
 Victim for the sins of the Avorld : what is He doing now ? 
 Did His redemptive love exhaust itself in the days of His 
 flesh ? The past has been forgiven; but has any provision 
 been made for the future ? Have Ave been reconciled to 
 
 1 2 Cor. v. 21. 
 
1 1 o Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 God by the death of His Son, but is there no salvation 
 through His risen life I 1 May not reconciliation itself be 
 almost a dubious boon if it be followed by an almost 
 inevitable relapse ? 
 
 Here, therefore, the soul makes a further stage in its 
 advance to perfection. Its eye opens upon the work of the 
 Holy Spirit, Who conveys to man the gift of that new 
 human nature which is for ever united in Jesus Christ to 
 the Person of the Eternal Son. It is mainly through the 
 Christian Sacraments that the Spirit unites us to the per- 
 fect Manhood of the Eedeemer. And it is by a consequence 
 as natural as that which leads from Christ's character to 
 His Divinity and Atonement, that we pass on from His 
 Atonement to the sacramental aspects of His mediatorial 
 work. He bestows the New Nature in Holy Baptism; 
 "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put 
 on Christ." 2 He strengthens the New Nature in the 
 Blessed Eucharist ; " He that eateth Me, even he shall live 
 by Me." 3 This crowning gift does but complete what was 
 begun when He became first our Example, and then the 
 Propitiation for our sins. And the reality of this gift is 
 guaranteed by a divinely-instituted organization; so that the 
 threefold Apostolic ministry, to which the dispensation of 
 the Word and Sacraments is committed, is an integral part 
 of that perfection of truth to which intelligent faith con- 
 ducts the soul. In other words, the Epistles to the Ephe- 
 sians, to Timothy, and to Titus, contain teaching as essential 
 to the completeness of the Gospel system as are the argu- 
 ments in the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians; 
 and the Christian Creed has not said its last word to the 
 soul of man until, besides assuring his reconciliation and 
 peace, it has satisfied his desire for assured union with 
 the Source of Life. 
 
 1 Kom. v. io. 2 Gal. iii. 27. 3 g t j 0 j m vi S7> 
 
VI. J Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 1 1 1 
 
 HI. 
 
 But at this point we are asked a question which it is 
 impossible to ignore. " Where are you going to stop ? Is 
 not your principle likely to carry you further than you 
 mean ? Has not the Church of Borne, too, her interpreta- 
 tion of what is meant by theological perfection, and is not 
 the tendency of your argument to lead us to accept it?" 
 
 Here it is natural to recall the boldest work of that 
 remarkable man, to whom many of us can never be slow 
 to confess our obligations, whose name will always be 
 associated with Oxford, and whose recent elevation to a 
 place of honour in the Eoman Church has commanded the 
 attention and interest of the world. His Essay on the 
 Development of Christian Doctrine presents this among 
 other aspects ; it is a theological confession. It is a con- 
 fession that the creed of the modern Church of Eome 
 cannot be said to be strictly identical with the creed of 
 the Apostles ; that at the best they are linked with each 
 other by a law of substantial growth, as is the oak with 
 the acorn ; and even that Eoman Catholicism in its full 
 development contains elements which have no germinal 
 count erpart in the age of the Apostles, since they have come 
 to it by accretion from without. Bellarmine and Bossuet 
 had supposed that the Eoman faith in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries respectively was exactly the faith of 
 the Apostolic and Primitive Church. But, writing in the 
 nineteenth, Mohler and Newman knew too much to enter- 
 tain such a supposition. There were patent differences 
 which had to be accounted for in some way; and there 
 were tendencies in modern thought not unlikely to suggest 
 or to recommend the method that actually presented itself. 
 The theory of development, in its English form, was the 
 most striking apology that could be made for a step to 
 
1 1 2 Growth in the A pprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 which its author was led by independent considerations ; 
 but it is an apology which would serve other causes, ancient 
 and modern, at least as well as that of the Church of 
 Eome. The ingenious Gnostics against whom St. Irenseus 
 wrote, as well as some modern philosophical theorists of a 
 different stamp, were also developmentalists; we know how 
 much it is proposed to explain in morals not less than in 
 physics or psychology by the kindred and more familiar 
 formula of evolution. And St. Irenseus' position still holds 
 good. The Church cannot know more than was known by 
 the Apostles ; and anything which men might claim to 
 know which was unknown to the Apostles is not Apostolic 
 doctrine, but something else. 
 
 " Go on unto perfection." Yes : but the Hebrew Chris- 
 tians are not bidden to create, but to explore. They are 
 to explore a faith which was once for all delivered to the 
 saints, and the several parts of which are organically con- 
 nected with each other. They are not to assist in the 
 production of substantial additions to this original deposit, 
 as if they were themselves the organs of a continuous 
 revelation. 
 
 Take one illustration out of several. Let us suppose 
 that we are travelling during the month of August, and 
 that we find ourselves within the walls of some foreign 
 cathedral on the great festival of the Assumption. Every- 
 thing betokens an occasion of the highest order of religious 
 importance ; the attendance of the people and the character 
 of the services are exactly what they would be on Easter 
 Day And if we examine the Service-books we observe 
 that there is no appreciable difference in the amount of new 
 matter proper to the festival ; it is, in liturgical language, a 
 " double of the first class." And perhaps the choir sings 
 in our ears, " Exaltata est sancta Dei genitrix super choros 
 angelorum ad ccelestia regna ;" and the preacher enlarges 
 on the glories and prerogatives of Mary as the Queen of 
 
VI.] Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 113 
 
 Heaven. In short, nothing is wanting that can arouse or 
 direct devotional enthusiasm ; and the natural inference is 
 that the event commemorated must be among the truths 
 that lie closest to the heart of the believing and adoring 
 Church. 
 
 But on what does it all rest ? The question will surely 
 present itself when we return to our homes. Certainly on 
 nothing in Holy Scripture. There is indeed a passage in 
 the Apocalypse which has been referred to Mary after her 
 death, 1 but by a method of interpretation scarcely less 
 fanciful and arbitrary than are those by which controver- 
 sial imagination has read the institutions and history of 
 the Eoman Church herself into the darker imagery of this 
 mysterious book. The fact is that Scripture says nothing 
 on the subject, and Antiquity, properly so called, is no less 
 silent. It is first hinted at in two apocryphal writings, 
 attributed to St. John and to Melito of Sardis, 2 but belong- 
 ing, it would seem, to the beginning of the fifth century : it 
 is a pious supposition of a later age, without any proof of 
 a real historic basis. And when well-informed divines are 
 pressed they admit, that though it is treated in the public 
 Service as if it were as certain as the Eesurrection of 
 Christ, it is not a matter of faith at all ; that the Church 
 of Borne has never said authoritatively that the body of 
 Mary left its grave, whatever may have been taught by 
 poets and painters and preachers; and that what we 
 have witnessed and listened to on this great festival is 
 
 1 Rev. xii. 1-6. In Adv. Hcer. lxxviii. c. u, St. Epiphanius only says 
 that this passage may perchance have been fulfilled in Mary : he adds, ov 
 rrdvTws 5£ opifd/iat tovto. He hesitates to say whether Mary did or did 
 not die. Holy Scripture is intentionally silent on the subject of her 
 leath : iv /uerewpy etaae, Sta to (tkcvos to tl/jllov icai H-oxutcltov. In 
 Origen's day it was sometimes inferred from St. Luke ii. 35 that the 
 Blessed Virgin had died a martyr's death. Cf. Horn, in Luc. xvii. 
 
 2 That attributed to St. John is styled ets ttjv KolfxyvLv tt}s {rrrepayias 
 5e<T7r6tv7?j ; that to St. Melito, " De transitu Mariae." Cf. Herzog, Encyc. 
 vol. ix. p. 92. 
 
 H 
 
1 14 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 merely the expression of a pious opinion. And since, 
 moreover, no intrinsic necessity can be shown for sup- 
 plementing the confessed and altogether unique glory of 
 the Mother of the Incarnate Son by the hypothesis of 
 her bodily reception into heaven, it follows that when 
 instructed faith, accustomed to the aspects and to the 
 frontiers of Apostolic teaching, encounters this hypothesis, 
 it recoils as from a block of foreign and intrusive matter; 
 it whispers to itself, " By God's help I will live and die in 
 the complete circle of truths unveiled by the Apostles, but 
 I cannot be wiser than they." 
 
 To many minds the question now presents itself, whether 
 acceptance of such materials of religious thought and 
 life as we have been considering can properly be de- 
 scribed as being borne forward to perfection. Certainly 
 the process by which we accept them is fundamentally 
 different from that by which we accept the true Divinity 
 of our Lord, or the efficacy of His atoning Sacrifice, or the 
 grace of the Sacraments, or the Apostolic structure of the 
 Church. For these truths have, each and all of them, their 
 place in the Apostolic mind and writings : and later defini- 
 tions, such, for example, as are those contained in the 
 Creeds, do not really add to the sum or extent of things to 
 be believed; they only re-state in language which new 
 intellectual circumstances have rendered necessary what 
 was believed by the first Christian teachers. Yet how can 
 this be said of pious but unattested conjectures which 
 have gradually come to be treated as if they were estab- 
 lished facts ? In such a subject-matter as that of faith, so 
 altogether transcending the limits of human thought, you 
 cannot infer the truth of the unrevealed, though you may 
 discern the necessary connection between one revealed 
 truth and another. A very serious line of demarcation is 
 passed when, from considering religious truths resting on 
 Apostolic or Divine authority, we pass to the contemplation 
 
VI. 
 
 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth, 1 1 5 
 
 of pious surmises, or, as is not impossible, of unsubstantial 
 legends. Must not the crisp and jealous sense of truth be 
 impaired when the soul accepts with equal facility that 
 which is certain and such portions of the imaginary as it 
 may conceive to be probable ; and when the truths for 
 which Apostles gave their lives are practically correlated 
 with stories which, in an age like ours, bring the whole 
 faith into discredit and, for too many souls, into danger ? 
 
 The Eeformation cost much. It broke up, at least in 
 the Western Church, visible unity, so dear to all Chris- 
 tians who believe that our Lord uttered the intercessory 
 prayer in St. John, and that the Epistle to the Ephesians 
 is the Word of God. 1 Whatever may have been the case 
 in England, it became elsewhere religious revolution ; and 
 it produced not a few reckless experimentalists, who were 
 the enemies of faith and charity and order. But, notwith- 
 standing, it saved the cause of religion in Western Europe, 
 by dissociating Christianity from the entail of legend which 
 had gathered around it. The Roman Church herself, as any 
 student of the earlier sessions of the Council of Trent may 
 discover, has profited by the Eeformation within such limits 
 is were possible ; and no believer in Christ can cease to 
 lope, though it be against appearances, that a day may 
 :ome when she, the largest division of the Christian Church, 
 nay yet more widely profit by it ; that she may virtually 
 ibandon untenable positions, without forfeiture of her 
 listoric continuity, and that she may thus undertake to 
 •eunite the scattered worshippers of the Redeemer in one 
 isible fold. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But meanwhile there can be no doubt that the dread of 
 toman exaggeration prevents many Christians in our day 
 nd country from embracing the unmutilated faith of the 
 
 1 St. John xvii. 21. Eph. iv. 3-6. 
 
ix6 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. [Serm. 
 
 Apostles. And there are two other causes at work which 
 lead to the same result. Of these the first is the spirit of 
 negative criticism. Criticism has its great duties and its 
 ascertained rights. It is not necessarily the foe of religion : 
 it may brace the air which religion breathes ; it may sweep 
 the home which she tenants. But criticism is not religion, 
 nor is she always the servant of religion ; and when, as is 
 sometimes the case, criticism virtually usurps the place 
 of faith, the soul is starved even to death upon the dry 
 husks which are all that are offered for spiritual nutriment. 
 Who of us living here in Oxford does not know the 
 truth of this ? It is not what has been said against the 
 truths of faith; it is the haunting suspicion that some- 
 thing may be said which has not been said yet that is 
 so fatal to any robust conviction, and as a consequence to 
 all generous effort or self-sacrifice. Every truth in turn 
 seems to be permitted to enjoy at the best an hypothetical 
 existence; and souls are bidden rise to God out of an 
 atmosphere of universal suspicion. What wonder if they 
 sink down to earth and if heaven disappears from their 
 sight ? 
 
 The other cause to which I am referring is the vague 
 but creditable desire for fellowship in religious sentiment 
 which belongs to our time. Eemark that it is religious 
 sentiment, rather than religious truth, which is to be the 
 bond of peace in most of the religious alliances of this age. 
 The desire for spiritual fellowship is undoubtedly Christian 
 in its origin and spirit; and it is aided by the great 
 facilities for intercommunication which characterize our 
 modern life. But when this desire becomes practical what 
 is it that too frequently happens ? The smallest of several 
 co-operating creeds becomes of necessity the basis of theii 
 co-operation ; its mutilated and impoverished contents arc 
 assumed, with whatever amount of hardihood, to contair 
 the whole essential substance of Revelation ; and men tall 
 
VI. 
 
 Growth in the A pprehension of Truth. 1 1 7 
 
 of " our common Christianity," when they mean only a 
 fragment of the Christian Faith; a fragment, the varia- 
 tions of which are determined from time to time by petty 
 local controversies. As each applicant for admission to 
 the alliance comes bringing with him a smaller and yet 
 smaller creed, the process of minimizing necessarily goes 
 forward, and in the end it seems to be supposed that a 
 service is somehow done at once to Christ and to Christians 
 if the Christian religion can be shown to cover very little 
 ground indeed. 
 
 It would seem that some among us have practically sub- 
 stituted for the Apostolic injunction, " Therefore leaving the 
 first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto 
 perfection," the exhortation, " Therefore leaving the creeds 
 of the Apostolic Church, let us do what we may to reduce 
 the Christian faith to a working minimum." One after 
 another the truths of Eevelation are discarded, on the 
 ground that they occasion differences ; men retain that 
 only in which for the moment they agree. And so it is 
 that we are sometimes told that the Fatherhood of God and 
 the character of Christ are the only permanent elements in 
 Christianity ; and we find ourselves exactly where we were 
 when we started, in the company of the modern cate- 
 chumen, — the first step in synthesis being in analysis the 
 last. 
 
 But surely such a Christianity as this, if it could be 
 allowed to deserve the name, is in reality open to at least 
 as many critical objections as are the larger creeds which 
 it is meant to supersede. Who does not see that our Lord's 
 human character can only be described as perfect if His 
 right to draw attention to Himself, in terms which befit 
 only a superhuman person, be frankly conceded ? Who 
 does not know that the existence of a moral God, the 
 Maker and Poller of this universe, is at this moment more 
 fiercely contested by a large class of materialist writers than 
 
1 1 8 Growth in the Apprehension of Truth. 
 
 any subordinate or derived truths whatever, and that, what- 
 ever may have been the case in the last century, a naked and 
 shadowy Theism is in our own day even more earnestly 
 rejected than are the specific doctrines of Apostolic Chris- 
 tianity ? 
 
 Surely, then, it is our wisdom, as Christian believers, 
 while life lasts, to make the most, and not the least, of 
 the truth we hold. What must not He to Whom it refers 
 think — and surely He is thinking on the subject now — of 
 those many magnificent intellects which He has endowed 
 so richly, and to which He has- granted such opportunities 
 of exercise and development, and who yet, living here in 
 Oxford, know scarcely more about Him than do the children 
 in our national schools, and make no effort to know more ? 
 All else is studied with eager enthusiasm, all forms of 
 created life, all the resources of nature, all the intricacies 
 and laws of human thought ; but He, the Author of all, — 
 He, the Infinite and the Everlasting, — is, it seems, forgotten. 
 It was not always so in Oxford ; it will not, it cannot, 
 always be so. 
 
 " Dies venit, dies Tua, 
 In qua reflorent omnia, 
 Lsetemur et nos in viam 
 Tua reducti dextera. " 
 
 And meanwhile, those who have this hope in them will 
 do what they may to forward it. It is not much to ask 
 of any serious Christian that he should endeavour each day 
 to take possession of some little portion of that highest 
 knowledge, which, in the light of the eternal world, will 
 assuredly seem incomparably more precious than any other. 
 Half an hour a day costs something in the life of a hard- 
 worked man ; but it will not be held to have involved a 
 very great sacrifice, when we are at length face to face with 
 the unchanging realities, and know in very deed what is 
 meant by Perfection. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 THE LIFE OE EAITH AXD THE ATH AN ASIAN 
 CEEED. 
 
 St. John iii. 36. 
 
 He that belicveth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not 
 the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. 
 
 A EE we listening to St. John the Baptist, or to St. John 
 the Evangelist ? To answer with positiveness is, to 
 say the least, difficult ; but probabilities are in favour of 
 the opinion that the Evangelist is here following out, in 
 the full light of the Apostolic age and inspiration, the 
 train of thought to which the Baptist's earlier proclama- 
 tion of the greatness of Jesus Christ naturally led him. 1 
 Where, then, does the report of the Baptist's words end, 
 and where does the inspired commentary on them begin ? 2 
 Here, again, we must confess to the presence of difficulty. 
 For there is no abrupt break in the order of thought ; there 
 are no marks of quotation which distinctly transfer the 
 attention from the last w^ords of the text to the first words 
 of the commentary. We pass almost insensibly from what 
 is plainly the Baptist's rebuke of a querulous jealousy 
 . excited in his disciples by the increasing popularity of the 
 new Teacher, to words which sound like an Apostolic 
 
 1 So Olshausen, Tholuck, Klee, Kuinoel. On the other side, cf. Meyer, 
 ' Evangclium des Johannes, p. 140. 
 
 2 Cf. Liicke, Ev. Johannes, i. p. 566. 
 
120 
 
 The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 warning respecting the privilege of possessing by faith 
 the life-giving and manifested Son, and the danger of 
 rejecting Him by unbelief. There is a somewhat similar 
 difficulty about determining to whom the verses are ad- 
 dressed which immediately follow St. Paul's account of the 
 dispute at Antioch in the Epistle to the Galatians. Is 
 St. Paul still remonstrating with St. Peter in the whole 
 paragraph which extends from the narrative itself to the 
 end of the second chapter ? 1 Or is he now reasoning with 
 the Galatian J udaizers, and only taking his brief reply to 
 Peter as the text of his remonstrance ? Certainly the 
 latter would appear for various reasons to be, on the whole, 
 the truer answer ; and yet, if it be accepted, where does 
 the reply really end, and the inferential commentary upon 
 it begin ? The difficulty of answering this question is not 
 inconsiderable. It might seem as if, in some passages, 
 Holy Scripture, or rather its Divine Author, purposely 
 disappointed our attempts to apply our wonted critical pro- 
 cedures of method and analysis. Perhaps He would teach 
 us that where all is of enduring and Divine authority, the 
 question of human authorship or immediate purpose is 
 relatively unimportant: that we are to believe St. Paul, 
 whether he is addressing himself to a Church of disciples 
 or to a brother-apostle ; that we are to believe the Holy 
 Ghost, whether He speaks through St. John the Baptist 
 or through St. John the Evangelist. 
 
 I 
 
 " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." 
 It is not too much to say that the purpose of St. John's 
 Gospel is condensed into this sentence. The Evangelist 
 tells his readers that his book was written "that they might 
 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that 
 1 Gal. ii. 15-21. 
 
VII.] the At hanasian Creed. 121 
 
 believing they might have life through His Name." 1 And 
 St. John does but echo the fuller declarations of his Lord ; 
 " God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, 
 but have everlasting life." 2 So our Lord warns the Jews : 
 " Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life." 3 He 
 assures the disciples that " this is the will of Him that 
 sent Me, that whosoever seeth the Son, and believeth on 
 Him, hath everlasting life ; and I will raise him up at the 
 last day." 4 And He promises that " he that eateth My 
 Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life, and I will 
 raise him up at the last day." 5 Of Himself He says, 
 "I am the Bread of life." 6 
 
 What is life ? Who, indeed, shall attempt to answer ? 
 We recognise it by its symptoms : what it is in itself we 
 know not. We can only apprehend its presence, as we 
 apprehend simple ideas; as we apprehend facts which 
 we cannot take to pieces and explain; there it is; — a 
 matter of experience. Its inner nature we cannot analyze ; 
 its existence we cannot dispute. 
 
 What is life ? Looking at it, as we must look at it in 
 other beings, from without, and speaking roughly and 
 popularly, we may say that its presence is intimated by 
 two symptoms, by movement and by growth. Whether 
 life be vegetable or animal, whether intelligence or spirit, 
 it exhibits in varying degrees one or both of these charac- 
 teristics — growth and movement. The mineral does not 
 live; it exists. It only exists because it neither grows 
 nor moves. The tree grows ; its growth is its movement ; 
 it grows until it dies ; growth is a condition of its existence ; 
 
 I 1 St. John xx. 31. The immediate reference is to the selection of miracles 
 (<T7]fj.eia, verse 30) made by the Evangelist, but in effect the words refer to 
 the drift of his whole Gospel. 
 
 2 St. John iii. 16. 3 St. John v. 40. 4 St. John vi. 40. 
 
 6 St. John vi. 54. • St. John vi. 35, 48. 
 
122 
 
 The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Seem. 
 
 it ceases to live when it no longer grows. We speak of a 
 vital fluid which circulates through the plant ; but what 
 do we mean by calling a fluid vital ? Within each plant 
 there is some mysterious property or power, the nature of 
 which is as entirely beyond our capacities for investigation 
 as is the life of an archangel, but the reality of which is at 
 the same time strictly a matter of observation. 
 
 In the animal the presence of life is more manifest. 
 The animal also grows ; it grows until it has attained the 
 normal proportions of its kind; it grows to repair the 
 waste of nature. But in the animal movement is not 
 generally identified with growth ; if we except zoophytes 
 on the very confines of the vegetable world, the animal 
 moves with unchecked freedom from place to place. The 
 animal has, moreover, an immaterial sphere of its life ; its 
 senses, instincts, feelings, are constantly developing, con- 
 stantly playing upon external nature with free, varied, 
 subtle, unceasing movement ; and thus, in a far higher sense 
 of the word than can be said of the tree, it lives. 
 
 Nor is it otherwise with the natural intellect of man. 
 It, too, grows, even in the. most uneducated ; it grows as a 
 condition of its existence. If it be not growing, it will be 
 shrivelling and withering away ; with it, too, not to make 
 progress is to fall back. And it grows by movement ; by 
 reiterated exercise ; by examining again and again the 
 sources of its knowledge ; by testing the processes whereby 
 it reaches its conclusions ; by cross-questioning the teachers 
 who have led it on to its existing attainments ; by analyzing 
 the ideas which illuminate or control its efforts ; by actively 
 welcoming all real additions to its existing possessions. In 
 a word, its movement is its life ; the mind which stagnates 
 is on the w x ay to ruin. In order to hold its own against 
 the numbing influences of animal habit, of social routine, 
 of material pressure from without, of softness and indolence 
 from within, the mind must be constantly rousing itself tc 
 
VII.] the Athanasian Creed. 123 
 
 exertion, like a traveller who is overtaken by night upon 
 the ice, and who knows that although the temptation to 
 sleep is almost overpowering, his safety altogether depends 
 upon his being able to resist it. And this is intellectual 
 life. It is at once growth and movement, whatever be the 
 level of its attainment, whatever the subject-matter upon 
 which it is exercised. Such a life it is ever a main 
 business of an University — with all its apparatus of 
 libraries and teachers, with all its inspiring traditions and 
 associations, with its many separate departments of earnest 
 study, with its many broad and deep currents of conflicting 
 speculation and opinion — to excite and to sustain, if it may 
 be, in every single student who finds a home within its walls. 
 
 But beyond the life of the understanding there is a still 
 higher kind of life. It is that through which man enters 
 into communion with a spiritual world ; it is the life which 
 belongs to man as a personal spirit, recognising his own awful 
 immortality, and recognising the existence of his God. It 
 is true that natural thought and feeling may and must be 
 exercised upon these tremendous subjects. But spiritual 
 life is a distinct thing from active intelligence. And it is 
 a higher thing. Spiritual thought can see farther and more 
 clearly than can natural thought: spiritual feeling is 
 purified from the selfish alloy which mingles with natural 
 feeling. 1 And the fruits of the Spirit are such as do not 
 come to us as natural men, they are " love, joy, peace, 
 long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
 ance." 2 
 
 In this, the highest sphere of life, it is not less true than 
 elsewhere that life is known to exist by growth and by 
 movement . What in itself it is we know not. " The wind 
 
 I bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, 
 but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so 
 
 1 is every one that is born of the Spirit." 3 Most assuredly 
 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. 2 Gal. v. 22. 8 St. John iii. 8. 
 
The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 " the peace of God which passeth all understanding," and 
 which is its choicest gift, is not spiritual stagnation. It is 
 indeed a repose of conscience which ensues, when all the 
 faculties of the soul are felt to centre upon their true and 
 legitimate Object ; but this repose is like that of the awful 
 beings around the Throne who " rest not day and night, 
 saying, Holy, Holy, Holy." 1 Created life at its highest 
 summits does not really issue in what would be practically 
 death. And the true life of souls here below consists in 
 a continuous growth in the mastery of moral and spiritual 
 truth ; it is perpetual movement onwards and upwards 
 towards the Perfect Being Who is so altogether beyond 
 us. We are to " grow up into Him in all things, Who 
 is the Head, even Christ," 2 and " when Christ, Who is our 
 life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in 
 glory." 3 
 
 Certainly this life is ever moving and growing in those 
 who possess it ; but when, it may be asked, does a man 
 who lives it feel that he lives it ? In a certain sense, it 
 must be answered, always. At the bottom of his thought 
 and feeling about himself, there is the habitual, unsuspended 
 consciousness that he is a personal spirit, whose real home 
 is not within this world of sense, since he lives face to face 
 with the Eternal God. Every good action, undertaken for 
 the sake of God and without any lower selfish aim, is 
 immediately rewarded by a new pulse of spiritual vigour ; and 
 it is felt in the quickened consciousness of spiritual immor- 
 tality. But it is in prayer that this consciousness is roused 
 into its greatest activity. Prayer is the act by which man, 
 detaching himself from the embarrassments of sense and 
 nature, ascends to the true level of his destiny. In prayer 
 man puts aside the lower forms of life which belong to his 
 complex existence, his vegetative, his animal, even his 
 intellectual life ; as a spirit, he seeks the Father of Spirits ; 
 
 1 Rev. iv. 8. 2 Epb. iv. 15. 3 Col. iiL 4. 
 
VI I.J the Athanasian Creed. 125 
 
 and he reflects back upon his bodily form, upon his social 
 relations, upon his place and work in the world of sense, 
 something of the lustre of a purely supersensuous being 
 who already knows by insight that the " things which are 
 seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
 eternal." 1 
 
 How is this life secured ? Xot, it must be answered, 
 by any force latent in human nature. There is enough in 
 us to show that we were destined for such a life ; enough 
 to prompt the aspirations which, in the noblest members 
 of our race, have struggled again and again to compass it. 
 It has been sought, — it has not been reached, — by the 
 quick intelligence of Greece, which failed to understand 
 its moral and purifying power, and by the seductive mys- 
 ticisms of India, too dreamy to seize its practical force. 
 If we seek for it, where it is really to be found, in the 
 Sacred Books and history of Christendom ; if we study its 
 code of action in the Sermon on the Mount, or its deepest 
 ' and highest consciousness, as in our Lord's Last Discourse ; 
 or its practical results upon vigorous natural characters, in 
 such a career as was St. Paul's ; or its many-sided relations 
 to thought and to society in the Apostolic Epistles ; we 
 must admit that it is in itself something beyond nature — 
 beyond the scope of natural genius to have sketched in 
 outline, or of natural effort to attain in practice. 
 
 And there is a reason for this. If man looks within 
 himself he must perceive two things ; a law of right, and 
 that which it condemns. The law of natural conscience, 
 illuminated, it may be, in a greater or less degree by Divine 
 Revelation, and constantly confronted by moral evil, whether 
 coarse and revolting, or subtle, refined, spiritual: — this 
 inward anomaly explains to us why, of ourselves, we cannot, 
 in the highest sense of the word, live. We read within 
 ourselves a sentence of death; we have light enough to 
 
 1 2 Cor. iv. 18. 
 
The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 know, if we will, what manner of beings we are ; — that is 
 all. For moral evil is weakness, numbness, death : it is 
 in varying degrees, darkness in the understanding ; it is 
 coldness in the affections ; above all, it is enfeeblement 
 and warping of the will; it paralyzes the faculty upon 
 which the destiny of the soul mainly depends. If man is 
 to be helped out of such evil ; cleansed from its traces in 
 the past, invigorated so as to resist it for the future ; if he 
 is to rise to a life which cannot but be its antagonist and 
 its cure ; he must seek the feet of One Who, of His 1 free 
 love and bounty, is ever willing to " take up the simple 
 out of the dust, and lift the poor out of the mire, that He 
 may set him with the princes, even with the princes of 
 His people." 1 
 
 Yes, — "he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
 life." One has in very deed appeared in human history, 
 Who could promise and bestow this life of eternity which 
 begins in time, this highest life of which man is capable. A 
 Galilean peasant, as He seemed, He left an impression, 
 He gave an impulse, from which — it is a simple matter of 
 historical fact — the human soul dates a new era in its 
 history. From the first, He was felt to be a new and 
 unique force in humanity ; to say this is to say the least 
 that a bystander could say about His work. But when 
 He died in pain and shame, His death w T as declared and 
 known to have a purifying and sacrificial power, and to re- 
 establish a lost relationship between earth and heaven. 
 The days have passed when a sterile criticism could attempt 
 to represent St. Paul as the real author of Christianity; the 
 Apostle's indignant question to the Corinthian sectarians, 
 " Was Paul crucified for you ? " was a sufficient answer. 2 St. 
 Paul himself knew, as each who shares his faith knows, 
 that " the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the 
 faith of the Son of Gocl, Who loved me and gave Himself 
 
 1 Ps. cxiii. 6, 7. 2 1 Cor. i. 13. 
 
VII.] the Athanasian Creed. 127 
 
 for me." 1 For this life, this truly soul-transforming impulse, 
 this immense moral encouragement and relief, this sense of 
 reanimated freedom, and hope, and power, did not die away 
 with a single generation. It lived on still when Apostles 
 had left the earth. It lived on in its first freshness, because 
 it was in reality the widening personal influence of an 
 ever-present Master ; because He Who was its Source and 
 Author had not really gone. It lived to attract and enlist 
 in His service minds of great originality and power; it 
 lived to robe the young, the weak, the timid, the very poor, 
 with the high moral dignity of confessorship and martyrdom; 
 it breathed a new spirit into art and literature, and social 
 intercourse, and, though after long delay, into the very 
 structure of society ; it changed the character and habits 
 of entire classes, populations, races ; and finally, if it did 
 not destroy the great pagan empire, which would fain 
 have strangled it in its birth, it at least followed hard on 
 the steps of the real destroyers, to create a new and healthier 
 civilization which mic;ht fill the void. 
 
 Nor is this force spent in our own day. Whatever may 
 be the discouragements of the modern Church; however 
 Israel may seem at times to be finally falling back before 
 the hosts of Syria; grievous as are the divisions, the cor- 
 ruptions, the many inevitable sorrows of a perplexed and 
 enfeebled Christendom; still "he that believeth on the 
 Son hath everlasting life." It is a matter of experience. 
 Again and again, thank God, we see men, like the noble 
 Prelate who has recently been taken from us in South 
 Africa, 2 in whom everything natural is sensibly elevated 
 by some unearthly force ; men, of whom, if we knew nothing 
 more, we should know that they had felt the present 
 power of something higher than a beautiful literature, or 
 a great memory ; that some invisible Friend must have 
 
 1 Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 2 The Most Rev. "Robert Gray, Lord Bishop of Cape Town. 
 
128 The Life of Faith and [Serm. 
 
 looked upon them with favour, and changed them from 
 their old selves and made them what they are. 
 
 II. 
 
 Some may ask, if not in words, yet in their secret 
 hearts, Why cannot the text stop here ? Why is it not 
 enough to proclaim the blessedness of those who possess 
 life in possessing Christ ? Why should anything be added 
 as to the loss of those who do not possess Him ? Why is 
 it also said, " He that hath not the Son shall not see life," 
 and still more, that " the wrath of God abideth on him " ? 
 
 This question would be more difficult to answer, if 
 Christianity were only a philosophy, and of human growth. 
 The business of a philosophy is to say what it can in order 
 to recommend itself; to fight its way, if possible, by 
 reason and argument, to intellectual empire ; to show that 
 the systems of thought which oppose it are without 
 foundation, or at least that they rest upon considerations 
 of inferior weight to those which it can produce on its 
 own behalf. A philosophy is, however, always more or 
 less a guess at truth ; it' is a happy speculation, on great 
 topics if you will, but still a speculation ; and as such it 
 is, and knows itself to be, in some degree provisional and 
 tentative. If it were to announce that serious consequences 
 would follow upon its being rejected, it would be guilty of 
 an immodesty, which the reason and conscience of its 
 most attached disciples would forthwith condemn. 
 
 Doubtless Christianity may throw itself into a philo- 
 sophical form for missionary purposes ; it may descend into 
 the lists, and borrow the language of its adversaries, as it did 
 so well at Alexandria in the second and third centuries ; as 
 it has done since, in more places and at more times than 
 one. But although Christianity may be presented as the 
 highest philosophy, it is also much more : it is nothing, if 
 
VI L] the Athanasia7i Creed. 
 
 129 
 
 it is not much more; if it is not in very truth a Eevelation. 
 In the last resort it claims to have come, not from man, 
 hut from God ; and when addressing itself to man it has a 
 corresponding character of imperative urgency. Further, 
 its object is not merely or chiefly to enlighten man's 
 understanding by the offer of a new and attractive and 
 well-attested theory of destiny, but to change, purify, 
 elevate, his entire being by the infusion of a new principle 
 of life. And if man rejects it, he rejects not merely so 
 much information upon the highest topics, but conditions 
 of moral and spiritual renovation, which are not, as it 
 maintains, to be found elsewhere. In the language of the 
 first Christians, " Xeither is there salvation in any other ; 
 for there is none other Xanie under heaven given among 
 men whereby we must be saved." 1 
 
 Indeed all knowledge that is based on fact, all assertion 
 of truth that is positive, and not merely hypothetical or 
 speculative, must insist upon the mischief of neglecting 
 or rejecting it with an earnestness corresponding to the 
 dignity of its subject-matter. This law does not merely 
 hold good of spiritual truth. Do teachers of physics admit 
 that the ascertained laws of nature — of health for example 
 — can be neglected with impunity ? Do economists allow 
 that the ascertained laws of production, of population, of 
 supply and demand, can be ignored without social and 
 political mischief ? Not to insist upon a truism ; is it not, 
 I ask, of the very nature of truth that its acceptance is 
 compulsory in a degree proportioned to its importance ; so 
 that acceptance of the highest truth is therefore in the 
 highest degree compulsory ? There may be truths so 
 insignificant in their bearings upon thought and life, that it 
 is hard to say what does depend upon our accepting them 
 beyond the moral strength which inevitably accompanies 
 all recognition of fact in all directions. But no spiritual 
 
 1 Acts iv. 12. 
 I 
 
130 
 
 The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 truth, if it be truth, is of this order ; even although we 
 may be ourselves unable to trace the importance of a 
 particular truth, or to receive it for the time being, except 
 upon authority. 
 
 Every Theist must admit this respecting the first and 
 greatest of all truths. If, of course, a man regards God as 
 only an hypothesis by which to account for the existence 
 of the visible universe, no harm will, in his opinion, happen 
 upon denying God's existence, beyond the intellectual 
 embarrassment of suggesting any reasonable counter- 
 hypothesis to take His place. But if it be known to be 
 a fact that there does exist One Being, the Parent of all 
 besides, the Euler of all besides, before Whom all besides 
 are as less than nothing, yet to Whom all and each are 
 objects of the deepest, tenderest love; it cannot be possible to 
 reject this fact as you would reject an hypothesis, or indeed, 
 without loss — certain, awful, immeasurable. Loss to the 
 intellect, but still more to the affections and the will ; loss 
 here, presaging only too clearly, in the case of an immortal 
 being, loss hereafter. To insist upon this would be beside 
 my present purpose, anql unnecessary, it might be hoped, 
 under any circumstances, within these walls ; but especially 
 when an essay of great power and beauty on " the Moral 
 Significance of Atheism " has been recently in the hands 
 of many of us, and will have suggested to those who have 
 read it all that a preacher could wish to say. 1 
 
 And as with Theistic, so with Christian truth. If Chrisl 
 be indeed the Son of God, through and in Whom th( 
 Perfect Moral Being has spoken to His creatures — to rejec 
 Him is to reject God. " He that hateth Me hateth M; 
 Father also." 2 If to believe Him is life, to have know] 
 and yet to reject Him is death. There is no middle terr 
 or state between the two. And this rejection of the So 
 
 1 Cf. Essays, Theological and Literary, by R. H. Hutton, M.A., vc 
 i., essay I. 2 St. John xv. 23. 
 
VII.] 
 
 the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 incurs the wrath of the Father, Whose linage and Counter- 
 part He is ; so that God's righteous displeasure with a 
 rebel against His authority rests upon the rejecter ; " the 
 wrath of God abideth on him." The man enters of his 
 free will into a state of moral being which is uncheered by 
 the smile of God, and which, after death, is fixed and 
 irretrievable. The Absolute Religion can claim no less 
 than this; it cannot dare to represent its acceptance as 
 other than a strict moral necessity for those to whom it 
 is offered. In fact, this stern, yet truthful and merciful 
 claim, makes all the difference between a Faith and a 
 theory. 
 
 III. 
 
 A statement of this truth in other terms is at pre- 
 sent occasioning a painful controversy, which it would 
 be better in this place to pass over in silence, if too much 
 was not at stake to warrant a course from which I shall 
 only depart with sincere reluctance. 
 
 Need I say that I allude to the vexed question of the 
 Athanasian Creed ? Certain clauses of that document are 
 so unwelcome in some quarters, and all of it in others, that 
 men have gravely proposed either to omit large portions of 
 ; it, or to banish it altogether from the service of the Church. 
 The good taste of scholars, and a fitting sense of the 
 immodesty and grotesqueness of any pretension on the 
 part of a merely National Church to alter the terms of a 
 document of world-wide authority, will probably save the 
 Athanasian Creed from the various current schemes for 
 mutilating it. But the proposal to expel the Creed from 
 its place in our public worship may even yet, unhappily, 
 receive much consideration and support ; nay, its eventual 
 success is far too possible to be safely disregarded. 1 
 
 1 Since this sermon was preached, the author's fears have been, alas ! too 
 accurately justified in Ireland. 
 
132 . The Life of Faith and [Serm. 
 
 Here let me endeavour to anticipate an objection which 
 will occur to many who may have accompanied me thus 
 far without difficulty, but who feel that at this point 
 they must take up an attitude of criticism, if not of 
 opposition. 
 
 " We admit," you say, " that to reject Christ wilfully 
 is to forfeit everlasting life. We do not shrink from 
 the awful words of Apostles and Evangelists about the 
 obligations of faith. But then it appears to us that the 
 faith which is required in Scripture is faith in a Person, 
 and not faith in a series of dogmatic assertions. We can 
 understand that to refuse to put faith in our Lord's Person 
 may incur even eternal loss ; but it is a very different 
 matter to attribute this consequence to the rejection of 
 certain abstract propositions such as are those of the Athan- 
 asian Creed." 
 
 Here, then, let me join issue by asking, What is meant 
 by faith in a person ? You reply that faith in a person 
 is an instinct rather than a judgment; that it is an act 
 of the heart rather than of the intellect, or at most a 
 combined act of heart and understanding moving together. 
 Very well : you do not then mean to say that faith in a 
 person is altogether irrational ; you mean that it depends 
 upon reasons which can be produced, if need be, but which 
 the heart would rather keep in the background, if only 
 from the natural disinclination to discuss that which we love. 
 This, indeed, is the case with our trust in the relatives and 
 friends of early life. Few men have drawn out into i 
 formal theory their deepest grounds of confidence in a fathe 1 
 or in an elder brother, or in a very wise and revered adviser 
 to do this would be like exposing to the rays of the sm 
 the roots of a very tender plant. Still the time may com 
 when you will have to do this at all costs. If, for instance 
 you are told that the object of your trust is not what h 
 appears to be ; that he is insincere, or selfish, or other wis 
 
VII.] the A thanasian Creed. 
 
 133 
 
 unworthy of the confidence which you place in him, from 
 that moment forth you are obliged to consider why it is 
 that you trust him, and whether it is reasonable to con- 
 tinue to do so. You have no choice about it. From that 
 moment forth, if your trust survives the early shock of 
 hostile controversy, it necessarily assumes the form of 
 deliberate assent to a proposition or to a series of 
 propositions ; it becomes, whether you will or not, some- 
 thing like a formal creed. It takes the shape of assent 
 to the propositions that your friend is sincere ; that he is 
 unselfish; that he is all which it was suggested he was 
 not ; that he is, in short, worthy of the confidence you 
 have placed in him ; and this personal or domestic creed 
 of your heart has its warning, yes, if it must be so, its 
 damnatory clauses behind; it affirms that to deny your 
 friend's sincerity or unselfishness is to forfeit all the hap- 
 piness that this precious trust in his character implies. 
 Some who are here may possibly have known the agony of 
 moments when faith in an old friend has been assailed by 
 some insinuation or controversy ; and when the instincts 
 of love and loyalty have had to throw themselves into a 
 harsh logical form, if the heart was not to be left in the 
 outer darkness of a lifelong disappointment. 
 
 Thus, if we may compare small things with great, it has 
 fared with the faith of Christendom in Him Who is the 
 adored Master of every truly Christian soul. At first 
 faith in Him was an instinctive trust ; it was the trust of the 
 weak, the sickly, the poor, the wandering, the bewildered, 
 in One towards "Whom they were drawn as if fascinated by 
 some power which they did not analyze, yet could not but 
 obey. So it was doubtless with the men and women who 
 sought His blessed feet and huns upon His words in the 
 villages and lanes of Galilee. He was surrounded from the 
 first by the deep fervid homage of human hearts. But even 
 within the Apostolic age the grounds of this homage were 
 
134 The Life of Faith and [Serm. 
 
 challenged. Was He indeed what He claimed to be; was He 
 the Teacher, King, and Judge of men ? Was He what His 
 followers said of Him ? Was He not in reality much less 
 than this, if not, indeed, as the Jews alleged, something 
 utterly different ? These questions could not be declined; 
 and an Apostle insists upon the necessity of " giving a 
 reason " for the hope with which Christians had been 
 endowed by Christ. 1 The Christian heart might still 
 pour out its ceaseless tide of adoration and trust; but 
 the Christian intellect must the while be able formally 
 to proclaim why the Object of that homage was rightfully 
 entitled to it. Faith in Jesus Christ had already passed from 
 the region of pure moral instincts into the atmosphere of 
 dialectics. The transition, however unwelcome, was, from 
 the nature of the case, inevitable ; but the logical form 
 which was thus given to the tenderest spiritual judgments 
 of the earliest Christendom did not really forfeit their inner 
 character. 
 
 For it was asked whether Jesus Christ was really 
 justified in using the language which He did use ' about 
 Himself. Was He really able to fulfil the promises which 
 He made so profusely, and which His Apostles made in 
 His Name and with His authority ? Who was He then, in 
 His deepest personality, that He should speak sometimes 
 as if He were Monarch of two worlds : sometimes as if His 
 aims and interests were strictly identical with those of 
 God ; sometimes as if His human countenance and form 
 was but a veil of a Being Who did not really belong to 
 the sphere of sense and mortality and time ? If men were 
 to cling to His pierced hands, protesting that they could 
 trust Him not merely in life, but in death — not merely for 
 time, but in eternity ; what was the justifiable basis and 
 explanation of this unique and altogether extraordinary 
 trust ? It was a vital question ; which, having been once 
 
 1 I St. Pet. iii. 15. 
 
VII. 
 
 the Atkanasian Creed. 
 
 135 
 
 raised, could not be evaded, at least if Christianity was to 
 live. 
 
 Not to dwell here upon the answer to this question 
 which we find in the Apostolic writings, let us observe 
 that, in the three Creeds which the Church proposes for 
 our acceptance, we see three sections of that answer thrown 
 into the forms which it has assumed for all time. 
 
 The " Three Creeds " 1 are not a fortuitous collection of 
 dogmatic formularies. They represent — not indeed the 
 successive inventions or speculations of an accretive 
 doctrinal development, but — three answers to the three 
 stages of the great question which is proposed to every 
 ' Christian thinker. And they meet this question which 
 could not but be asked with replies which had been from 
 the first included in the teaching of the Apostles. 
 
 When it is inquired, "Why Jesus can save us to the 
 uttermost from our most formidable enemies, in life and in 
 death ; why He can give us, now and hereafter, everlasting 
 life ? " the Apostles' Creed replies that He is the " Only 
 Son " of " God the Father Almighty." To the natural 
 rejoinder, " What do you exactly mean by the ' Only Son 
 of God the Father Almighty;' is He some unique and 
 extraordinary man, or is He altogether above the level of 
 humanity ? " — the Mcene Creed answers that He is " God 
 of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, of one 
 substance with the Father, Begotten not made." To the 
 further and not less inevitable question, How do you 
 propose to reconcile this very serious assertion either 
 with the truth of the Divine Unity or with the Gospel 
 record of a truly Human Life ? the Athanasian Creed, 
 
 1 Art. viii. To refer to the ' ' Quicunque " as a Psalm may be only a 
 pedantic crotchet. But if it is intended to imply that as a Psalm 
 the Quicunque is not properly a Creed, this is to contradict the formal 
 language of the Church of England both in the Articles and the Prayer 
 Book. 
 
136 
 
 The Life of Faith and [Serm. 
 
 and it alone, furnishes a full and elaborate reply. " The 
 Catholic Faith is this: that we worship One God in 
 Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity." Tor associated with 
 the Son and the Father in the unity of an undivided 
 substance, is that Divine and Glorious Person, Who in 
 the mystery of the Divine Existence is their eternal 
 bond, — the Ever-Blessed Spirit. And " such as the Father 
 is, such is the Son ; and such is the Holy Ghost : " Each 
 uncreated, Each illimitable, Each eternal, Each almighty, 
 Each Lord and God : while the Son is not only " Perfect 
 God, but also and as truly Perfect Man, of a reasonable 
 soul and human flesh subsisting ; equal to the Father as 
 touching His Godhead ; but inferior to the Father as touch- 
 ing His Manhood ; Who, although He be God and Man, 
 yet is not two, but one Christ." And, we may not shrink 
 from the conclusion, that to deny the doctrine thus stated, is 
 to give up the very warrant and basis of our trust in Him. 
 The several propositions of the Creed, looked at separately, 
 may wear the appearance of "hard, abstract, unfruitful 
 dogma ; " in combination with the rest, each statement is 
 seen to be an indispensable part of a living and integral 
 body of truth, whereby the two terms of our faith, the 
 perfectness of our Lord's human character, regarded in the 
 light of His self-assertion, and the Unity of the Godhead, are 
 brought into fundamental harmony. It is the trustworthi- 
 ness of Jesus which is the master-truth asserted by the 
 Athanasian Creed. In the last analysis it will be found 
 impossible to justify the promises which He held out to 
 the human race, and the language which His Apostles used 
 about Him, except upon such grounds as those which are 
 taken by the Creed. Men may wish that it were otherwise; 
 but we can no more reverse the underlying laws or the 
 providential conditions of religious truth, than we can 
 change the past course of history. To discard the Creed 
 and imagine that we can go back intellectually to day* 
 
VIL] 
 
 the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 137 
 
 when the questions which are here answered had not yet 
 "been asked, may suggest the proceedings of a statesman 
 who should wish to reorganize English society upon the 
 legislative basis of the Heptarchy. For these questions 
 thus authoritatively decided in this Creed, will be asked by 
 the restless mind of man even to the end of time ; and the 
 answer which is before us is that of the Church of Christ, 
 reasserting, in new terms, the original meaning of the faith 
 which she guards, and in the spirit of a true charity for 
 souls, bidding us receive these her explanations as surely 
 involved in that act of perfect trust in the Son of God, 
 which is the earnest of true spiritual life. 
 
 The disuse of the Athanasian Creed has been re- 
 commended by reference to the case of the State Services, 1 
 which were abandoned a few years ago. Such a parallel 
 i would almost seem to imply a dulness or a levity un- 
 worthy of the subject. 
 
 Doubtless, as involving an acknowledgment of God's 
 governing Hand in our national life and history, these 
 Services had a religious value ; and in the century which 
 created them they may well have been justified, if not in 
 all their expressions, yet at least in their general drift, by 
 crimes and dangers which are happily remote from our- 
 selves. But there was much to be said against perpetuating 
 in our sanctuaries the echo of political passions which 
 belonged to Another, and in civil matters, a less favoured 
 age. And the Services in question, originally deficient in 
 ecclesiastical sanction, disappeared from among us, without 
 any action on the part of the Church, without any general 
 protest against their disappearance, and with some confessed 
 sense of relief. It does not follow that because such a litur- 
 gical representation of a particular view of portions of our 
 national history could be disused without grave offence, it 
 would be easy to discard or to mutilate one of these solemn 
 
 1 For Nov. 5, Jan. 30, and May 29. 
 
138 
 
 The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 documents in which, using not merely the language of our 
 own Communion, but language adopted by the Church of 
 Christ at large, we tell out before God and man the revealed 
 facts of God's inner Being, and the Incarnation and Work 
 of our Divine Eedeemer. To presume this was surely to 
 mistake the relative importance of the matters in question, 
 and the mistake is as inconsistent with statesmanlike 
 insight into existing convictions as it is unintelligible in 
 the judgment of serious faith. 
 
 For on the very face of the matter, to disuse or to 
 mutilate the Athanasian Creed involves the first great 
 step in a theological revolution. It involves the public 
 abandonment of a position with relation to the claims of 
 Christian truth which the Church of England deliberately 
 accepted at the Eeformation, and which, by the mouth of 
 her best and wisest, she has ever since maintained. The 
 use of this Creed in our Services cannot be described as a 
 foreign element which survives the wreck of a discarded 
 system through having in some way escaped the jealous eye 
 of liturgical reformers. The Quicunque w^as indeed trans- 
 ferred from the Latin Breviary, as were the Apostles' Creed, 
 the Te Deum, or the Benedicite. But one of the most 
 deliberate acts of the leaders of the Eeformation, when 
 editing the Prayer Book of 1 5 52, 1 was to double the number 
 of days on which this Creed was to be used; and this 
 measure is probably attributable to Cranmer's apprehensions 
 of the Arian opinions which had made themselves felt in 
 England, not long after the publication of the earlier Book 
 in 1549. Within the sixteenth century, the use of the 
 Creed is defended by Hooker against Cartwright, on the 
 
 1 In the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. (1549) the Creed is ordered to 
 be said on the Feasts of Christmas, the Epiphany, Easter, the Ascension, 
 Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday. In the Second Prayer Book (1552) the 
 following days were added : St. Matthias, St. John Baptist, St. James, 
 St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon and St. Jude, St. Andrew. 
 These thirteen days were retained in 1559, 1604, and 1662. 
 
VII.] 
 
 the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 139 
 
 practical ground of existing experience. Hooker, having 
 in his mind the then recent histories of foreign Eeformed 
 bodies, Zwinglian, Calvinistic, Moravian, Bohemian, Polish, 
 and the acts and words of Socinus, of Gentilis, of Francis 
 David, of Blandrata, — writes that "the blasphemies of 
 Arians, Samosatenians, Tritheites, Eutychians, and Mace- 
 donians (he is quoting in part the very admissions of Beza 
 himself), are renewed by them who, to hatch their heresy, 
 have chosen those Churches as fittest nests where Athan- 
 asius' Creed is not heard." 1 The murmurs of the early 
 objectors died away; and the Creed has maintained its 
 position through successive periods of change. It survived 
 the Hampton Court conference, the Savoy revision, and 
 the abortive Commission of 1689. It outlived the 
 hostility of popular latitudinarianism as represented by 
 Tillotson, and the acute philosophical Arianism of Dr. 
 Samuel Clarke, of Westminster, and the frank and coarse 
 scorn of Priestley. Is it left for this generation to surrender 
 what our forefathers have preserved to us at the cost of so 
 much effort, often of so much obloquy ? Are the labours 
 and judgment of Hooker and of Waterland to be set aside 
 at last, and in the interest of theories which until the 
 present day have never found a home within the Church 
 of Christ ? Is it now at length certain that our future 
 happiness does not depend upon our rightly believing 
 the central truths of the Christian faith ? or has the Church 
 failed to define those truths accurately in the language of 
 the Quicunque vult ? 
 
 Let it not be thought that the disuse or mutilation of a 
 Creed is any mere question of literary, or professional, or 
 antiquarian feeling. What would be the practical effect 
 of such disuse upon the people ? Theologians might remark 
 that the Creed was still preserved among the Thirty-nine 
 Articles ; but the question would be asked again and again, 
 
 1 E. P. v. xlii. p. 188. 
 
140 
 
 The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 "Why was it deposed from its old position ? If the answer 
 should be that the Creed was liable to being misunderstood, 
 it would be rejoined that the 109th Psalm, in the popular 
 use of which the risks of grave misunderstanding are at least 
 greater, was still used by the Church twelve times a year. 
 If it were argued that the Athanasian Creed required too 
 much explanation, it would be asked in turn whether the 
 Collects, the Prefaces in the Communion Service, nay, the 
 other Creeds, suggested no serious questions which needed 
 explanation. If it were pleaded that the origin of this Creed 
 was obscure, or of a comparatively late age, or that it was 
 not really written by the great Father whose name it bears, 
 it might be urged with greater reason that the origin and 
 composition of the Apostles' Creed is not less obscure, its 
 growth even more gradual, its title to the name which we 
 give it more difficult of strict justification. If the argu- 
 ment should be advanced that no (Ecumenical Council had 
 sanctioned this Creed, or that its place in the Services of 
 the Eastern Church is doubtful or insignificant, 1 it could 
 be replied that the Apostles' Creed, too, could point to no 
 formal oecumenical decision in its favour ; and that it also 
 is unrecognised in the public prayers of the Oriental Church. 
 
 The broad common sense of the people would argue that 
 the Creed was discarded because it was imagined to be 
 wholly or partly untrue ; untrue enough, it would he 
 observed, to be discredited as a formulary for general use, 
 although not sufficiently untrue to be unfitted for solemn 
 clerical subscription. The fact would remain patent to all 
 men that, after using this Creed for the last three centuries 
 on all the greatest festivals of the Christian year, the 
 English Church had deliberately abandoned it; and the 
 friends and foes of faith would alike draw their own 
 
 1 The Athanasian Creed is found in Eastern Service-Books. Cf. Vpo\6- 
 yiov, p. 495, ed. Venice, 1868. After rb Hvevfia to ay iov dirb tov Jlarpbs, 
 the Western clause referring to the Son is omitted. 
 
VI L] the Athanasian Creed, 
 
 conclusions as to the meaning of such a step. 1 It would be 
 inferred that the Church of England no longer held belief 
 in the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and of our Lord's Incar- 
 nation, as taught by the Church Universal, to be necessary 
 to salvation ; and that she admitted herself to have erred 
 in affirming this necessity since the Eeformation, not less 
 than before it. 
 
 But the Creed would be really rejected because it is too 
 faithful an echo of that Gospel which men do not venture 
 openly to reject. " This is life eternal, that they may 
 know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom 
 Thou hast sent." 2 Eternal life consists in a practical know- 
 ledge of God the Holy Trinity, and of Jesus, God and Man. 
 And thus " he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
 life, but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but 
 the wrath of God abideth on him." Nothing can be urged 
 against the principle of the warning clauses which is not 
 equally applicable to the principle of such a passage as 
 this. The Bible and the Creed alike imply the moral 
 character of faith, the connection which exists between 
 right belief and moral wellbeing, the consequences which 
 must follow upon the rejection of known truth from per- 
 versity of will. But does Holy Scripture, or do the warning 
 clauses of the Creed condemn those who have never heard 
 of the faith ? Certainly not : the Church, like the Apostle, 
 cannot " judge them that are without." 3 Do these clauses or 
 does that text condemn those who have had to contend with 
 difficulties which God knows to have been insurmount- 
 able, but who have sincerely sought the truth which the 
 Creed in its integrity asserts ? Again, I say, surely not. 
 " Nemo tenetur ad impossibile " is a first maxim of natural 
 morals. The violent interpretation which would press 
 
 1 The congratulations which were addressed by the Socinians of Belfast 
 to the revisers of the Irish Prayer Book had a painful significance. 
 
 2 >St, John xvii. 3. 3 j Q 0Tt v l2 
 
142 
 
 The Life of Faith and 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 these general statements so literally as to admit of no limi- 
 tations would be no less fatal to the general assertions of 
 Holy Scripture, or indeed of any treatise on morals and 
 conduct. No human judgment can safely rule the fearful 
 question, to what individuals these clauses do apply ? He 
 only knows Who sees us as we are. But we are not justi- 
 fied in silencing the proclamation of a great law of the 
 kingdom of souls, for the reason that, except in our own 
 case, we cannot accurately determine the range of its 
 application. 
 
 " Surely," it may once more be said, " the Life of which 
 the text speaks as being possessed by the believer in the 
 Eternal Son, is much more than a correct logical appre- 
 hension of His place in the scale of being." God forbid 
 that I should for one moment deny it. Undoubtedly, truth 
 is apprehended vitally, if at all, by the spiritual eye ; it is 
 embraced, if to any real purpose, with the energy of the 
 moral nature. With the heart, now as of old, man believeth 
 unto righteousness; 1 now as of old, a living faith means 
 much more than an intellectual assent, however perfect, 
 to a Creed, however true. But the intellect also has its 
 office towards religious truth ; it contributes an important 
 element in the complex act of faith ; and the right dis- 
 charge of this office is itself moral; it is a most serious 
 department of Christian duty ; it is a work incumbent on 
 us in exact proportion to the gifts of knowledge and 
 thought which we have severally received. 
 
 The controversies of our day may do us lasting harm, 
 if they lead us to adhere to our own opinions only 
 because they are our own; if they estrange from each 
 other hearts which should, in the holiest of causes, be 
 one, and w r eaken by dividing moral forces, which when 
 
 1 Rom. x. 10, Kaphlq* The word means here, as generally in the New 
 Testament, not merely the seat of affection, but the centre point of the 
 whole inward life. Cf. Delitzsch, Bill. Psych, iv. § 5. 
 
VII.] 
 
 the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 143 
 
 united are none too strong to cope successfully with the 
 energies of evil around us. But if we should have been en- 
 dowed in any degree with the high and rare grace of intrepid 
 loyalty to known truth allied to an unselfish spirit, we, too, 
 may "take up serpents, and if we drink any deadly thing 
 it shall not hurt " us. 1 Xay, more : to be forced back upon 
 the central realities of the truth which we profess ; to learn 
 to know and feel better than ever before what are the con- 
 victions which we dare not surrender at any cost ; to renew 
 the freshness of an early faith, which affirms within us 
 clearly and irresistibly that the one thing worth thinking 
 of, worth living for, if need were, worth dying for, is the 
 unmutilated faith of Jesus Christ our Lord ; — these may 
 ; be the results of inevitable differences, and if they are, 
 they are blessings indeed. In these, as in other ways, 
 God " maketh the wilderness a standing water, and water- 
 springs out of the dry ground." Truth has her sterner 
 responsibilities sooner or later in store for those who have 
 known anything about her ; but they are also the responsi- 
 bilities of a pure and fearless love to God and man, and 
 when honestly met, they are blessed proportionately. 
 
 1 St. Mark xvi. 18. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 CHRIST'S SERVICE AND PUBLIC OPINION. 
 Gal. i. 10. 
 
 If I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ. 
 
 ST. PAUL is noticing a taunt which had been levelled 
 at him by some opponents of his authority in the 
 Galatian churches. They were bent upon making certain 
 Jewish observances obligatory upon Christians. But while 
 engaged in this enterprise they were met by the objection 
 that the Apostle to whom the faithful in Galatia owed so 
 much was altogether opposed to them. St. Paul's oppo- 
 sition could not be ignored ; but then St. Paul was at a 
 distance, and it was thought that the great weight of his 
 judgment might be lessened by a twofold process. His 
 opponents suggested first of all that he was no such true 
 apostle as were the Sacred Twelve: he had not beer 
 taught and sent as they had been, by our Lord Jesu.< 
 Christ Himself. 1 How completely he disposed of thi. 
 objection it is no part of our present business to con 
 sider; 2 but the Galatian teachers had another weapoi 
 in reserve. Whatever St. Paul's authority might bf 
 he was, they contended, a man of such facile an 1 
 
 1 Gal. i. I, II, 12. 2 Gal. i. 12— ii. 19. 
 
Christ's Service and Public Opinion. 145 
 
 plastic temper, that when once he had satisfied himself 
 of the popularity of the new tendency in the Galatian 
 churches, he might be confidently expected to withdraw 
 any serious opposition. His large sympathies would 
 ansure his acquiescence in all that the new teachers had 
 it heart; his popular instincts, they may have hinted, 
 were likely to prove stronger than his attachment to any 
 ^iven religious theory or to any single religious truth. 
 
 Some language of this kind must have found its way 
 icross the sea to the ears of the great missionary during 
 lis three months' visit to Corinth. Had it only touched 
 lis personal credit, he would have left it, we may be sure, 
 mnoticed. He does notice it, because it could not remain 
 .mchallenged without injury to his Master's work. After 
 .he apostolical greeting 1 which opens his letter to the 
 Galatian churches, he has none of the usual congratula- 
 tions, no warm expressions of sympathy and interest for 
 •eaders who have so largely surrendered themselves to an 
 mposing falsehood. He wonders at their swift transfer 
 lo another gospel ; no, it is not another, since there is only 
 me. 2 He glances in anger at the teachers — he will not 
 lame them — who were troubling the principles and faith 
 >f his own spiritual children ; they were men who would 
 ,0 alter the Gospel of Christ as to give it a totally new 
 lirection. 3 But the matter before him is no merely personal 
 :uestion ; it is a question of principle. Though he himself 
 Ir an angel from the skies should preach a gospel contra- 
 cting that which he had preached, let the preacher be 
 nathema, let him be sentenced by God to eternal ruin. 4 
 lis readers might suppose that he was using words which 
 .'ere the result of a momentary irritation and in excess of 
 lis real meaning ; but as he has uttered these words 
 eliberately on some former occasion, he will deliberately 
 jpeat them. "As we have said before, so say I also 
 
 1 Gal. i. 1-5. 2 Gah i# 6> 7> 3 Ga1> 1 7> 4 Gal< 8< 
 
 K 
 
146 Christ 's Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto 
 yon than that ye received at first, let him be anathema." 1 
 Now, at any rate, there could be no room for mistake as 
 to the course he would adopt towards the new teaching in 
 Galatia ; and every reader of his epistle must have known, 
 at least by name, the men whose conduct had incurred 
 this solemn and authoritative condemnation. So for the 
 moment, before pursuing his general subject, the Apostle 
 justifies his severity. He would not have uttered these 
 stern and unsparing sentences if his first object had been 
 popularity among men instead of the approval of God. 
 " Do I now," he asks, " win over to myself men or God ? 
 Or am I seeking to be an object of man's goodwill? No: 
 and there is a decisive reason against any such efforts. 
 If I were still pleasing men, if I had not resigned the hope 
 of human favour and of human approval, I should not be 
 the slave of Christ." 2 
 
 X 
 
 The title which the Apostle thus gives himself, of 
 servant or slave of Christ, is adopted by him, and in a more 
 formal manner, on other occasions. 3 It expresses, we ma) 
 be sure, no mere acquiescence in a current fashion 0 
 Eastern speech; but an aspect of his life and conduc 
 which he desires to keep before himself and others. St 
 Paul belonged to two worlds, the Jewish and the Greek 
 and in this title, as in much else that he says and does, h 
 has both worlds in view. In the language of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures every Israelite is, as such, a servant of th 
 Lord ; 4 and to the collective people, viewed in its separat 
 
 1 Gal. i. 9. 2 Gal. i. 10. 
 
 3 Rom. i. 1. Phil. i. 1. Tit. i. 1. Cf. St. James i. 1. St. Judc 
 2 St. Pet. i. 1. Rev. i. 1. 
 
 4 Ps. lxix. 37 ; cxiii. I ; cxxxiv. I ; cxxxv. I ; cxxxvi. 22, etc. h 
 lxv. 8, 9, 13, 14. 
 
VIII.] Christ's Service and Public Opinion. 1 4 7 
 
 and consecrated life, it is said, " Thou Israel, art My 
 servant. . . . Thou whom I have taken from the ends 
 of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, 
 and said unto thee, Thou art My servant ; I have chosen 
 thee." 1 Besides this general and ethical meaning, the title 
 had a technical, almost an official force. Any man who 
 was marked out from among his fellows as having 
 a special work to do for the Lord and for Israel was 
 regarded as taken into the service of the Invisible King ; 
 in the eyes of his countrymen he was robed in God's livery, 
 by the drift of events, or by the acts and tenor of his life. 
 Legislators such as Moses, soldiers such as Joshua, rulers 
 such as David, or Eliakim, 2 or Zerubbabel, 3 are called in 
 Scripture servants of the Lord; 4 nay, the title is given 
 .to pious men dwelling on the very frontiers of heathen- 
 dom, whose experience teaches the people of Eevelation 
 some much-needed lesson, such as was Job, 5 or even to 
 pagan monarchs, intrusted by Providence with some stern 
 mission to Israel, as was Nebuchadnezzar. 6 In this sense, 
 .00, every member of the order of prophets came in time 
 :o be termed a servant of the Lord ; 7 and the title reached 
 its highest significance when, in the later writings 8 of 
 [saiah, it was used of the King Messiah, Whose future 
 mmiliations and glory there mingle indistinctly with the 
 learer although still distant sufferings and deliverance of 
 he martyr-people in Babylon. 
 
 When, then, St. Peter and St. Jude, writing to Churches 
 mainly or entirely of Jewish origin, style themselves 
 
 1 Isa. xli. 8, 9. 2 Isa. xxii. 20. 3 Hag. ii. 23. 
 
 4 Deut. xxxiv. 5. Josh. i. 1, 13, 15 ; xxiv. 29. Ps. xviii. title ; xxxvi. 
 tie; lxxviii. 70; lxxxix. 3, 20. Jer. xxxiii. 21. 
 
 5 Job i. 8 ; ii. 3 ; xlii. 8. 
 
 6 Jer. xxv. 9 ; xxvii. 6; xliii. 10. 
 
 7 Amos iii. 7. J er . v ii. 25 ; xxv. 4, and often. Dan. ix. 6. Isa, 
 :x. 3. 
 
 3 Isa. xlii. i- 7; xlix. *-9; 1. 4.10; Hi. 13; liii. 11. 
 
148 Christ s Service and Pit b lie Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 servants of Jesus Christ, it is probable that these Apostles 
 understand the title chiefly, if not exclusively, in the 
 traditional and narrower Hebrew sense. But when St. 
 Paul, writing to the Eoman or the Philippian Church, calls 
 himself, or himself and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, 
 it is difficult to suppose that he does not read into the 
 title the meaning which his readers would naturally find 
 there. In these Churches, consisting altogether or pre- 
 dominantly of converts from heathendom, the phrase 
 would rather suggest the ordinary slave of the Graeco- 
 Eoman world than the inspired or distinguished servant 
 of the Hebrew theocracy. That uncounted population of 
 human beings, which worked and suffered in silence, 
 which tilled the fields, which manned the fleets, which 
 constructed the palaces and bridges of the world ; which 
 supplied to those who had property and power their cooks, 
 carpenters, painters, astronomers, doctors, copyists, poets, 
 valets, gladiators, buffoons; which ministered to the re- 
 finement, to the intelligence, to the luxury, to the passions 
 of the wealthy; which by its ceaseless and almost un- 
 noticed waste of unregretted life, satisfied the requirements 
 or helped to fill the coffers of the State ; — the great class 
 of slaves was often the most conspicuous, as it was always 
 the saddest element in the old pagan society. In the view 
 of antiquity the slave was but an " animated instrument ; ' 
 a mere body which chanced to be endowed with certair 
 mental capacities. There was at Athens, says Hesychius, ar 
 enclosure where they sold arKevrj kcli o-w/xara — utensils an( 
 bodies. In the eye of the law the slave was not a person 
 he was classed by the jurists with goods or with animalt 
 He was sold ; he was bequeathed by will ; he was lent to 
 friend ; he was shut up ; and until later ages he was kille- 
 at the discretion of his owner. He had no rights whateve 
 before the law; "servile caput nullum jus habet;" so sai 
 the lawyers. Cato advised an economical householder t 
 
VIII. 
 
 Christ's Service and Public Opinion. 149 
 
 sell off his old cattle and his sick slaves. Pliny speaks of 
 the slaves as a class of men who were habitually desperate. 
 Seneca, writing on the tranquillity of the soul, mournfully 
 reflects that he must avail himself of the services of 
 persons who are miserable and who cannot endure him ; 
 " flentium detestantiuruque ministeriis utendum est." 1 
 And the best word of counsel which the Stoic philosophy 
 could give to inquiring despair was suicide. " Wherever,'' 
 says Seneca, writing to a person about court in a servile 
 and degraded position — " wherever you turn your eyes, you 
 see the possible end of your sufferings. Here is a pre- 
 cipice ; you may descend it to liberty. There is the sea, 
 a river, a well; freedom is at the bottom. Yonder is a 
 tree ; liberty hangs from its branches. Here is your throat 
 or your heart; pierce them and you are free. Are such 
 deaths as these too painful ; do they demand too much of 
 your strength and resolution ? Would you travel towards 
 liberty by an easier path ? Then every vein in your body 
 may open the way to it." 2 
 
 The slave of Jesus Christ ! Yes ; it was in the Greek 
 as well as in the Hebrew sense of the term that St. Paul 
 would describe his relationship to the Divine Redeemer. 
 He was not simply a servant holding an honourable post 
 .n the Kingdom of Heaven, which he might relinquish at 
 pleasure: he was a slave. And in this abandonment of 
 ill human liberty at the feet of Jesus Christ; in this 
 xtter surrender of the right to dispose of his intelligence, 
 )f his affections, of his employment of time and property, of 
 lis movements from place to place, except as his Master 
 night command, St. Paul found the true dignity and the 
 -rue happiness of his being. His sense of justice was 
 satisfied by this as by no other relationship to Jesus 
 Christ. For him our Divine Saviour was not merely a 
 ■inless and incomparable Person, Whom it was a pleasure 
 
 . 1 De Tranquillitate Animi, c. 9. 2 Senec. Cons, ad Marciam, 20. 
 
150 Chris? s Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 and an honour to approach and to obey ; the relations 
 between them were more urgent and exacting. St. 
 Paul was already a moral slave when Jesus Christ found 
 him, subject to the power of sin and death ; and out of 
 this slavery he too had been bought by the ransom paid 
 for all the world upon the Cross of Calvary. Of the three 
 aspects under which the Atonement is presented to us in 
 his epistles, as a propitiation for sin, 1 a reconciliation 
 with God, 2 and a redemption from captivity to evil and 
 to death, 3 it is the last which sinks most deeply into the 
 heart of the Apostle, and which shapes most decisively 
 the features of his life. He belonged to Jesus Christ, 
 not by any original or voluntary act of his own, but be- 
 cause, as he could not but acknowledge, Jesus Christ had 
 paid for him. Jesus had bought him at an incalculable 
 cost out of a slavery which was misery and degradation, 
 into a service which, whatever its outward aspects, he 
 knew to be freedom indeed. As he said to his own 
 children in the faith, "Ye are bought with a price; be- 
 come not the slaves of men;" 4 "Ye are bought with a 
 price, therefore glorify God in your body and in youi 
 spirit, which are God's;" 5 so, for himself, he exultinglj 
 counted the scars which he had received at the hand 
 of pagan persecutors as so many "marks" of the Lor< 
 Jesus which he was privileged to bear in his body 
 just as the slaves in the Eoman workhouses wer 
 branded with a hot iron that there might be no leg; 
 questions about their ownership. 6 Not for all the worl 
 would he have had it otherwise : not for all the libertit 
 that man could conceivably enjoy apart from Chris 
 would he surrender the privilege of complete enslavemei 
 in thought and conduct to This Most Gracious and Be 
 
 1 Rom. iii. 25. 2 2 Cor. v. 19. Rom. v. 10. 
 
 a Gal. iii. 13. 4 1 Cor. vii. 23. 5 1 Cor. vi. 20. 
 
 6 Gal. vi. 17, to. ariyfjiaTa rod Kvpiov 'Irjaov ivr^ aufjLarl /xov fiaaraZu 
 
VIII.] Christ 9 s Service and Public Opinion. 151 
 
 of masters. 1 "The love of Christ constraineth us," he 
 said: "because we thus judge, that if He died for all, 
 then were all dead : and that He died for all, that they 
 which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, 
 but unto Him Which died for them, and rose again." 2 
 
 It 
 
 The dignity of service, like the dignity of labour, is a 
 moral fact which the world is slow to understand. To 
 us of this generation it is obscured or rather banished 
 from sight by an obtrusive counter-ideal ; need I name the 
 supposed dignity of independence or of self-dependence ? 
 Here, as elsewhere, our theories of religious relations have 
 been shaped, and not for the better, by the disturbing 
 influence of political ideas. We have never traced, or we 
 have forgotten, the real origin of our habits of thought; 
 and we ascribe them to Eevelation, much as country- 
 people search their Bibles for oft-quoted texts which 
 have, in reality, quite another and a very homely origin. 
 Doubtless, if we look only to the creatures around and 
 below us, we may for a moment suppose that we are 
 meant not to serve but to command. Compared with 
 them, we cannot but recognise in ourselves the possession 
 of powers which ensure superiority. They may, indeed, 
 excel us in swiftness, in strength, in keenness of ear or of 
 eye, in far-reaching and varied subtlety of instinct ; but 
 there is that in man before which they fall back and 
 quail as before a higher power. Man is a spirit, conscious 
 of its existence, capable of reflecting on it, of measuring it, 
 and of forming an estimate of all around it. And thus 
 God has "made man to have dominion over the work 
 of His hands, and has put all things in subjection under 
 his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the 
 
 1 Phil. iii. 8. > 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. 
 
152 Christ's Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 field ; the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and 
 whatsoever w T alketh in the paths of the sea." 1 Among the 
 lower creatures man is made for command ; and he has 
 had some thousands of years in which to strengthen and 
 extend his empire. But does it therefore follow that there 
 is none above man to whom he stands in a relation some- 
 what analogous to that in which the lower animals stand 
 towards himself ? Is he to suppose that the hierarchy of 
 beings which rises by such gradual steps from the lowest 
 zoophyte to the race of Newton and Shakespeare does 
 in very truth rise no higher ; that it stops abruptly at the 
 link which he himself forms, between an animal organism 
 and a personal spirit ? Is it not more reasonable to sup- 
 pose that the upward series continues, and that above man 
 there are beings stretching, in rank beyond rank of ascend- 
 ing excellence, upwards towards the throne of the Un- 
 created and the Eternal ? And supposing such beings to 
 exist, as Eevelation says they do exist, is it not at least 
 conceivable that they do in sundry ways limit our inde- 
 pendence, just as we, on our part, interfere with that of 
 creatures below us ? Say, if you will, that this is only a 
 speculation ; but what is to be said of man's relations to 
 that Being of beings Who is separated from the highest 
 archangel by a measureless interval ? Is it possible that, 
 face to face with God, man can claim to be independent or 
 self-dependent ? We owe, each of us, to God the original 
 gift of existence. We owe to God the continuance of this 
 gift, moment by moment, as we exist. When He thinks 
 well, and at a moment which He has already determined, 
 our present existence will end ; and it will end in some 
 manner which He has willed, and of which we know 
 nothing. Independence in the sense contemplated is an 
 impossible theory of life for any man who believes 
 seriously in the existence of a Supreme Being. 
 
 1 Ps. viii. 6-8. 
 
VI I I.J Christ 's Service and Public Opinion. 153 
 
 And therefore service is the true law, the true dignity 
 of man's existence. Service is written everywhere, for 
 those who have eyes to see, on the face of creation. 
 The service of unconscious law ; the service of sentient life ; 
 the service of rational and free beings ; the service of the 
 splendid and illuminated intelligences around the Throne, 
 — these are the steps in the ascent. But between the 
 purely material bodies to which God has given a law that 
 it should not be broken, and those majestic and spiritual 
 ministers of His who do His pleasure in the highest 
 realms of created life, there is the bond of this universal 
 and constraining law, which holds all created things in 
 subjection to the Will of the Great Creator. The same 
 , witness is borne by the faculties of the soul of man. Man 
 is free; but he can only preserve his true freedom by 
 a voluntary service. His reason, his affections, his will 
 cannot dispose of themselves capriciously with entire im- 
 punity. Truth, beauty, goodness, these are the objects of 
 their rightful service ; and what are these but aspects of 
 the Eternal God ? Believe that all truth is unattainable ; 
 and the ruin of the understanding is only a question of 
 time. Treat moral beauty as a mere fancy ; and the degra- 
 dation of the affections must quickly follow. Decide that 
 right and wrong are only phases of human feeling; and 
 the unnerved will must ere long forfeit all that gives it 
 directness and strength. It is only in the service of high 
 ideals that the soul of man can attain its excellence ; and 
 when these are renounced, man does not escane from 
 service, he only changes masters, and that for the worse. 
 He falls back under the empire of sense or of nature, and 
 he finds in the depths of his degradation the justification 
 of the law against which he has rebelled. 
 
 Nay more, all the apparent superiorities among men are 
 really forms of service. What is government but service, 
 not indeed of the follies and passions, but of the true 
 
154 Chrisf s Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 interests of the people ? The highest in rank knows that 
 he consults his real dignity most effectively when he pro- 
 fesses himself the obedient humble servant of a rival or 
 an inferior. The head of a great hierarchy, in whom its 
 power is absolutely centred, appears before the Christian 
 world on occasions of critical solemnity as Servant of the 
 servants of God. Whatever inconsistencies may be in- 
 volved in the use of such conventional language, it is an 
 act of homage to a truth which no man with an eye for 
 moral beauty will dispute ; it proclaims that service, so far 
 from involving degradation, is an ornament of human 
 nature, a true patent of nobility. For Christians, indeed, 
 this greatness of service is beyond discussion. He Whom 
 we worship and love, as the Prince and Flower of our race, 
 has, by His words and His example, set the seal of His 
 high approval on this distinctive excellence of man. He, 
 the Object of our service, is also its Model. He has 
 taught us, by a parable for all time, how to serve Himself 
 in the service of others. The form, indeed, which at His 
 Incarnation He took on Him was the form of a servant. 
 The life which He lived on earth was a life of service. 
 Again and again He verified His own words; He was 
 among men as One that serveth, but never more markedly 
 than on the solemn evening which He passed with His 
 disciples before He died. Note how the Evangelist who 
 describes the scene contrasts the high and ever-present 
 consciousness of a superhuman greatness with the lowly 
 bearing of the Servant of men. " Jesus, knowing that the 
 Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was 
 come from God, and went to God ; He riseth from supper, 
 and laid aside His garments ; and took a towel, and girded 
 Himself. After that He poureth water into a bason, and 
 began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with 
 the towel wherewith He was girded." 1 
 
 1 St. John xiii. 3-5. 
 
VIII. 
 
 Christ's Service and Picblic Opinion. 155 
 
 III. 
 
 There are many hindrances to this service. The Apostle 
 notes one. " If I yet pleased men, I should not be the 
 servant of Christ." 
 
 St. Paul is distinguishing between giving men satisfac- 
 tion and doing them essential good ; between action which 
 is popular and action which is wise and conscientious. He 
 is probably thinking of such words of our Lord as that " no 
 man can serve two masters ; " 1 and that the man of whom 
 all speak well on earth is very far indeed from being 
 entitled to the congratulations of heaven. 2 St. Paul had 
 known what it was to " please men," and to succeed by doing 
 so. He had enjoyed great consideration among all classes 
 in Jerusalem ; and he may have reconciled himself with 
 some difficulty to the realities of his new life. A man of 
 his strong affections and simple purpose might have hoped 
 to live down opposition, to reconcile to himself even the 
 fiercest prejudices, to combine some measure of toleration 
 and approval on the part of his old friends, with loyalty to 
 the creed of his conversion. To a character so sympathetic, 
 so sensitive as his, it would have been painful in no ordi- 
 nary degree to have to acquiesce in the conviction, that if he 
 was to do his duty, he must incur the permanent enmity 
 of large bodies of his fellow-men. Yet already, when he 
 wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, he had learned 
 this truth ; he had preached the Gospel to them with much 
 contention, 3 and "not as pleasing men, but God, Which 
 trieth our hearts." 4 And in both his Corinthian letters 
 we see how entirely he takes it for granted that the servant 
 of Christ in the Apostolate will not be an object of general 
 goodwill, but of much bitter calumny and suspicion ; he 
 must approve himself a minister of God in much patience; 
 
 1 St. Matt. vi. 24. 2 St. Luke vi. 26. 
 
 3 1 Thess. ii. 2. 4 1 Thcss. ii. 4. 
 
156 Christ f s Service and Public Opinion. ["Serm. 
 
 he is to make his way by evil report and good report; 
 he is to pass as a deceiver, and yet be true ; 1 he is " in 
 stripes above measure," " in prisons more frequent " than 
 others. 2 It seems to him, he says, that " God has set forth 
 the Apostles last, as it were appointed unto death ; for they 
 are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to 
 men ; they are fools for Christ's sake, . . . they are weak, 
 . . . they are despised, . . . they are made as the filth of the 
 world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." 3 
 It was his own doing after all; had he so chosen it 
 might have been otherwise. He might have kept on good 
 terms with that powerful Jewish society in which he was 
 brought up, and in which he had excellent connections — 
 that Jewish society then, as ever, so wealthy, so widespread, 
 so shrewd and practical, so familiar with all that commands 
 political influence and personal self-advancement, so able 
 to bestow prosperity on talent that is loyal to it, and that 
 can help it in turn. He might have succeeded Gamaliel as 
 President of the Sanhedrin, to enjoy Hillei's reputation for 
 mild wisdom, or to be the subject of mysterious traditions 
 such as those which surround Jochanan ben Zaccai, or to 
 become a fierce politician like Eabbi Akiba, with happier 
 results it may be to his country and himself ; he might 
 even have attained an earthly immortality, such as could 
 have been conferred by some honourable association with 
 the wisdom and the follies of the Talmud. Even after that 
 memorable occurrence on the road to Damascus all was not 
 forfeited ; a return to the Synagogue was more than pos- 
 sible. Could he only have consented to treat his conversion 
 as an impression unaccountably created by a thunderstorm, 
 as a psychological illusion, or as a trick of the evil one; 
 could he only have once more cursed the Crucified Nazarene, 
 and undertaken the work of officially persecuting His wor- 
 shippers, everything might have been his, in the way of 
 
 1 2 Cor. vi. 4, 8. 2 2 Cor. xi. 23. 3 1 Cor. iv. 9-13. 
 
VI I L] Christ 's Service and Public Opinion, 157 
 
 wealth, respect, influence. He would have escaped the 
 hatred of an entire people ; a hatred, deadly, implacable ; 
 a hatred which would dog his steps from city to city, which 
 never would rest till it had punished his apostasy as such 
 an apostate deserved. He might have escaped the stripes, 
 the plots, the stonings, the prisons which awaited him at 
 Csesarea, and at Rome ; but then, u had he pleased men, he 
 would not have been the servant of Christ." 
 
 He had broken with the Synagogue; but he had a 
 second chance in life ; he was already, by his education at 
 Tarsus, half a Greek. The life and culture of the Greek 
 world, its political ideas, its public amusements, its 
 popular literature, its modes of thought, were far from 
 unfamiliar to him. Settled at Alexandria, or wherever 
 contact with Greek civilization was most natural and easy, 
 he might have platonized what remained of his early modes 
 of thinking, and have passed with distinction into the 
 intellectual and social life of the Grseco-Roman society. 
 But then Greek opinion was fastidious, and to keep on 
 good terms with it required caution and flexibility. Had 
 Paul sought to please the Greeks, he would not have 
 provoked their cultivated levities by any such doctrine 
 as that of the Cross ; he would not have opposed to the 
 vague spiritualism of their better philosophy his own 
 unalterable faith in Christ's literal resurrection from the 
 dead ; he would not have roused their jealousies of race by 
 an ostentatious zeal for the very countrymen who were even 
 then seeking to take his life. If he had really "pleased 
 men " generally at Athens or at Corinth, he would have 
 ceased to be a servant of Christ. 
 
 Certainly it was strange that the Galatian leaders did 
 not know the man with whom they had to deal. They 
 ■probably fell into the common mistake of confusing 
 courtesy with weakness, and indifference to what is 
 accidental with a compromise of principle. They thought 
 
158 Christ's Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 that the Apostle, who to the Jews could become as a 
 Jew that he might save the Jews, 1 would become a 
 Judaizer with the Judaizers that he might be popular 
 with the Judaizers. They knew that he could be made all 
 things to all men, 2 but they forgot that it was upon the 
 condition of serving Christ by saving some of those for 
 whom He died. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Under what form does this temptation to please men 
 at the cost of a higher sense of duty especially present 
 itself to ourselves ? 
 
 When, in the early years of manhood, we first try to 
 take the measure of the world in which Providence has 
 placed us, nothing is more calculated to arrest our atten- 
 tion than that most energetic of all abstractions, public 
 opinion. Public opinion is that common stock of thought 
 and sentiment which is created by human society, or by 
 a particular section of it, and which in turn keeps its 
 authors under strict control. It is a natural product ; it 
 is a deposit which cannot but result from human inter- 
 course ; no sooner do men associate with one another than 
 a public opinion of some kind comes to be. And as 
 civilization advances, and man multiplies the channels 
 whereby he ascertains and governs the thoughts of his 
 fellow-man, public opinion grows in its strength and in 
 its area; and men voluntarily, or rather instinctively, 
 abandon an increasing district of their understandings and 
 of their conduct to its undisputed control. It varies, in 
 defmiteness and in exigency, with the number of human 
 beings which it happens to represent: there is a public 
 opinion proper to each village or town, to each society or 
 profession, to a country, to a civilization, to the world ; but 
 between the most general and the narrowest forms of this 
 
 1 1 Cor. ix. 20. 2 1 Cor. ix. 22. 
 
VIII.] Christ's Service and Pziblic Opinion. 159 
 
 common bodv of thought and sentiment there are bands 
 and joints which weld the whole into substantial unity. 
 
 And in modern times public opinion has taken a con- 
 crete body and form, such as two centuries ago was 
 undreamt of; it lives and works in the daily press. In 
 the press we see, visibly embodied, this empire of opinion, 
 with its countless .varieties and subdivisions, and its 
 strong corporate spirit and substantial unity. We all live 
 face to face with the press ; and every man who hopes, I 
 will not say to do much good to his fellow-men, but to keep 
 his own conscience in moderately good order, knows that in 
 this servant of public opinion he encounters a force with 
 which, sooner or later, on a large scale or a small, before 
 the world or in the recesses of his own conscience, he may 
 have to reckon ; whether, like St. Paul, he bears a com- 
 mission from heaven, or whether he only endeavours to be 
 loyal to such truth as he knows of, chiefly or altogether 
 concerning the things of earth. 
 
 What is the duty of a Christian towards this ubiquitous 
 and penetrating agency ? Is he to ignore or despise it, in 
 the spirit of some Stoic of the earlier school ? Assuredly 
 not. St. Paul was respectful even towards heathen 
 opinion; he bids Christians do nothing recklessly to 
 forfeit its favourable judgment; 1 he shapes his phrases, 
 not seldom, as would a man who is guided by this 
 instinctive deference. For, always and everywhere, public 
 opinion must needs contain certain, perhaps considerable, 
 elements of truth. Those ^reat moral ideas of righteous- 
 ness and retribution, which are to human conduct what 
 its axioms are to mathematical science, and which have 
 their attestation or their echo in the depths of every 
 human soul, do, more or less, enter as ingredients into all 
 forms of public opinion; they secure to it a claim on 
 respectful attention; they preserve it from the rapid 
 
 1 Col. iv. 5. 1 Thess. iv. 12. 1 Tim. iii. 7. 
 
160 Christ 's Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 disintegration which, without them, could not but overtake 
 it. They may be grossly misapplied, or associated with 
 wild profanity and folly ; but they forbid us to treat 
 any public opinion as wholly worthless or erroneous; 
 they secure to it an element which is certainly from above, 
 and which may partly shape the baser material in which 
 it is imbedded. 
 
 Are we then to place ourselves trustfully in its hands, 
 to defer to, and to obey it, at least in a Christian country, 
 and in an age of enlightenment and progress ? Is it to 
 furnish us, in the last resort, with a rule of conduct or with 
 our standards of moral and religious truth ? 
 
 Again, assuredly not. For consider how this public 
 opinion is formed : it is practically the result of a general 
 subscription; it is the workmanship of all the human 
 beings who go to make up society or a section of society. 
 Certainly the wise, the experienced, the conscientious, the 
 disinterested, contribute towards it, each in proportion to 
 his weight and influence. But as certainly, also, the 
 reckless, the unprincipled, the foolish, the selfish, have 
 their share in producing it ; a larger share, the w r orld being 
 what it is, than their nobler rivals. In public opinion 
 power often counts for more than character; Nero could 
 shape opinion at Eome more effectively than Seneca. 
 Genius which holds itself bound by moral considerations 
 is often less influential, at least for a time, than genius 
 which mocks jauntily at the simple distinctions between 
 right and wrong. Public opinion is, in point of fact, a 
 conglomerate ; it is a compromise between the many 
 elements which go to make up human society, a compro- 
 mise in which all are represented, but in which, upon the 
 whole, the lower and selfish elements of thought and 
 feeling are apt to preponderate. And therefore, while it 
 is always a matter of high interest to ascertain what is the 
 verdict of public opinion on a given question, both because 
 
VI II.] Christ s Service and Public Opinion. 161 
 
 it represents so much, and because it can do so much, this 
 verdict will never be received by Christians as an absolute 
 ^uide to truth, though it may well be a subject for respect- 
 ful attention. 
 
 The same conclusion is suggested by a consideration of 
 he vicissitudes to which public opinion is liable. It is 
 iable to the action of disturbing causes, which betray it, 
 ipon occasions, into wild inconsistencies with itself. The 
 )anic produced by an unforeseen catastrophe, the fascina- 
 ion exerted by a brilliant writer or speaker, the apparent 
 coincidence between some suspicion entertained by a long- 
 cherished, perhaps unexamined prejudice and some trivial 
 liscovery or occurrence ; — these things will sometimes 
 •ouse into desperate energy some one element of passion 
 atent in the vast body of general opinion, so that it breaks 
 vith all that has hitherto restrained and balanced it, and 
 )recipitates a society upon some course of conduct alto- 
 gether at variance with its better antecedents. And this 
 iability of powerful sections of opinion to suffer from the 
 listurbing effects of panic, must needs unfit them for the 
 luties of guides in matters of religious and moral truth, 
 n truth, common opinion is too wanting in patience, in 
 >enetration, in delicacy of moral touch and apprehension, 
 o deal successfully, or otherwise than blunderingly and 
 .oarsely, with questions like these. It cannot be right to 
 
 "Hosanna ! " now, to-morrow "Crucify ! " 1 
 
 } applaud in Galilee that which is condemned in Jeru- 
 ilem ; to sanction in this generation much which was 
 enounced in that ; to " adore what you have burned, 
 ad to burn what you have adored," with conspicuous 
 srsatility ; merely because a large body of human beings 
 -the majority of whom, it may be, are quite without par- 
 cular information on the subject — love to have it so. To 
 
 1 The Christian Year, Advent Sunday. 
 
1 62 Christ 's Service and Public Opinion. [Serm. 
 
 attempt to please men in this sense is most assuredly- 
 incompatible with the service of Christ. 
 
 Whatever evils were bound up with the old order of 
 things in France, every generation reads with fresh interest 
 the tragic story of the fate of the Monarchy ; and the 
 unfortunate king, confined with his family in the prison 
 of the Temple, and exposed to the coarse insults of his 
 fanatical enemies, extorts a tribute of sympathy and of 
 admiration which is independent of any political convic- 
 tions. But with that group of high-born sufferers there is 
 another figure upon whom, as it seems to me, a Christian 
 moralist must bestow something more than a passing 
 thought. The devoted servant who had waited on his 
 sovereign in the old days of feudal splendour, found his 
 way, at the risk of his life, to the tower in which the royal 
 family was confined, and remained to the end, only 
 narrowly escaping his master's fate. He has left us a 
 diary of three weeks of suffering; a simple unaffected 
 narrative, without pretensions to literary finish, and in the 
 pages of which it is impossible to trace any thought of 
 winning glory for himself. 1 Yet, as we follow it, we find 
 our interest divided between the royal prisoners and their 
 faithful attendant, whose conduct, had he feared or courted 
 the opinion of Revolutionary Paris, would never have 
 illustrated so persuasively, because so undesignedly, the 
 moral glory of a generous service. For some of us it ma} 
 be impossible to read his pages without a sense of self 
 reproach, which the thought of a Master Who has non< 
 of the weakness of Louis XVI., and Who has often t< 
 encounter among those whom He would save a mor 
 enduring and implacable hostility, may, alas ! too wel 
 suggest. 
 
 1 Journal de ce qui s'est passe a la tour du Temple pendant la captivil 
 de Louis XVI., Roi de France. Par M. Clery, valet de chambre du ro 
 A Londres, 1798. 
 
VIII.] Christ 's Service and Public Opinion. 163 
 
 Doubtless it may be more difficult to avoid renunciation 
 of Christ's service when importuned by intimate and 
 trusted friends than when pressed by a strong public 
 opinion. Those whom we have always known, and with 
 vvhom we wish to stand well, have an undoubted title to in- 
 luence our thoughts and conduct; and yet it is possible that 
 hey too may one day ask us to sacrifice our sense of moral 
 right or of religious truth to the claims of party or to the 
 claims of friendship. They may be moving into regions of 
 conviction where we cannot follow them; or they may refuse 
 :o accompany us when our sense of what is right and true 
 )blisjes us to sjo forward. And then there is an inward 
 ■struggle, or perhaps a " parting of friends," which leaves 
 leartaches for life, but which is inevitable if there is not 
 0 be a violence to conscience. To men of affectionate 
 empers these are among the very sternest trials in our 
 -vhole probation : to prefer the friendship of truth to that 
 )f Plato makes a greater demand on a generous nature 
 kan any choice between loyalty to duty and physical pain. 
 3ut a Christian is governed by a revelation of truth which 
 iets him above the claims of friendship and the exigencies 
 )f opinion ; there are times when in this sense too " he that 
 s spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of 
 10 man." 1 He will not, indeed, break with either one or the 
 •ther lightly or wantonly ; he will look once and again to be 
 ure that he is not himself deceived, if not in his principle, 
 'et in its application. But when this point is once clear, 
 ie will resolutely go forward. There is no improving on 
 he old adage, " Quodcunque agis. respice finem." Look 
 0 the end ; look onward to those last hours of sunlight 
 •nd of responsibility, when life will be sensibly ebbing 
 ■way, and another world almost breaking upon the view, 
 n hours such as those men live, they say, quickly ; a life is 
 ompressed into minutes, into sentences. The mists which 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 15. 
 
164 Christ 's Service and Public Opinion. 
 
 had hung about questions of duty then roll away, and, 
 like other things, public opinion is stripped of any fictitious 
 value which may once have clung to it, and is resolved into 
 its real ingredients. " The loftiness of man shall be bowed 
 down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and 
 the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." 1 To plant our 
 feet upon the Bock ; to give to Him Who is the Eternal and 
 the True the best homage of heart and mind and purpose 
 will surely be the effort — it may be a feeble or a failing 
 effort — of a time like that. " Quodcunque agis, respice 
 finem." Look to the end; and resolve to make the 
 service of Christ the first object in what remains of life, 
 without indifference to the opinion of your fellow-meu, but 
 also without fear of it. 
 
 1 Isa. ii. 17. 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 CHEIST IN THE STORM. 
 St. Mark iv. 38. 
 
 And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they 
 awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? 
 
 THE event here referred to must have occurred in the 
 late evening of the day on which our Lord pro- 
 nounced the series of Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven. 1 
 The multitudes lingered round Him ; and He determined 
 to cross to the Peraean side of the Sea of Tiberias. 
 The passage was only in part accomplished, when one 
 of these sudden and dangerous squalls to which inland 
 seas in mountainous districts are exposed swept across 
 the waters. The ship which carried our Lord and His 
 disciples was in the utmost peril. " The waves," says 
 St. Mark, " beat into the ship, so that it was now full." 2 
 It was not the excited imagination of landsmen, but the 
 3ommon sense of hardy and experienced fishermen, which 
 told the disciples of their danger. They already knew 
 snough of their Master's power to seek His help; but, 
 while they were expecting instant death, He " was in the 
 liinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow." 3 We feel 
 x solemn irony in this contrast between the majesty of His 
 unruffled repose, and the wild confusion, alarm, agony, 
 
 1 St. Matt. xiii. 3.50. St. Mark iv. 2-34. 2 St. Mark iv. 37. 
 
 3 St. Mark iv. 38. 
 
1 66 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 which prevailed around Him ; and the disciples cannot 
 have felt it less than we. But if they gazed at Him for a 
 moment in hesitating wonder, their anguish was too strong 
 for a silent reverence. They broke in upon His rest with 
 cries of terror ; " Master, Master, we perish ;" 1 " Lord, save 
 us : we perish ; " 2 even with the half-reproachful " Master, 
 carest Thou not that we perish ?" 3 Then He arose and 
 " rebuked " the winds and the sea ; as if to imply that 
 disorder in the material world may sometimes be due to 
 the malignant will of a personal agent. Yet to Him the 
 raging waters were of far less concern than the state of the 
 souls around Him ; so He proceeded to notice in sterner 
 terms the want of faith in Himself, of which His disciples 
 had just given proof. " Why are ye so fearful? how is it 
 that ye have no faith ? " 1 
 
 Undoubtedly their cry of agony had a double aspect. 
 It was, on the one hand, an act of faith in our Lord's 
 Power : they would not have roused Him, at least in such 
 terms, had they deemed Him as resourceless as themselves. 
 But, on the other hand, their appeal to Him was an act 
 of impatience, and of that particular kind of impatience 
 which implies that ordinary grounds of confidence are 
 giving way, that faith is dashed by some serious hesitations. 
 To have trusted Him perfectly would have been to have 
 been silent. Silence would have meant a conviction that 
 all would yet be well, let the winds roar and the waves 
 toss as they might, while He, the Lord of the waves and 
 the winds, slept on upon a pillow in the hinder part of 
 the ship. 
 
 It is natural to compare this miracle with others which 
 define our Lord's relation to the physical universe, and to 
 
 I. 
 
 1 St. Luke viii. 24. 
 3 St. Mark iv. 38. 
 
 2 St. Matt. viii. 25. 
 4 fc>t. Mark iv. 40. 
 
IX.] Christ in the Storm. 167 
 
 examine the estimate of His Person which such a relation 
 necessarily suggests. But there is another line of thought 
 which we may follow to-day. Is this narrative only an 
 appropriate incident in a Life which so wonderfully blends 
 the miraculous and the moral ? Has it no permanent sig- 
 nificance ? no wider bearing upon the history of Christen- 
 dom ? upon the vicissitudes of the Church ? upon the 
 trials of the soul ? 
 
 Now, to answer this question as it would have been 
 answered by all the exegetical schools of ancient Christen- 
 dom ; by literalists as well as by allegorizers and mystics ; 
 by Antioch as well as by Alexandria ; by St. Chrysostom 
 and Theodoret, no less than by Basil, Ambrose, and the 
 Gregories, is to incur, on the very threshold, the charge 
 of fancifulness. In this application of an event of our 
 Lord's life to the subsequent history of His Kingdom a 
 particular class of minds can see nothing but the levity of 
 an untrained imagination. "Why," they ask, " should there 
 be any discoverable relation whatever, such as is here 
 presumed, between an event in the life of Christ, and 
 .events which can only bear to it a distant, if any, analogy, 
 in the Christian history of after ages ? No one has per- 
 ceived an occult reference to the later history of the 
 Caesars, in the conquest of Yercingetorix, or in the invasion 
 of Britain, or in the passage of the Bubicon, or in the 
 first triumvirate. No writers, not even the Platonic and 
 Stoic allegorizers of the Greek mythology, have supposed 
 the vicissitudes of a philosophical school to be anticipated, 
 however indistinctly, in this or that incident of its founder's 
 life : and it is difficult to see why the Author of Christianity 
 should be held to stand in so unique a relation to Christen- 
 dom, which thus invests the incidents of His earthly career 
 with a quasi-prophetical character." 
 
 There is a valuable warning implied in this objection. 
 As with Origen, so in some modern methods of interpreta- 
 
i68 
 
 Christ in the Stor?n. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 tion, the reality of the literal narrative may be denied or 
 forgotten in an allegorizing treatment. And, to take 
 instances where this is far from being the case, no one, 
 probably, would now indulge in the exuberant mysticism 
 of the school of the St. Victors, or even, pace taniorum 
 nominum, of some greater and older writers, such as the 
 author of the Magna Moralia on Job. But with principles 
 of interpretation, as in other matters, it is true that usum 
 non tollit cibusus. In the present case we have to con- 
 sider, first, that the very scene was, to a mind trained 
 in the school of the Old Testament, full of moral meaning. 
 In the Hebrew Scriptures, as in the apprehension of the 
 early Christian Church, nature is treated as a sacrament 
 of the moral world ; it is the outward sign of truths which 
 altogether transcend itself. Its various moods of calm and 
 storm answer to the varying movements of the soul or to 
 the incidents of history. Secondly, to an Eastern appre- 
 hension our Lord's action would have been, naturally and 
 as a matter of course, pregnant with significance. To the 
 Eastern mind action is ever eloquent ; in the East action 
 is language in a degree unknown to us of the West. The 
 solemn prophetical actions of Isaiah, Hosea, and others 
 recognise and illustrate the Oriental way of looking at 
 such subjects; and our Lord addressed Himself to it in 
 more than one of His miracles, by gestures which were, 
 we may venture reverently to say, unnecessary to the 
 execution of His purpose, but full of meaning for the 
 lookers-on. In ancient Palestine the acts of the Prophet 
 of Nazareth would have had, and would have been designed 
 to carry, a meaning beyond themselves; and when He 
 rose in the boat to rebuke the elements on the Sea of 
 Galilee, He was proclaiming His power over elements of 
 another order in distant scenes, and in centuries yet to 
 come. 
 
 But, undoubtedly, the question whether our Lord's act 
 
IX.] 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 169 
 
 has this kind of significance will be chiefly determined by 
 our belief about His Person. If, while admiring some 
 moral elements in His teaching, and the literature which 
 embodies it, we yet think of Him as only one of the race 
 of men who appeared eighteen centuries ago, and who has 
 passed away, it may be, into a world of conscious shades, 
 or into torpor, or into annihilation ; then, indeed, it would 
 be absurd to endeavour to extract from this narrative any 
 typical relation to history. We do not suppose that John 
 Howard continues from his place in the eternal world to 
 further, by some energetic pressure or interference, that 
 noble work of benevolence for which many a generation 
 will honour and bless his name ; for we do not ascribe 
 to him any such relation, whether towards that world or 
 this, as would enable him to mould events here below. 
 But if, looking to the evidence of Christ's Eesurrection 
 from the dead, to the general effect of His miracles, to the 
 unique outline of His character, to the attitude which He 
 instinctively assumed in dealing with others, above all to 
 His constant language about Himself, we cannot but form 
 a very different idea about His present relation to the 
 world from that which we assign to any other of the sons 
 of men ; if we believe that His announcement of a day 
 on which He would judge the world was warrantable, that 
 His Promise of His Presence with His followers to the 
 end of time was not a misleading and empty consolation, 
 and that this Presence was to be, not, as Mahomet's might 
 have been, a presence in memory, but an actual nearness and 
 encompassing of His personal Being, whether it were felt 
 ■by His Church or not : if, in short, we believe Him to be 
 what His first followers believed, the Eternal Son of God, 
 Who rules men and events with an arm of power ; then 
 it is not any wantonness of fancy which sees in His 
 earthly actions the models and presentiments of His later 
 providences. If we truly hold that He is now what He 
 
170 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 was then ; that He is consistent with Himself from age 
 to age; that He means us to learn from what we read 
 about Him then something of that which He is actually 
 now; then we may reverently connect the incidents of 
 a day in His earthly life with the turning-points of 
 Christian history, and the fortunes of a ship's company 
 with that of a divinely-organized society, and deliver- 
 ance from physical dangers w T ith deliverance from evils 
 which may assault and hurt the soul. 
 
 II 
 
 It is, then, no freak of fancy to see in this narrative 
 an acted parable, if you will, an acted prophecy. Again 
 and again the Church of Christ has been all but engulfed, 
 as men might have deemed, in the billows ; again and again 
 the storm has been calmed by the Master, Who had seemed 
 for awhile to sleep. Often has Christianity passed through 
 the troubled waters of political opposition. During the 
 first three centuries, and finally under Julian, the heathen 
 state made repeated and desperate attempts to suppress 
 it by force. Statesmen and philosophers undertook the 
 task of eradicating it, not passionately, but in the same 
 temper of calm resolution with which they would have 
 approached any other well-considered social problem. 
 More than once they drove it from the army, from the 
 professions, from the public thoroughfares, into secrecy; 
 they pursued it into the vaults beneath the palaces of 
 Rome, into the catacombs, into the deserts. It seemed 
 as if the faith would be trodden out with the life of so 
 many of the faithful : but he who would persecute with 
 effect must leave none alive. The Church passed through 
 these fearful storms into the calm of an ascertained supre- 
 macy ; but she had scarcely done so, when the vast politi- 
 cal and social system which had so long oppressed her, and 
 
IX.] 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 171 
 
 which by her persistent suffering she had at length made 
 in some sense her own, itself began to break up beneath 
 and around her. The barbarian invasions followed one 
 upon another with merciless rapidity ; and St. Augustine's 
 lamentations upon the sack of Eome express the feelings 
 with which the higher minds in the Church must have 
 beheld the completed humiliation of the Empire. Chris- 
 tianity had now to face, not merely a change of civil 
 rulers, but a fundamental reconstruction of society. It 
 might have been predicted with great appearance of 
 probability that a religious system which had suited the 
 enervated provincials of the decaying Empire would never 
 make its way among the free and strong races that, amid 
 scenes of fire and blood, were laying the foundations of 
 feudalism. In the event it was otherwise. The hordes 
 which shattered the work of the Caesars learnt to repeat 
 the Catholic Creed, and a new order of things had formed 
 itself, when the tempest of Mahommedanism broke upon 
 Christendom. Politically speaking, this was perhaps the 
 most threatening storm through which the Christian Church 
 has passed. There was a time when the soldiers of that 
 stunted and immoral caricature of the Revelation of the 
 One True God, which was set forth by the false prophet, 
 had already expelled the very Name of Christ from the 
 country of Cyprian and Augustine; they were masters 
 of the Mediterranean ; they had desolated Spain, were 
 encamped in the heart of Erance, were ravaging the sea- 
 board of Italy. It was as if the knell of Christendom had 
 sounded. But Christ, " if asleep on a pillow in the hinder 
 part of the ship," was not insensible to the terrors of 
 His servants. He rose to rebuke those winds and waves, 
 as by Charles Martel in one age, and by Sobieski in 
 another; it is now more than two centuries since Islam 
 inspired its ancient dread. The last like trial of the 
 Church was the first French Revolution. In that vabt 
 
172 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 convulsion Christianity had to encounter forces which for 
 awhile seemed to threaten its total suppression. Yet the 
 men of the Terror have passed, as the Csesars had passed 
 before them ; and like the Csesars, they have only proved 
 to the world that the Church carries within her One Who 
 rules the fierce tempests in which human institutions are 
 wont to perish. 
 
 Political dangers, however, do but touch the Church of 
 Christ outwardly ; but she rests upon the intelligent assent 
 of her children, and she has passed again and again through 
 the storms of intellectual opposition or revolt. Scarcely 
 had she steered forth from the comparatively still waters 
 of Galilean and Hellenistic devotion than she had to 
 encounter the pitiless dialectic, the subtle solvents, of the 
 Alexandrian philosophy. It was as if in anticipation of 
 this danger that St. John had already baptized the Alex- 
 andrian modification of the Platonic Logos, moulding it so 
 as to express the sublimest and most central truth of the 
 Christian Creed; while, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 Alexandrian methods of interpretation had been adopted 
 in vindication of the Gospel. But to many a timid be- 
 liever it may well have seemed that Alexandrianism would 
 prove the grave of Christianity, when, combining the 
 Platonic dialectics with an Eclectic Philosophy, it en- 
 deavoured in the form of Arianism to break up the Unity 
 of the Godhead by making Christ a separate and inferior 
 Deity. There was a day when Arianism seemed to he 
 triumphant ; but even Arianism was a less formidable 
 foe than the subtle strain of infidel speculation which 
 penetrated the Christian intellect in the very heart of the 
 Middle Ages, that is to say, at a time when the sense 
 of the supernatural had difi used itself throughout the whole 
 atmosphere of human thought. This unbelief was the 
 product sometimes of a rude sensuality rebelling against 
 the precepts of the Gospel; sometimes of the culture 
 
IX.] 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 173 
 
 iivorced from faith which made its appearance in the 
 twelfth century ; sometimes, specifically, of the influence of 
 riie Arabian philosophy from Spain ; sometimes of the vast 
 md penetrating activity of the Jewish teachers. It revealed 
 itself constantly under the most unexpected circumstances. 
 We need not suppose that the great Order of the Templars 
 was guilty of the infidelity that, along with crimes of the 
 gravest character, was laid to their charge ; a study of their 
 processes is their best acquittal, while it is the condemnation 
 di their persecutors. But unbelief must have been wide- 
 spread in days when a prominent soldier, John of Soissons, 
 could declare that "all that was preached concerning Christ's 
 Passion and Eesurrection was a mere farce ;" x when a pious 
 Bishop of Paris left it on record that he " died believing 
 in the Eesurrection, with the hope that some of his edu- 
 cated but sceptical friends would reconsider their doubts ;" 2 
 when that keen observer, as Xeander terms him, Hugh of 
 St. Victor, remarks the existence of a large class of men 
 whose faith consisted in nothing else than merelv taking 
 care not to contradict the faith — " quibus credere est solum 
 fidei non contradicere, qui consuetudine vivendi magis, 
 quani virtute credendi fideles nominantur." 3 The pre- 
 valence of such unbelief is attested at once by the funda- 
 mental nature of many of the questions discussed at 
 the greatest length by the Schoolmen, and by the uncon- 
 cealed anxieties of the great spiritual leaders of the 
 time. 4 After the Middle Ages came the Eenaissance. This 
 is not the time or place to deny the services which the 
 Renaissance has rendered to the cause of human education, 
 
 1 So Guib. Abb. De Vita sua, iii. 15, quoted by Neander, Ch. Hist, v 
 p. 451. 
 
 2 In 1 198 ; cf. Rigord, de gestis Philippi, quoted by Neander, ub. sup. p. 432. 
 
 3 De Sacr. fidei, lib. i. c. 4, quoted by Neander, p. 454. 
 
 4 The Abbot Peter of Cluny composed a tract to prove that Christ bore 
 witness to His own divinity, in order to meet the doubts of some of his 
 monks. 
 
174 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 and indirectly, it may be, to that of Christianity. But 
 the Kenaissance was at first, as it appeared in Italy, a pure 
 enthusiasm for Paganism, for Pagan thought, as well as for 
 Pagan art and Pagan literature. And the Eeformation, 
 viewed on its positive and devotional side, was, at least 
 in the South of Europe, a reaction against the spirit of the 
 Renaissance : it was the Paganism, even more than the 
 indulgences of Leo X., which alienated the Germans. 
 The reaction against this Paganism was not less vigorous 
 within the Church of Borne than without it; Ranke has told 
 u s the story of its disappearance. 1 Lastly, there was the rise 
 of Deism in England, and of the Encyclopedist School in 
 France, followed by the pure Atheism which preceded the 
 Revolution. It might well have seemed to fearful men 
 of that day that Christ was indeed asleep to wake no 
 more, that the surging waters of an infidel philosophy had 
 well-nigh filled the ship, and that the Church had only to 
 sink with dignity. 
 
 Worse than the storms of political violence or of intel- 
 lectual rebellion, have been the tempests of insurgent 
 immorality through which the Church has passed. In the 
 ages of persecution there" was less risk of this, although 
 even then there were scandals. The Epistles to the Corin- 
 thians reveal beneath the very eyes of the Apostle a 
 state of moral corruption, which, in one respect at least, he 
 himself tells us, had fallen below the pagan standard." 2 
 But when entire populations pressed within the fold, and 
 social or political motives for conformity took the place of 
 serious and strong conviction in the minds of multitudes, 
 these dangers became formidable. What must have been 
 the agony of devout Christians in the tenth century, when 
 appointments to the Roman Chair itself were in the hands of 
 three unprincipled and licentious women ; 3 and when the 
 
 1 Hist, of Popes, vol. i. 2 I Cor. v. i. 2 Cor. vii. 8-1 1. 
 
 3 Mohler, Kirchcngeschichtc, ii. p. 183. 
 
IX.] Christ in the Storm. 175 
 
 ife of the first Christian Bishop was accounted such that 
 1 pilgrimage to Eome involved a loss of character. Well 
 night the austere Bruno exclaim of that age that " Simon 
 Magus lorded it over a Church in which bishops and 
 priests were given to luxury and fornication :" well might 
 Cardinal Baronius suspend the generally laudatory or 
 ipologetic tone of his Annals, to observe that Christ must 
 have in this age been asleep in the ship of the Church to 
 permit such enormities. 1 
 
 It was a dark time in the moral life of Christendom : 
 but there have been dark times since. Such was that 
 when St. Bernard could allow himself to describe the 
 Roman Curia as he does in addressing Pope Eugenius III. ; 
 such again was the epoch which provoked the work of 
 Xicholas de Cleargis, " On the Buin of the Church." The 
 passions, the ambitions, the worldly and political interests 
 which surged around the Papal Throne, had at length 
 issued in the schism of Avignon ; and the writer passion- 
 ately exclaims that the Church had fallen proportionately 
 to her corruptions, which he enumerates with an unspar- 
 ing precision. 2 During the century which preceded the 
 Pieformation, the state of clerical discipline in London was 
 
 1 Mbhler has endeavoured, but not very convincingly, to minimize the 
 stern judgment of Baronius.— K. G. ii. pp. 186-191. 
 
 2 To this may be added the remarkable report on abuses in the Roman 
 Church which was drawn up and published by order of Pope Paul III. ; 
 Consilium delectorum CardinaHum et aliorum Praelatorum de emendanda 
 ecclesia, S.D.X.D. Paulo III. ipso jubente conscriptum et exhibitum, 1 537. 
 Among the nine signataries are Cardinals Pole, Contarini, and Caraffa. 
 They trace the evils of the Church to the fact "quod nonnuUi Pontifices 
 tui prsedecessores prurientes auribus, ut inquit Apostolus Paulus, coacervave- 
 runt sibi magistros ad desideria sua, non ut ab eis discerent quod facere 
 deberent, sed ut eorum studio et caUiditate inveniretur ratio qua liceret id 
 quod liberet." Presently they add, "Ex hoc fonte, Sancte Pater, tanquam 
 ex equo Trojano, irrupere in Ecclesiam Dei tot abusus et tarn gravissimi 
 morbi, quibus nunc conspicimus earn ad desperationem fere salutis laborasfe, 
 vel manasse harum rerum famam ad infideles usque." 
 
176 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 such as to explain the vehemence of popular reaction; 
 and if in the last century there was an absence of gross- 
 ness, such as had prevailed in previous ages, there was 
 a greater absence of spirituality. Says Bishop Butler, 
 charging the clergy of the Diocese of Durham in 175 1 — 
 "As different ages have been distinguished by different 
 sorts of particular errors and vices, the deplorable distinction 
 of ours is an avowed scorn of religion in some, and a 
 growing disregard to it in the generality." 1 That dis- 
 regard, being in its essence moral, would hardly have been 
 arrested by the cultivated reasoners, who were obliged to 
 content themselves with deistic premises in their defences 
 of Christianity : it did yield to the fervid appeals of Whit- 
 field and of Wesley. With an imperfect idea of the real 
 contents and genius of the Christian Creed, and with 
 almost no idea at all of its majestic relations to history 
 and to thought, these men struck a chord for which we 
 may well be grateful. They awoke Christ, sleeping in the 
 conscience of England ; they were the real harbingers of a 
 day brighter than their own. 
 
 For if the question be asked, how the Church of Christ has 
 surmounted these successive dangers, the answer is, by the 
 appeal of prayer. She has cried to her Master, Who is ever 
 in the ship, though, as it may seem, asleep upon a pillow. 
 The appeal has often been made impatiently, even violently, 
 as on the waves of Gennesaret, but it has not been made in 
 vain. It has not been by policy, or good sense, or con- 
 siderations of worldly prudence, but by a renewal in very 
 various ways of the first fresh Christian enthusiasm which 
 flows from the felt presence of Christ, that political enemies 
 have been baffled, and intellectual difficulties reduced to 
 their true dimensions, and moral sores extirpated or healed. 
 Christianity does thus contain within itself the secret of 
 its perpetual youth, the certificate of its indestructible 
 
 1 Works, vol. ii. p. 312. 
 
IX.] Christ in the Storm. 177 
 
 vitality ; because it centres in, it is inseparable from, devo- 
 tion to a living Person. No ideal lacking a counterpart 
 in fact could have guided the Church across the cen- 
 turies. Imagination may do much in quiet and prosperous 
 :imes ; but amid the storms of hostile prejudice and passion, 
 in presence of political vicissitudes or of intellectual on- 
 slaughts, or of moral rebellion or decay, an unreal Saviour 
 mist be found out. • A Christ upon paper, though it were 
 he sacred pages of the Gospel, would have been as power- 
 ess to save Christendom as a Christ in fresco; not less 
 eeble than the Countenance which, in the last stages of 
 ts decay, may be traced on the wall of the Eefectory at 
 Vlilan. A living Christ is the key to the phenomenon 
 if Christian history. To Him again and again His Church 
 las cried out in her bewilderment and pain, " Up, Lord, 
 rhy sleepest Thou ? awake, and be not absent from us for 
 ver." 1 And again and again, in the great thoroughfares 
 f Christian history, He, her Lord, to borrow the startling 
 mage of the Hebrew poet, has " awaked as one out 
 f sleep, and like a giant refreshed with wine," 2 to display 
 limself in providential turns, whether in the world 
 f events or in the world of thought, on which no human 
 )resight could have calculated. And what has been 
 "ill yet be again. There are men who can say to Him 
 nly, "Thou, 0 Christ, art the most exquisite work of 
 hastened imagination, of purified moral sense, that our 
 ice has known: in that Thou art our highest ideal of 
 uman goodness, Thou art truly Divine ; we cannot rival, 
 e cannot even approach, we cannot, if we would, forget 
 hee." But if this were the highest language towards 
 -im that is honestly possible, whatever else He might 
 3, He would not be " our hope and strength, a very 
 resent help in trouble." 3 He would only be precious as a 
 3em or a piece of sculpture is precious ; just as beautiful 
 
 1 Ps. xliv. 23. 2 Ps i xxv iii. 66. 3 Ps. xlvi. i. 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 [Serm, 
 
 perhaps, but just as helpless an object, rendered into the 
 finer forms of the world of thought. But we Christians 
 have cried to Him in one form of words or another foi 
 many a century — "Thou sittest at the Eight Hand oj 
 God, in the Glory of the Father. We believe that Thor 
 shalt come to be our Judge. We therefore pray Thee, heir 
 Thy servants, Whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious 
 Blood." And in His being what this language implies lies 
 the recuperative power of the Church; it lies in faith's 
 grasp of the fact that Christ really lives and rules in earth 
 and heaven, and that He may still be appealed to with 
 success, even though men dare to exclaim, " Master, carest 
 Thou not that we perish ? " 
 
 III. 
 
 This power of resistance and recovery inherent ic 
 Christianity may be looked at from another side ; that oi 
 the profound impression it has made on the soul of man, 
 The Christian Creed has brought all the activities of which 
 the human soul is capable into active exercise. It liae 
 been charged against our Divine Bedeemer that He has sc 
 exhausted the religious' instincts and energies of man a.< 
 to make it impossible to establish at all permanently am 
 generally, in lands and among populations which hav< 
 owned His sway, any tentative religion of the future, sue! 
 for instance, as a philosophical Deism. We may admit th 
 charge ; indeed we ought not to be surprised at it. For i: 
 truth Christ has so taught His people to explore the height 
 and depths of the spiritual world, the resources and cap? 
 cities of the soul, its treasures of feeling and passion, ii 
 powers of resolution, as well as its subtlety and strengt 
 of thought, that after Him all else must needs pall and I 
 uninteresting. Men do not voluntarily recede from the sui 
 shine to the twilight; from civilization to semi-barbarisri 
 
IX. J Christ in the Storm. i 79 
 
 rom the advanced prosecution of a science to the study 
 )f its elementary truths. And it is because Christianity 
 cannot be superseded by any strong positive religion on its 
 )wn ground, except indeed through the extermination of 
 Christians, that the Christian faith is constantly renewing 
 tself. The religious sense, roused from a temporary torpor, 
 noves again along the lines of the Christian Creed : and 
 religious thought makes the grand tour of comparative 
 heology, to discover that the extremest limits of ex- 
 perience and speculation have been already anticipated by 
 he Creed which was learnt in childhood. 
 
 Surely, brethren, some of ourselves must know some- 
 king of this power of recovery of Christian faith and 
 ife. of this practical inaccessibility to danger which is 
 uaranteed by the Presence of Christ. Have not we, too, 
 ad our days of darkness ; our days of outward trial ; our 
 avs of conscious weakness, of inward misgiving and fear ? 
 lave not we, too, known what it is to have doubts 
 ushed, and dangers averted, and temptations overcome, 
 p the rising, as if from sleep, of that most sacred Presence, 
 hich is enshrined in every Christian soul, to rebuke, or to 
 icourage, or to protect ? Our inward heaven, it may be, 
 ,as so overcast that we could not see Him — 
 
 "When looks were strange on every side, 
 "When, gazing round, I only saw 
 Far-reaching ways on every side, 
 
 I could but nearer draw. 
 I could but nearer draw, and hold 
 Thy garment's border as I might." 
 
 it that was enough. When the time came He spoke 
 iid the trial passed. And there is a correspondence 
 tween the larger organism and its component particles, 
 tween the Church and the soul ; what passes within the 
 ul is an interpretation to those who have felt it of much 
 •at belongs to the history of the Church. " Through Thy 
 
i8o 
 
 Christ in the Storm. [Serm 
 
 commandments," each may say, " I get understanding," nol 
 merely of the preciousness of moral truth, but of th( 
 philosophy of sacred history. 
 
 The subject suggests, among others, two reflections ir 
 particular. 
 
 And, first, it is a duty to be on our guard againsl 
 panics. Panics are the last infirmity of believing souls 
 It is of course easy to denounce them from the stand- 
 point of a philosophical unconcern as to all religious in- 
 terests ; calmness is a cheap virtue when you have, 01 
 when you suppose yourself to have nothing really at stake, 
 It is not, in this sense, that panics are to be deprecated ; 
 the most irrational panic of an unlettered peasant who 
 believes that his creed is imperilled, is, beyond all com- 
 parison, a nobler thing than the tranquil indifference of a 
 Talleyrand. But panics are to be deprecated, not because 
 they imply a keen interest in the fortunes of religion 
 but because they betray a certain distrust of the powei 
 and living Presence of our Lord. Granted that materi 
 alism rears its crest more boldly than of yore; that i 
 section of modern democracy threatens to break up al 
 public institutions that assert the supernatural ; that on 
 branch of the Church of Christ has added to existin 
 difficulties by burdening its official Creed, for the whilt 
 with an unhistorical absurdity ; that our English Churc 
 is embarrassed and enfeebled by misbelief and division 
 Yet it does not follow that the life of particular Churcht 
 is imperilled, much less that Christianity is doomei 
 Science may for the moment be hostile ; in the long ru 
 it cannot but befriend us. We may have to surrend< 
 misapprehensions or to make explanations along the fronti 
 where the Faith touches on the province of physics : sciew 
 will help us, if she forces us to surrender the untenabl 
 
[X.] Christ in the Storm. 181 
 
 Criticism may have done us an ill turn in unkindly or 
 inskilful hands ; but it has more weapons to place at the 
 lisposal of the Faith than opportunities of wounding it. 
 Popular agitators may mean mischief; but we should do 
 11 to fear the people whose best interests are our own. 
 [he Church of this country has everything to gain by 
 hrowing herself on the classes to which the Gospel was 
 ireached at first; for the Church is the real mistress 
 if that social science which either makes want and 
 uffering more than endurable, or which relieves and 
 ssuages it. An ecclesiastical absolutism may rule abroad ; 
 . sour fanaticism may endeavour to proscribe faith and 
 everence nearer home; but the eccentricities of human 
 rror pass and are forgotten, while Christianity remains, 
 t remains in that breadth of compass, in that common 
 ubstance of absolute Truth, in that unconquerable strength 
 • hich resists not merely attacks from without, but grave 
 orruptions and usurpations within; the waves do not merely 
 ish the ship, they wellnigh fill it ; yet it does not sink, 
 t does not sink, because He is with it, Who has spoken as 
 one other has spoken to the human soul ; Who has opened 
 ) man the Eternal World, and revealed to man his own 
 oundless capacities for bliss or for woe. It was accounted 
 jmething in days of old to carry Caesar. And He Who 
 
 with us in the storm is most assuredly beyond the 
 ;ach of harm : to be panic-stricken is to dishonour Him. 
 rethren, let us beware of panics. Panics are the work 
 ; timid men, and they make men timid. And if a man 
 is power, timidity will make him cruel ; if he is impotent, 
 
 will make him foolish. 
 
 A second reflection is this : a time of trouble and danger 
 ' the natural season for generous devotion. They say that 
 mug men who in quiet days, when there was little work 
 id no controversy, and no peril to position and endow- 
 ents, would have taken Holy Orders, are not ordained 
 
182 
 
 Christ in the Storm. 
 
 now. It may be so. If it be, the Church is not the 
 weaker for the loss of those who would seek her ministry, 
 not for her Lord's sake, but for their own. To generous 
 minds a time of trouble has its own attractions. It 
 enables a man to hope, with less risk of presumption, that 
 his motives are sincere; it fortifies courage; it suggests 
 self- distrust ; it enriches character; it invigorates faith. 
 The storm may rage without, the flood may rise within, 
 but while the Lord of the soul and of the Church is here, 
 though it be " asleep in the hinder part of the ship," all 
 must in the end be well. Things would not have been 
 better than they are for martyrs and confessors, if, in 
 their day, the sea had been calm and the waves unruffled. 
 For them, long since, the winds and waves of life have 
 been stilled, and Christ has brought them to the haven 
 where they would be. " Sit anima nostra cum Sanctis : " 
 with them, if He wills, in the fellowship of their sorrows; 
 with them, through His Mercy, as sharers of their everlast- 
 ing rest ! 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 SACERDOTALISM. 
 2 Cor. v. i 8. 
 
 But all things are of God, TT7io hath reconciled us unto Himself, through 
 Jesus Christ, and hath given unto us the ministry of The Reconciliation : 
 to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not 
 imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath given unto us the word of 
 The Reconciliation. 
 
 THE First Lesson for this morning's Service 1 describes an 
 event which is presupposed by these words of the 
 Apostle. The doctrine or fact of the Fall of Man is the 
 vey to the Christian estimate of hnman nature. Instead 
 )f looking upon man as a creature who, in the course 
 )f a long series of ages, has struggled upwards out of some 
 ower form of animal existence, by a continually ascend- 
 ng progress, until he has reached his present attainments 
 n conduct, thought, and civilization, the Gospel teaches 
 -hat man once was in possession of capacities and glories 
 vhich have left their traces upon his life, but which, while 
 ie remains in Ins natural state, are no longer his. At 
 he present day these two conceptions of man's early his- 
 ory divide the world of thought between them ; and the 
 Apostle's expression in the text — to cite no other passages 
 rom his writings — shows which side he would take in the 
 controversy, if he were to appear among us. 
 
 1 Sexagesima Sunday, Gen. iii. 
 
184 Sacerdotalism, [Serm. 
 
 L 
 
 Eeconciliation, the exchange 1 of enmity for friendship, 
 points by implication to a friendship which had once 
 existed, and had been subsequently lost. Man, St. Paul 
 maintains, at the earliest period of his history was on good 
 terms with his Creator. No disturbing influence was there 
 to mar the harmony of created and uncreated life, in their 
 mutual relations of sovereignty and dependence. But the 
 Apostle insists that there has been a break of moral con- 
 tinuity, which we read in man's present inward ruin and 
 disorder, and the work of which is only repaired by Christ. 
 " By one man sin entered into the world." 2 
 
 If the question be asked, what are the evidences of the 
 Fall ? the reply is not far to seek. We trace it in those many 
 precautions which are taken by human society for its self- 
 defence, and which imply that man's nature has something 
 of the wild beast in it, so that it must be watched and held 
 down, if it is not to do man himself a mischief. Then there 
 is the cynical estimate of human motives and character 
 which is almost a matter of course in literature, whether 
 of ancient or modern times, although such cynicism in many 
 instances is guilty of extreme injustice. But, not to dwell 
 on these less direct indications, the Fall has left its mark 
 partly on man's understanding, and partly on his will. 
 
 Deep in man's natural intelligence is the idea of God ; 
 an idea which is the product of man's survey of nature, ac- 
 companied by his introspection of conscience. The Author 
 of Nature identifies Himself with the Legislator of Con- 
 science in the inmost recesses of the soul of man ; and yet 
 man, while he is yet unrestored by Christ, is positively 
 impatient of this truth, from which he can never perfectly 
 escape. Thus man is constantly endeavouring to account 
 
 1 KaraWayri, Rom. v. 1 1. 2 Rom. v. 12. 
 
X.] 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 185 
 
 :or nature without attributing it to an Author, and to 
 iccount for conscience as a mere conglomerate of antique 
 prejudices. These efforts, although incessant, have no 
 permanently widespread result. Apart from the teaching 
 md influence of Revelation, the thought of God is too 
 ntimately bound up with the highest and deepest life even 
 )f fallen human beings, to be really set aside by any 
 lestructive eccentricities, whether of physical science or of 
 nental philosophy. It resists the solvents which are so 
 constantly applied to it ; it tenants the human soul, if 
 seriously impaired, yet never altogether obliterated ; for 
 t is the shadow and the representative of One "Who, as 
 .ve know, sits high above the water-flood of human passion 
 md human thought, in the unassailable majesty of His 
 self-existent Life. And yet, when man cannot escape 
 :rom God, he shrinks from Him. He can attach himself 
 ^asily to any created form ; to a flower, to a prospect, to 
 an animal, to any concrete representation of beauty or of 
 ? orce. But God, the source of all beauty, the concentra- 
 :ion of all force, is, it seems, a Being from Whom man would 
 :ain conceal himself. There is something in man's own 
 nature which whispers to him that between himself and God 
 :here is a lack of harmony : being such as he is, he would 
 rather keep out of God's way, if it be possible to do so ; he 
 lears the voice of the Lord God walking in the oarden in 
 :he cool of the day of life, and he forthwith seeks to hide 
 limself as of old from the presence of the Lord God among 
 :he trees of the garden. 1 
 
 Nor is it otherwise with man's moral nature. Man is born 
 nto the world with the idea of right and wrong. There it 
 is; so deep in his soul, that when wellnigh all else has 
 been destroyed, this remains. There may be disputes, in 
 different ages and countries, as to what is right and what 
 is wrong. But the belief that there is a right, and that there 
 
 1 Gen. iii. 8. 
 
i86 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 is a wrong, is as wide and as old as the race of man, and 
 the broad lines which mark off right from wrong in detail 
 are almost universally recognised. And yet, in presence of 
 this great conviction, what is the average bearing, the his- 
 torical conduct, of the human will ? On the one side, it 
 displays a marked incapacity for virtue. The difficulty of 
 virtue, that is, of living according to the rule of right, the 
 true rule of human life, is a well-worn topic with heathen 
 moralists. Virtue is an effort of strength; the very word im- 
 plies as much. It is not the easy spontaneous product of our 
 nature. It is the force which we exert when we are at our 
 best. On the other hand, vice, condemned by the human 
 conscience, needs no effort whatever in order to produce it. 
 It springs up in the soil of human nature as do the weeds 
 in a deserted field or garden. It nourishes side by side 
 with man's noblest achievements in the world of thought 
 and in the realm of nature ; it is cradled with literature 
 and with science, as having a copartnership in the empire 
 of man ; and conscience waits hard by ; distressed but power- 
 less, while her clearest and most imperative commands are 
 disregarded. " Video meliora probocjue, deteriora sequor." 
 — " The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I 
 would not that I do." 1 - Thus speaks fallen human nature 
 at its best ; and conscience lingers on, like the dishonoured 
 and pathetic representative of some decayed family splen- 
 dour, to witness that it was not always thus with man ; to 
 whisper to him, as occasion may present itself, that after 
 all he is not really an improved brute, that he once wore 
 his Maker's likeness, and that he still retains some traces of 
 its glory, though dimmed by accompanying weakness and 
 shame. 
 
 Such is man, as his first father has left him. Adam 
 could not transmit what he had lost; and his childrer 
 remain alienated from the Source of Life, shrinking from 
 
 1 Rom. vii. 19. 
 
X.] 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 i8 7 
 
 God, disobeying Him, yet haunted in their inmost being by 
 His frown or His smile ; unable to expel Him altogether, 
 whether from their understandings or from their wills. 
 That man should raise himself was, in the moral order, just 
 as impossible, as it is physically beyond the power of the 
 most accomplished athlete to lift himself from the earth by 
 the waistband. If man is to be restored, a power greater 
 than himself, independent of himself, must needs restore him. 
 Accordingly, " after that the kindness and love of God our 
 Saviour towards man appeared, not by works of righteous- 
 ness which we have done, but according to His Mercy He 
 saved us." 1 What we could not do for ourselves, our Divine 
 Saviour did for us, and in us. There is One Mediator 
 between God and men ; 2 a Mediator in His acts, because, 
 first of all, a Mediator in virtue of His twofold nature. On 
 the one hand, He is very God ; on the other, He is of the race 
 of man ; and thus simply by being what He is, He bridges 
 over the chasm which the Fall had opened between earth 
 and heaven. He acts for God upon mankind ; and He acts for 
 men towards God. As the Perfect Man, He represents man- 
 kind in the Eternal Presence ; while, since in Him dwelleth 
 all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, He is also the channel 
 through which the Divine Life flows down into all those 
 members of the human family who are in real contact with 
 Himself. As the sinless representative of the race before 
 the awful Sanctity of God, He atones for all who are one 
 with Him ; God sees us sinners in Him, our sinless Brother ; 
 the Father beholds, in His supreme act of self-sacrifice 
 upon the Cross, that absolute moral elevation of which 
 we in our weakness and isolation could never have been 
 capable ; and thus we are " accepted in the Beloved," 3 Who 
 becomes " a propitiation for our sins," 4 and buys us back 
 from slavery to sin and to its penal consequences. 5 And, 
 
 1 Titus iil 4, 5. 2 r Tim ^ - 3 Eph. 1 6 
 
 * Rom. iii. 25. 1 St. John ii. 2 ; iv. 10. 5 1 Cor. vi. 20. 2 St. Pet. ii. 1. 
 
i88 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 as representing God to us, He bestows upon us the gifts 
 of which we fallen men stand so greatly in need — grace 
 and truth. Truth, to restore to the intelligence that clear, 
 undimmed perception of Him Who is the Source and 
 End of "Life, and in the knowledge of Whom standeth 
 the true life of the human intellect itself; and grace, or, 
 in modern language, force, that practical favour of God 
 which is something more than kindly feeling, and which 
 invigorates and braces the will, and makes it really 
 capable of virtue. Thus the light of the knowledge of the 
 glory of God is given in the face of Jesus Christ. 1 Thus 
 we can do all things through Christ that strengthened us. 2 
 Thus our complete reconciliation with God is achieved, not 
 without our co-operation, but certainly not in virtue of it, 
 through the bounty and compassion of God in Christ. 
 
 St. Paul adds, " He hath committed unto us the word of 
 the Eeconciliation." Is the Apostle speaking here in the 
 name of the whole Christian body ? This can hardly be main- 
 tained, if we look at the context, in which St. Paul refers 
 to this very commission as a warrant for addressing his 
 readers ; as furnishing him, in fact, with his credentials as 
 an ambassador from God. He hath committed unto us — 
 the sentence is twice repeated — the ministry or word of the 
 Eeconciliation. " Now, then," he adds, " we are ambassa- 
 dors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us ; we 
 pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." 3 
 Nor is there anything to imply that St. Paul is restrict- 
 ing his language to himself personally, or to the other 
 Apostles, or to the circumstances of the first Christian age. 
 The embassy from heaven which he describes was surely 
 not less necessary to mankind in the second or third 
 Christian centuries than it had been in the first. And 
 when we find the Apostle in the Pastoral Epistles engaged 
 in providing for the perpetuation of a ministerial institute 
 
 1 2 Cor. iv. 6. 2 Phil. iv. 13. 3 2 Cor. v. 20. 
 
X] Sacerdotalism. 189 
 
 in the Church of Christ, 1 and giving rules for its action and 
 its guidance, 2 we are justified in concluding that his own 
 claim to be Christ's ambassador of reconciliation among 
 the Corinthians would be repeated by remote and undis- 
 tinguished successors, who in distant ages and countries 
 would still carry on, in their several scenes of duty, his 
 own life-absorbing work. 
 
 Now, so far as w T e can see, without some such provision, 
 the work of Eeconciliation would have been incomplete. 
 For this Eeconciliation between God and man, achieved 
 by Christ, is first of all a truth to be recognised by the 
 understanding, and then a fact with which each soul must 
 be placed in actual contact. When the Mediator had with- 
 drawn from sight, how was the truth of the Mediation to 
 be kept alive and propagated in the souls of men, unless 
 some organized machinery for securing this were authori- 
 tatively provided ? Hence the institution of the Christian 
 Ministry. The ministers of Christ are not a body of 
 lecturers, whose business it might be to investigate a subject 
 which is imperfectly understood, and to make periodical 
 reports of their successive investigations. The first duty of 
 the Christian ministry is to witness persistently to the 
 fact, that in Christ Jesus, God and Man, mankind and 
 God are really reconciled. But this is not its highest 
 duty. Since the Reconciliation is of no avail except 
 to those w r ho are actually reconciled, it is not enough 
 for a man to learn that it has been made; he must 
 know how he personally may reap its benefits. Thus 
 the Christian ministry is a ministry of grace as well 
 as of truth ; it bids every man, on the one hand, hold 
 out the hand of faith that he may receive God's gifts; 
 while, on the other, it is itself a means whereby the grace 
 or invigorating force of Christ, conveyed by His Spirit, 
 and reaching man by the certificated channels of His ap- 
 
 1 2 Tim. ii. 2. Tit. i. 5. 2 I Tim. iii* 2-12. Tit. i. 7-9. 
 
190 Sacerdotalism. [Serm. 
 
 proach, makes us " one with Christ, and Christ with us." 1 
 The " Word of Keconciliation," taken in its broad sense, 
 includes all the powers 2 of the Gospel age, which enable 
 Christ's ministers to do their Master's work. And thus, 
 at this hour, the commission still runs — " Be thou a faith- 
 ful Minister of the Word of God, and of His Holy Sacra- 
 ments, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost." 3 
 
 II. 
 
 Here we encounter the watchword of an objection, per- 
 haps I ought rather to say, of a state of feeling, which, 
 under present circumstances, if it is to be noticed at all, re- 
 quires on all hands a serious effort of forbearance. A label 
 is not an argument, properly speaking ; it may represent 
 the effort of a busy age to dispense with argument, and to 
 record its judgment in a compendious form ; it is sometimes 
 the instinctive language of far-sighted justice ; but not less 
 frequently is it the verdict of onesidedness or of passion. 
 In religious matters men have always been prone to affix 
 labels to forms of belief or thought of which they feel more 
 or less suspicious; and this not always ill-naturedly, or 
 with the view of disabling an opponent by imprinting on 
 him a stigma, but in order to make their own way clear to 
 themselves under perplexing circumstances. For the mass 
 of men are secretly but profoundly conscious of their real 
 indistinctness of vision, even when their language is 
 boisterously positive. As they feel their way doubtfully 
 along the frontier which separates the seen from the unseen 
 world, they are often more ready to welcome, or even to 
 set up guide-posts, than to inquire whether such erections 
 are recommended by adequate authority, and whether the 
 guidance which they offer is altogether accurate. And 
 
 1 Communion Service, Exhortation. 
 
 2 Heb. vi. 5, Swdyueis /x^Wovtos a.iwi>os. 3 Ordination of Priests. 
 
Sacerdotalism. 
 
 191 
 
 hus it has happened, that fearing some very possible and 
 ome quite impossible dangers, certain persons have lately 
 aised a prominent notice-board close to the district of 
 nought which we are now considering; and, on looking up, 
 vq find traced across it, in characters that compel the 
 ,ttention of the world, a formidable word, harmless in itself, 
 >ut surrounded with very invidious associations ; the word 
 Sacerdotalism." 
 
 Now, a popular judgment, such as this word represents, 
 s not by any means to be at once set aside, as if it were 
 >nly the product of ignorance or injustice. A certain 
 dement of justice, it is at least probable, underlies all such 
 niblic judgments ; and those whom they may seem to con- 
 cern do well, while recognising this, to analyze them, and 
 0 separate the element which is dictated by a true insight 
 )r feeling from the element which is supplied by vulgar 
 )rejudice. This word Sacerdotalism is intended to dis- 
 parage what we know to be a great and solemn truth ; but 
 t is also employed to describe traditional habits of thought 
 >r a professional temper, which are really due to human 
 veakness, and which are not untainted by human sin. Let 
 is begin with the truth which those who employ it would 
 gnore or set aside. 
 
 Here the maintenance of positive truth has been made 
 nore difficult than it might be, by later accretions gathered 
 ■ound the deposit which comes down to us from the early 
 Church. When, for instance, the New Testament speaks 
 >f an authoritative " word of reconciliation," 1 or of " the 
 ;eys of the kingdom of heaven," 2 or of a " stewardship of 
 he mysteries of God," 3 men think of claims which have 
 )een made to dispense with the Divine Law, or to depose 
 nonarchs from their thrones; and they reflect that such 
 laims do undoubtedly threaten the wellbeing or even 
 
 1 2 Cor. v. 18, 19. 2 St. Matt, xvi. io. Cf. Isa. xxii. 22. Rev. iii. 7. 
 3 1 Cor. iv. 1. 
 
192 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 the independence of civil society. And yet, if we are tc 
 give up all truths that have been exaggerated into errors 
 all institutions that have swerved from their original 
 purpose to become the instruments of ambition or worldli- 
 ness, it is easy to see that much will not be left of the 
 best blessings which God has given us. Not that, in the 
 case before us, it is necessary to enter at length upon a 
 minute discussion of the exact powers involved in the 
 Apostolic ministry, in contrast to exaggerations on this 
 side, or to negations on that. For the popular brand of 
 Sacerdotalism knows nothing of these distinctions ; it does 
 not generally attach itself to one particular conception of 
 the Christian ministry and spare the rest ; it would have 
 been just as freely used of St. Paul " magnifying his office" 1 
 as the Gentile Apostle, as it is used of those who advance 
 pretensions which he never thought of, and even of others 
 who ostentatiously disclaim powers which he fearlessly 
 asserted. Nay, a living writer has not scrupled to describe 
 our Lord Himself as a sacerdotalist. By sacerdotalism, 
 then, something is meant of a broad and general kind which 
 underlies specific forms of the idea, and with this con- 
 ception of what sacerdotalism is, it is, on every account, 
 important to reckon if we can. 
 
 It would appear that the etymology of the word is no 
 real guide to us. The Jewish priest was pre-eminently a 
 sacrificer ; he had a commission from above to put animals 
 to death in expression of a religious faith. In other priest- 
 hoods other powers have been more prominently claimec 
 than sacrifice ; but it is not any one pretension or endow- 
 ment which rouses the feeling which the word " sacer- 
 dotalism " now represents. 
 
 That which is really objected to would seem to be th< 
 claim to speak and act in the things of God under a Divirn 
 commission ; to have been put in trust with the Gospel, no 
 
 1 Eom. xi. 13. 
 
Sacerd o ta lism . 
 
 193 
 
 •f man, but by Jesus Christ ; to be part of the Divine plan 
 if reconciliation, as actually given to the world, however 
 tumble and subordinate a part ; to be an integral element 
 If the Divine Constitution of the Church, in such sense 
 hat the Church would be something else than the Church 
 »f the Apostles if it were omitted. In this broad sense 
 sacerdotalism" is charged against a serious Presbyterianism 
 s well as against Episcopacy ; l against the Westminster 
 Assembly not less than against the Savoy Conference. 
 7 rom this point of view new Presbyter is but old Priest 
 vrit large; and not merely the English Clergy, but the 
 A r esleyan Conference, are said to be "inclined to sacer- 
 lotalisni." All thoughtful Christian ministers know that 
 hey need a Divine warrant for their momentous work ; 
 ■ightly or wrongly, they all, in some sense, claim it ; and 
 t is the claim to have such a warrant which is resisted, 
 because it involves on the part of others a certain depen- 
 dence upon the man or order which possesses it. Whether 
 me ministerial power only is claimed, or others also, 
 loes not here matter ; what is objected to is the assertion 
 ;hat a man is in any way dependent upon the intermediate 
 igency of his brother man for obtaining any of the 
 Redemptive Blessings which have been won by Christ. 
 
 1 For an old illustration of this, see "Rome ruined by Whitehall; or 
 ?he Papall Crown Demolisht: containing a Confutation of the three 
 ,)egrees of Popery, viz. Papacy, Prelacy, and Presbitery ; answerable to 
 he Triple Crown of the three-headed Cerberus, the Pope, by John Spittle - 
 .ouse, Assistant to the Marshall- General of the Army under the command 
 f his Excellency the Lord General Fairfax. London, Paine, 1650." In 
 is preface, addressed "to the Commons assembled in Parliament," Mr. 
 'pittlehouse assures them that they "are the men whom God intends to 
 onour as His Instruments to pluck up Antichrist, root and branch." He 
 rays them " to delay not time, but with a Christian courage resolve to act 
 
 full Reformation, which," he continues, "you will never effect so long as 
 ou support the Prelaticall or Presbiterian Clergy, either in office or main- 
 jnance, that of Presbitery being a Romish Hierarchy as the other, as in this 
 lsuing treatise is proved at large." Cf. ch. vi. pp. 244-7. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 [Serm, 
 
 in. 
 
 "What, let us ask, are the main currents of thought whicl 
 underlie the feeling that raises the cry of " sacerdotal 
 ism " ? 
 
 First of all, there is the doctrine of the original equality 
 of man with man. This is a conception with which w< 
 are familiar in the sphere of politics. The assertion thai 
 spiritual blessings come to one man through the agency 
 of another man, or order of men, appears to traverse th( 
 inherent equality of all men before their Maker. If then 
 are no traces of this sentiment in the earliest ages of th< 
 Church, it is because then the Clergy, first in labour and firsl 
 in suffering, were tribunes of the people, the working re- 
 presentatives of classes who groaned under the iron rul( 
 of the Caesars. But with the Middle Ages, or rather before 
 them, there came a change. It was a consequence, perhaps 
 an inevitable consequence, of the conversion of the Empire 
 It was due, not to clerical ambition or greed, but to th( 
 nature of things, to the course of the Divine Providence 
 The Church became politically powerful ; her chief minister; 
 were often princes ; they were still spiritual pastors 
 but they were also robed in earthly splendours. Now s( 
 long as the early feudal order of society held its place, th( 
 Church did not suffer from this association. But whei 
 that long series of struggles for a new political freedon 
 set in, which began with the efforts of small township 
 to hold their own against the great territorial lords, an( 
 which have culminated in the revolutionary outbreak 
 of our own age, men could no longer distinguish betwee: 
 what belonged to this world and what to another in 
 feudalized clergy. Too often the Church's spiritual claim 
 have shared in the hostility which her temporal power c 
 wealth provoked. Presbyterianism, it has been said, wa 
 in its origin not so much an attempt to create a new kin 
 
Sacerdotalism. 
 
 195 
 
 I Church governraent supposed to be Scriptural, as a poli- 
 cal protest against an aristocratic hierarchy. And thus 
 has come to pass that there is a modern feeling against 
 ay ministerial order claiming a Divine commission, as 
 eing an indirect violation of the civil rights of man ; 
 id as threatening a relapse into social conditions from 
 Inch the modern world is happy to think that it has 
 ually escaped. 
 
 And yet, brethren, is it true that any such equality of 
 ^an with man, as this feeling really presumes, is possible ? 
 •oubtless, as simple souls divested of all save that inalien- 
 jle responsibility for all which each of us is and does, we 
 
 absolutely equal before the eye of God. Xo difference 
 possible before God, between king and subject, between 
 dest and layman, between the unlettered and the learned, 
 3tween the poor 'and the rich, save that which each for him- 
 'lf has made. But beyond this point inequalities — so far as 
 e can see, inevitable, irremoveable inequalities — at once 
 3gin. Modern experiments have done much for liberty: 
 imething here and there for fraternity ; but even when, 
 ) in France, they have effaced nearly all that is beautiful 
 
 the civilization of a thousand years, they have achieved 
 r real equality absolutely nothing. There is no making 
 iad against the nature of things, against the structural 
 ws of common human life. And thus in natural society 
 e still see on all sides, men and classes of men, with 
 horn we cannot ourselves dispense ; we trace a series of 
 erarchies, upon which we are dependent for moral, mental, 
 ivsical blessings, whether we will or no. 
 There are the priests of wealth. Wealth is not, and it 
 .nnot be, distributed among men, as the apostles of an 
 >solute human equality would desire. Proclaim a general 
 •nfiscation of property to-day; and wealth will begin 
 
 concentrate itself anew in a few hands to-morrow* : 
 ere are economical laws which make this concentration 
 
196 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 imperative. And if this be so, what are the holders 1 
 wealth but its priests ; the guardians of its great shrine 
 the dispensers of material blessings which are unattainab 
 without it ; — priests of wealth, having the power of the ke^ 
 and the power of sacrifice, as a priesthood should ? 
 
 Again, there are the priests of knowledge; the pries 
 of the most enterprising forms of modern knowledge, 
 physical science. What a hierarchy is this ; how brilliar 
 how enthusiastic, how powerful ! How does the mode] 
 world hang breathless on its dogmatic utterances; ho 
 does our freshest and most promising talent throng i 
 temples! It may take liberties, this priesthood, such 
 its power ; it may unsay to-day what yesterday it affirm* 
 very positively ; and yet it does not imperil its influenc 
 or risk our allegiance ; we are altogether dependent on i 
 we cannot do without it if we would. It is the herald 
 a revelation, the revelation of nature; and we, childr( 
 of nature as we are, cannot deny its capacity for blessii 
 us, or our powerlessness to do for ourselves what it unde 
 takes so well. Every day it brings alleviation to individu 
 suffering, or safeguards against public danger to health, 1 
 it opens out new and magnificent prospects for the betterh 
 of the whole condition of our earthly existence ; and as \ 
 observe, and listen, and reflect, we cannot but see in it i 
 organ of God's Providence, an embassy from Heaven; "\ 
 welcome in it a Priesthood which guards a truth that h 
 claims upon us all. 
 
 Once more, there are the priests of political power. Tb 
 too, is claimed for every individual by current doctrines 
 human equality. And it has been, in point of fact, agf 
 and again distributed throughout vast populations, so tl 
 every man may, as the phrase goes, govern himself. B , 
 practically speaking, what happens ? If political pov 
 is to work as government, it must be resigned to so ' 
 deputy ; it must be concentrated in some person ( 
 
Sacerdotalism. 
 
 197 
 
 ody: if you have not a king, you must have a pre- 
 ident, a directory, a convention, a parliament, perhaps 
 dictator. What is this after all but a hierarchy ? 
 L nd the gifts which fit men for this high service of the 
 :ate are, as we have all been thinking lately, rare and 
 ften unshared ; they are not secured by careful training ; 
 ley cannot be conferred by vote ; they belong to genius. 
 )o what we will, we are their debtors and dependants ; 
 ve when or where we may, we cannot dispense with 
 .iera. This priesthood of the state, which in its way 
 lesses, and absolves, and offers sacrifice, and instructs, is 
 ssential to society ; and it guards, it does not confiscate, 
 ur individual rights. 
 In fact, look where we will in human life, we must 
 ?cognise this great fact in God's providential government 
 f the world. He does make large masses of men de- 
 endent upon the good dispositions as well as on the 
 apacity of others; He makes a minority the guardian 
 nd trustee of the means of blessing the majority; He 
 ispenses His gifts to us not immediately, but through 
 re agency of our fellow-creatures. As far as we can 
 3e, this law of responsibility on one side, and of depen- 
 ence on the other, does not belong to any particular 
 :age of civilization ; it may take different forms, it may 
 e modified in many ways, but it is inherent in the 
 ature of society. Society, made up as it is of human 
 eings with different capacities, and of human beings who 
 merit the results of similar inequalities in past generations, 
 ill always present to the very end of time this aspect, 
 gainst which abstract doctrines of an absolute equality 
 niong men must dash themselves in vain. And thus, in 
 eligion, a ministerial order illustrates and consecrates the 
 eneral law ; spiritual blessings depend, within limits, like 
 ther blessings, on human agency ; and the agency which 
 onfers them has a Divine warrant in history as well as in 
 
198 Sacerdotalism. [Serm. 
 
 the nature of things. Therefore, to say that such an arrange- 
 ment is hostile to the rights of man as man, is to object 
 to God's general plan of governing the world ; a plan which 
 makes every one of us depend upon the ability, the conscien- 
 tiousness, the will of others, for the greater part of the 
 blessings which we enjoy. 
 
 Next, the cry of "sacerdotalism" is raised on religious 
 grounds: all Christians, it is said, are already priests. U 
 anything is plain from Holy Scripture, it is that the sacrifi- 
 cial character of the Jewish priesthood was believed by tht 
 Apostles of Christ to be transferred to every member of th< 
 Christian body. St. Peter insists that Christians are an hoi) 
 priesthood, appointed to offer up spiritual sacrifices, accept 
 able to God through Jesus Christ. 1 St. John, in vision 
 praises the Divine Redeemer for making us kings an( 
 priests unto God and His Father. 2 Where all are priests 
 it is asked, why should there be a ministerial order, sine 
 it can only discharge functions which are the function 
 of us all % 
 
 Certainly, if Christian laymen would only believe wit 
 all their hearts that they are really priests, we shoul 
 very soon escape from some of the difficulties which ve 
 the Church of Christ. ' For it would then be seen that i 
 the Christian Church the difference between clergy an 
 laity is only a difference of the degree in which certai 
 spiritual powers are conferred ; that it is not a differenc 
 of kind. Spiritual endowments are given to the Christia 
 layman with one purpose, to the Christian minister wit 
 another: the object of the first is personal, that of tl 
 second is corporate. 
 
 Yes, the Apostles of Christ tell us all that we are priest 
 But do we take them at their word ? Do we say to ou 
 selves, except when we are dealing with one particular coi 
 troversy, that their language is only metaphor, and forg 
 
 1 1 St. Pet. ii. 5-9. 2 Rev. i. 6. 
 
Sacerdotalism. 
 
 199 
 
 ^hat every metaphor guards a truth ? To the first Christians 
 his lay priesthood was a reality. A Christian layman 111 
 he Apostolic age conceived of himself as a true priest. 
 -Vithin his heart there was an altar of the Most Holy, 
 .nd on it he offered continually the sacrifice, the costly 
 acrifice, of his will, united to the Perfect Will of Jesus 
 Christ, and, through this union, certain of acceptance 
 n the courts of heaven. The Christian layman of 
 •arly days was thus, in his inmost life, penetrated through 
 md through by the sacerdotal idea, spiritualized and 
 ransfigured as it was by the Gospel. Hence, it was no 
 lifficulty to him that this idea should have its public 
 •epresentatives in the body of the Church, or that certain 
 •eserved duties should be discharged by Divine appoint- 
 nent, but on behalf of the whole body, by these repre- 
 sentatives. The priestly institute in the public Christian 
 )ody was the natural extension of the priesthood which 
 he lay Christian exercised within himself ; and the secret 
 ife of the conscience was in harmony with the outward 
 )rganization of the Church. But a layman in our day is 
 lot necessarily a successor of the primitive Christian lay- 
 nan in anything but the name. He is not always a 
 reliever whose faith and humility shrink from the respon- 
 sibilities of the ministerial office ; he may be only a human 
 )eing, whose convictions are doubtful, but who certainly is 
 lot in holy orders, and who sees in the Ministry of Christ 
 chiefly a badge of social or political disabilities. Where 
 here is no recognition of the priesthood of every Christian 
 •oul, the sense of an unintelligible mysticism, if not of 
 in unbearable imposture, will be provoked when spiritual 
 oowers are claimed for the benefit of the whole body by the 
 ierving officers of the Christian Church. But if this can be 
 'hanged ; if the temple of the layman's soul can be again 
 nade a scene of spiritual worship, he will no longer fear 
 est the ministerial order should confiscate individual 
 
200 
 
 Sacerdotalism, 
 
 [Serm 
 
 liberty. The one priesthood will be felt to be the natura 
 extension and correlative of the other. 
 
 Lastly, when denouncing " sacerdotalism," men point t( 
 the Throne of the Great Hi°h Priest of Christendom 
 Since He died, rose, and ascended into heaven, is not, the] 
 ask, all Priesthood, all Ministerial Power, concentrated ii 
 Him ? and must not any earthly order of priesthood incu: 
 some risk of obscuring these Solitary and Prerogativ< 
 offices, which are our only assured ground of Christian lift 
 and hope ? 
 
 Such language is too genuinely Christian to be disre 
 garded ; and yet, if it be pressed, it is fatal to the trutl 
 which was the basis of the previous objection. If al 
 Christians are, in some sense, priests, Christ does, in somi 
 sense, give a share of His Priesthood to His brethren. Anc 
 if He gives a larger share to some, and a less to others, fo: 
 the good of the whole, the question between the opponent! 
 and advocates of a true ministerial commission is, ii 
 reality, a question of degree. When St. Paul bade Timotir 
 see to it, that, in the Church under his care, intercessions 
 should be made for all men, he did not think that hi 
 was authorizing an invasion of the rights of the On 
 Great Intercessor. And when at the altar Christ's Minister 
 plead His perfect Sacrifice before the Father, or bless Hi 
 people, or announce His pardon, they act, not as His rival: 
 but as His representatives, empowered to share, at howeve 
 vast a distance, in carrying forward His Mediatorial work. 
 It is with His Priesthood as with His other offices of Kiri 
 and Prophet. He is the Prophet of Whom Moses sang ; 
 He is the King of kings and Lord of lords of the apostol 
 vision. 4 Yet He is not dishonoured, if His teaching offi< 
 is exercised, however imperfectly, by human instructor; 
 and the objection of the Fifth Monarchy men to an earth 
 sovereign would hardly be repeated at the present da 
 £3 or is He less truly alone, as a Priest upon His heaven 
 
 1 i Tim. ii. i. 2 2 Cor. vi. I. 3 Deut. xviii. 15. * Rev. xix. 16. 
 
X.] 
 
 Sacerdota lism. 
 
 201 
 
 throne, 1 in His work of sacrifice and intercession, because 
 there is a priesthood of the Gospel 2 commissioned by 
 Himself here on earth, whose business it is, as ministering 
 the Word and Sacraments, to bring His Mediation home to 
 the souls of men. In short, He is Priest, Prophet, King, 
 in an absolute and unique sense; all who bear these titles be- 
 neath His Throne are only holders of a delegated authority; 
 but His rights are not compromised, His Majesty is not 
 obscured, because He intrusts to a certain number of His 
 servants this or that power for the good of all His brethren. 
 
 And yet, let us be sure, there is a certain justice in 
 the popular cry which we have been considering. Let 
 me address myself to those of you who hope, with God's 
 assistance, to devote yourselves to His service in Holy 
 Orders. Eemember that prejudice is less often roused by a 
 theory or doctrine about our office than by a temper, a bear- 
 ing, a line of conduct. Men will not tolerate the love of 
 spiritual power, as power, for its own sake; they expect 
 us to bear in mind that spiritual power is only lodged in the 
 hands of weak and sinful men for the purposes of Divine 
 beneficence. They will not put up with what seems trivial 
 or petty, where such great claims are made upon their 
 thought and conscience. And their eyesight has been 
 sharpened by our Divine Master's dealings with the Scribes 
 and Pharisees ; and the faults of the Scribes and Pharisees 
 are faults to which a clerical order — such is human weak- 
 ness — is always prone, and against which it must be 
 constantly on guard, if it would not fail most miserably. 
 To appropriate the high gifts of heaven, or the love, and 
 trust, and dependence of human souls, which in some 
 measure are the portion of every minister of Christ, for 
 the promotion of some selfish object, is sufficiently easy ; 
 and yet it surely deserves the harshest judgment of a 
 critical and hostile world. If the world tells us home 
 
 Zech. vi. 13. 2 Bora. xv. 1 6, iepovpyovvra t6 evayyeXiov tov QeoO. 
 
202 
 
 Sacerdotalism. 
 
 truths in rough language, a true wisdom will forget the 
 language, and will treasure the truth. When the Apostle 
 says that the word of the Eeconciliation has been com- 
 mitted to us, he tells us that we are trustees; and our 
 safety consists, perhaps, in dwelling on the responsi- 
 bilities of a great trust, rather than any other aspect of 
 our office. A conscientious trustee thinks first of the 
 interests committed to him, next of the office which he 
 fills as guarding them, least of all of himself. A con- 
 scientious clergyman will think more of his office than 
 of his person, but he will also take less account of his 
 office than of his work. After all, the first is only a means, 
 the last is the end. Ministerial powers are given, not to 
 confer importance on a man or on an order, but to promote 
 a work ; the highest work that can be carried on in time, 
 and for eternity, among or by human beings. Such a work 
 no doubt implies and requires great powers, but these 
 powers, like the muscular action of the body, or like the 
 finer capacities of the mind, are, it may be, better taken 
 for granted than constantly discussed. Certainly, if their 
 existence is challenged, it may have to be asserted. 
 But even when such a vindication is required, there is 
 always some danger of putting the means before the end, 
 and of forgetting the claims of spiritual duty in the 
 advocacy of a spiritual position. How slight indeed is 
 the outward structure of the Church militant, framed 
 though it were by the Pierced Hands of the Divine 
 Eedeemer, when we compare it with the vast object 
 which it is designed to achieve ; the working together with 
 God for the reconciliation of souls to Him, the Source and 
 End of created Life, through union with the One Mediator 
 Jesus Christ ! Only in a far-off eternity shall we understand 
 the full scope of words like these ; we come nearest to 
 understanding them here, by never forgetting that they 
 describe a work which infinitely transcends in its impor- 
 tance any other that can possibly engage our attention. 
 
SERMON XL 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF THE MAGNIFICAT. 
 
 St. Lttke i. 51-53. 
 
 He hath shoiccd strength with His arm: He hath scattered tlie proud in the 
 imagination of their Jiearts. He hath put doicn the mighty from t/icir 
 seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with 
 good things ; and tlie rich He hath sent empty away. 
 
 THE Magnificat is tacitly recognised, by the judgment 
 and by the heart of Christendom, as the noblest of 
 Christian hymns. The occasion of its utterance was unique 
 in Jewish, or rather in human history ; it was such as to 
 place Mary's Hymn in a higher category than those other 
 evangelical canticles which, together with it, and with a 
 vie\\ r to illustrating St. Paul's teaching, are preserved by 
 St, Luke. When Mary sang, she had received Gabriel's 
 message, and she knew that her expected Child, con- 
 ceived under circumstances altogether preternatural, would 
 be greater than any of the sons of men. Her hymn, in 
 fact, is presented to us in Scripture as the Hymn of 
 the Divine Incarnation; and its contents, alike in their 
 explicitness and in their reserve, are in keeping with its 
 historical origin. It has indeed been suggested 1 that 
 Mary, in visiting her cousin, would scarcely have broken 
 out into a long canticle instead of engaging in the conver- 
 
 1 Strauss, Lcbcn Jesu. 
 
204 The Prophecy of the Magnificat, [Serm. 
 
 sation which would be natural between relations after a 
 period of separation. But it may be replied, first, that the 
 Evangelist does not profess to report all that passed at the 
 Visitation; and, secondly, that, even within the sphere of 
 purely natural experience, there are moments when human 
 feeling altogether refuses to submit to the ordinary re- 
 straints of homely intercourse, and when, under the stress 
 of great joy or sorrow, we must either be silent, or express 
 ourselves in a strain which to cool observers at the time, 
 and to ourselves at other times, would appear to be unna- 
 tural. If, then, we reflect what, according to the Evan- 
 gelist, the recent experience of the Virgin-mother had 
 actually been, we must feel the impossibility of interpreting 
 this utterance by the rules which govern our feelings and 
 conversation in daily life. And, indeed, it is not difficult 
 to imagine how our critic would himself have treated the 
 report of a business-like discussion on family matters, inter- 
 spersed with some pious reflections, if St. Luke could have 
 bequeathed one. Nor is it possible to agree in the forced 
 expression of surprise that a hymn emanating immediately 
 from so high a source of inspiration " should not be more 
 striking for its originality." 1 Certainly the modern feeling 
 of anxiety to owe nothing to a literary predecessor finds 
 no place in the sacred writers ; prophets continually repeat, 
 with new freshness and authority, the language of older 
 men of God; and, to omit other examples, the holiest of 
 all prayers is largely based on Eabbinical petitions which 
 were in use when it was first prescribed. Yet in all such 
 cases, new combinations, new associations, a new and all- 
 inspiring purpose, do secure a true element of originality ; 
 for originality maybe achieved not less perfectly by the effec- 
 tive use of old ideas and language than by the production 
 of new material. Unquestionably Mary, in her hymn, does 
 speak almost entirely in the sacred language of the past; 
 
 1 Strauss, Leben Jesu. 
 
XL] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 205 
 
 two Books of the Law, a late Psalmist, two Prophets, and 
 the work of the Son of Sirach are laid under contribu- 
 tion : above all, the Song of Hannah, to whose memory 
 in her new circumstances Mary would not unnaturally have 
 turned, supplies a large proportion, both of its language 
 and its form, to the Hymn of the Visitation. And yet who 
 would seriously compare the earlier with the later poem ? 
 Throughout the Magnificat, exclaims a living foreign Pro- 
 testant divine, there reigns a truly royal majesty: 1 Mary 
 passes from pouring forth the thankful joy of her heart to 
 point with reverent awe at the Divine fact which was its 
 provoking cause ; and then, as if gazing from a lofty emi- 
 nence, in the fulness of the prophetic spirit, she discerns 
 the consequences of this fact in human nature and history; 
 and the last strophe of her song dies away, as she owns in 
 it, not simply a personal honour rendered to herself, but 
 the supreme token of God's faithfulness and compassion 
 towards the people of His choice. 
 
 I 
 
 It is in what, if we were to write it out in its ori- 
 ginal Aramaic form, we should call the third strophe 
 of the hymn 2 that Mary's feeling seems to attain its 
 highest point of elevation ; while yet the rising impulse 
 of inspired passion is restrained by her observance of 
 the law of poetic parallelism. Mary has already referred 
 in tender, solemn, and reserved language to the great 
 things which God has done to her. And now she is, as 
 it were, looking out across the centuries at the mighty 
 religious revolution which would date from the appear- 
 ance of her Divine Son on the scene of human history. 
 God, she exclaims, hath showed strength with His arm ; 
 He hath scattered the proud; He hath put down the 
 1 Godet, Comm. S. Luc, in loc. 2 St. Luke i. 51-53. 
 
2o6 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 mighty; He hath exalted the humble; He hath filled the 
 hungry ; He hath sent the rich empty away. It is true 
 that these are past tenses, and they might thus be referred 
 to the triumphs and fortunes of Israel in bygone days ; to 
 that ancient discomfiture of the Egyptian power, which was 
 scarcely ever absent from the memory and heart of Hebrew 
 saints and patriots ; to the dethronement of the Canaanite, 
 the Amorite, the Amalekite kings who vainly endeavoured 
 to arrest the advancing destinies of Israel; to the abasement 
 of the pride of Moab and of the might of Babylon ; to 
 the restoration in splendour and in power of the chosen 
 race, when it had been fast bound by merciless conquerors 
 in misery and iron. Mary has been understood to mean 
 that Israel, as a people, did, on the whole, even in its 
 worst moments, more or less hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, and was rewarded by a long line of teachers 
 of spiritual truth, culminating in the Greatest Teacher of all; 
 while other peoples, rich indeed in natural endowments, 
 but sated with the conceits of misdirected speculation, or 
 with the cumbrous splendours of a mere material civiliza- 
 tion, were sent empty away from the spiritual feast. But 
 it seems that Mary is thinking less of the past than of the 
 present, and of the future which lies in the womb of the 
 present. So, after the manner of prophets, she does not 
 anticipate that which is yet to come ; she reads off what 
 she sees intuitively, as if it were already history. He 
 hath scattered the proud ; He hath put down the mighty ; 
 He hath exalted the humble ; He hath filled the hungry ; 
 He hath dismissed the rich. God's work is for Mary as if it 
 were present or past, while, speaking historically, although 
 on the point of beginning, it was still, in its richest 
 and truest sense, altogether future. In her great hymn 
 Mary stands, no doubt, between two histories, between 
 two dispensations. They present many points of resem- 
 blance to each other, and she can hardly prophesy with- 
 
XL] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 207 
 
 jut describing, or describe without prophesying. But 
 upon the whole she is looking forward rather than back- 
 ward; she is prophetess rather than historian; and her 
 language is to be interpreted less by the history of Israel 
 ifter the flesh than by that of the New Kingdom of her 
 Divine Son. 
 
 And here let us dwell more closely on Mary's words, 
 to learn, if it may be, their interpretation in history. 
 
 AYho are these — the " proud " 1 — claiming distinc- 
 tion beyond others on the score whether of influence, 
 3r accomplishments, or position, or virtue ? There are 
 critics who cannot think of Mary as more than a pa- 
 triotic Jewess. Accordingly they see in this epithet only 
 a reference to heathen pride, whether the pride of political 
 power or the pride of culture and philosophy. This pride 
 still lives in the pages of Tacitus, or Juvenal, or Lucian ; 
 lavishing its bitterness on the strange unaccommodating 
 race, whose spirit it could not quell ; despising its virtues 
 aot less than its vices, its intrepid loyalty to what truth it 
 knew not less than its narrowness and superstition. But if 
 the pride of heathendom was in the background of Mary's 
 vision, there w T ere, in the more immediate foreground, 
 3thers than the heathen on whom her spiritual eye w r ould 
 probably rest. Unless w r e are to suppose that, deferring 
 to a merely technical use or abuse of language, and in 
 defiance of the moral facts of the case, she draws a sharp 
 line between Jew and Gentile, making the first monopolize 
 the graces of humility and meekness, and the latter the 
 vice of pride, we must see in " the proud " a reference to the 
 jreat Jewish sects, who, speaking historically, were the 
 first opponents of the Gospel. There was the pride of the 
 Sadducee; generally w r ealthy, sceptical, and conservative, 
 tolerant of what he deemed fanaticism till it gave him 
 trouble, or threatened the existing order of things, but 
 
 1 VTCpT}<pOLVOl'S. 
 
2o8 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 regarding with serene contempt any serious proposal for 
 extending the influence of religion, or for improving the 
 condition of the people. And there was the Pharisee; 
 aiming morally far higher than his rival, but ruining 
 everything by his determined self-complacency, forgetting 
 the motive in the act, the inward in that which meets the 
 eye, the real in the conventional. And behind these were 
 the Herodians; interesting themselves in the religious 
 situation only so far as was necessary to make political 
 capital out of it, but resenting with scorn any assertion of 
 a spiritual claim or force which could not be made politi- 
 cally serviceable. These were the first opponents of the 
 New Kingdom ; and their discomfiture, when the Church 
 of Christ burst the bonds of Jewish nationality, and spread 
 out her arms to all the nations of the world through the 
 ministry and by the voice of St. Paul, is the first stage in 
 the great drama which Mary sees unfolding itself before 
 her. 
 
 The second is wider in its range. He hath put dowr 
 the " sovereigns," 1 from their thrones. Here it is pos- 
 sible enough that Mary glances at the Idumsean ruler 
 whose presence, in the judgment of all Jewish patriots 
 casts a dark shadow over the city of David. But behinc 
 the throne of Herod is the more remote but more awfu 
 throne of his great patron, the throne of the Csesar 
 Here the horizon has already widened too largely t( 
 permit us to think only of the fortunes of a local an( 
 dependent potentate. Mary is gazing at the head am 
 centre of the ancient world, at the godless power whicl 
 St. John in his Apocalypse describes as Babylon. Whei 
 Mary sang, the Csesars were at the head of their legion* 
 and the world was at their feet. But pass a few centurie 
 and the imperial name is but a shadow, and Eome ha 
 been again and again the prey of her barbaric enemies, an< 
 
 1 dwdaros. 
 
X] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 209 
 
 oths and Huns, Vandals and Lombards, have shared her 
 )oils. Doubtless the Christians were loyal to " the powers 
 iat be." But Christianity, as a principle, did, however 
 voluntarily, contribute to the ruin of the Pagan Empire. 
 Doner or later the new wine of a Divine life must have 
 irst the bottle of an effete civilization. An apostle had 
 en "another angel come from heaven, . . . and he 
 led mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the 
 -eat is fallen, is fallen." 1 
 
 Yes ! Gibbon felt the power of Mary's words, when, as he 
 lis us in his autobiography, on the 15th of October 1764, 
 3 sat musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, while they 
 ere chanting the Vesper Service in wdiat had once been 
 le Temple of Jupiter ; and the idea of writing the Decline 
 id Fall of the city first presented itself to his mind. 2 
 hat which met his eye was a comment on the language 
 \ the Magnificat, as it fell upon his ear: "He hath 
 at down the mighty from their thrones." The great 
 lonument of historical genius which he was thus led to 
 iar, is unrivalled to this day in its own field and province 
 5 a sample of literary method, and in many respects of 
 itual information, although it is disfigured by features 
 hich all Christians must deplore. But do we not trace 
 1 it not merely a reaction from the thoughtless impulse 
 hich had hurried its author in early life into communion 
 ith the Church of Borne, but also, and much more, a sort 
 I literary resentment, such as was seen more than once 
 1 the earlier days of the Benaissance against God's judg- 
 lents manifested in history; a resentment which, by its 
 ery petulance, attests the completeness and the meaning 
 I God's work? It was hard to confess — it was impos- 
 ble to deny — that when Borne fell, God had put down 
 ie mighty from their thrones. 
 
 1 Rev. xviii. 2. 
 
 2 Autobiographic Memoirs oj Edward Giblon, p. 79 (ed. Warao.) 
 
 0 
 
2io The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 The Empire has passed away, the horizon widens yet 
 more, and Mary sees a new stage in the fortunes of the 
 Church. "He hath filled the hungry with good things, 
 and the rich He hath sent empty away." The old pagan 
 civilization, sated with its luxury, sated with its false 
 philosophy, was dismissed ; and the young races beyond 
 the Rhine and the Danube, hungering for a higher truth 
 than as yet they knew, were filled with good things of 
 the kingdom of Christ. Pagan Eome was succeeded by 
 Christian Europe; and since that astonishing revolution, 
 the last clause of this strophe of Mary's song has been 
 continually fulfilling itself. The old civilizations of the 
 East, but especially the races which have been petrified hy 
 the creed of Islam, and so believe themselves to have 
 attained all that is needed for true human excellence 
 receive nothing, century after century, from the Master o: 
 the feast; while simple and comparatively rude peoples 
 such as the New Zealanders and the Melanesians, arc 
 brought into the fold of Christ, and filled with the goot 
 things of the everlasting Gospel. 
 
 Thus, then, Mary seems to imply a correspondenci 
 between the conditions of the Incarnation itself and it 
 remote moral consequences in Christian history. As th 
 Highest had regarded the low estate of His handmaider 
 putting upon her, conceived though she was in sin, sue) 
 altogether pre-eminent honour, that, from henceforth to th 
 latest time, all the Christian generations should bless he 
 name ; so the chiefest blessings of that new order of thing 
 which was to date from the coming of the Lord Incarnat< 
 would not belong to the qualities which might hitherto hav 
 seemed to enjoy a presumptive claim upon success. Th 
 kingdom of grace would have a history all its own. Tli 
 self-assertion, the power, the wealth of the world would I 
 at a discount; the men of low estate would be exalted, an 
 the hungry would be filled. 
 
CL] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 2 1 1 
 
 II. 
 
 But while we may thus with fair probability connect 
 iese clauses of the Magnificat with successive stages in 
 le history of the Church, it is unquestionable that they 
 re or may be in course of fulfilment, at any one period 
 id simultaneously; that each and all of them is or may 
 3 realized perfectly in every age. The "proud," the 
 mighty," the "rich" of the Incarnation Hymn are 
 .ways here ; to be scattered by the arm of God ; to be put 
 own from their thrones; to be sent empty away. This is 
 •ue in the private and spiritual as well as in the political 
 ad public sphere. And the question arises, why is it 
 •ue? Why is there this intrinsic antagonism between 
 le Eevelation of God on the one hand, and so much that 
 . characteristic of human nature and energy on the other? 
 The answer to this question is, that Christianity pre- 
 ipposes in man the existence of an immense want, which 
 i undertakes to satisfy. It further assumes that this 
 ant is so serious and imperative that all honest natures 
 rast crave for its satisfaction. Thus when St. Paul, in the 
 reatest of his epistles, is about to explain how T man attains 
 ) peace and reconciliation with God through faith in the 
 tediatorial work of Jesus Christ, he prefaces this state- 
 lent with an inquiry into man's actual moral circum- 
 ■ances. Having divided the human race for this purpose 
 ito Jew and Gentile, he shows how and why each 
 :ction of mankind is guilty before God, as falling 
 together short of the moral ideals which the law of 
 ature and the law of Sinai respectively presented. 1 And 
 3re, of course, St. Paul is dealing with a matter of general 
 tperience. The ancients could be profuse in acknow- 
 ■dging the moral misery of human life. And if Eousseau 
 
 1 Rom. i. 20-32; ii. 17-29; iii. 9-20. 
 
2 1 2 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Seiui. 
 
 traces this misery to a false culture, and would cure it by 
 returning to a state of nature, and if Goethe, when he is 
 writing about Wink elm ann, permits himself to dream oi 
 the indestructible healthfulness of Greek heathenism, the 
 first of these opinions may be profitably tested by almost 
 any book of African or Pacific travel, while the second has 
 only to be examined by the light of the best Greek writers. 
 Indeed, wherever a bond fide law of moral truth, howevei 
 imperfect, is recognised at all, St. Paul's position must be 
 conceded. 1 And what he argues as to man's moral con- 
 dition is true of his intellectual condition as well. Whei 
 man is left to himself, all the great problems which sur- 
 round human existence, man's origin, his relation to th( 
 world around him, the meaning and drift of his existence 
 his destiny, nay, the question what he himself is, whethe: 
 only brute or embodied spirit, are either entirely unsolvec 
 or approached only in uncertainty and twilight. In short 
 a man does, as a matter of fact, need health and ligh 
 from above; and these requirements have been met bj 
 what St. Paul calls the " goodness and philanthropy of ou 
 Saviour God " 2 in the Divine Incarnation. 
 
 There was, indeed, a great school of divines 3 in th 
 Middle Ages, which, if it has few direct representatives, ye 
 is not without some influence on modern theology, an 
 which ventured, in the real or supposed interests of a com 
 prehensive philosophy, to maintain that the Incarnatio 
 was not simply an answer to our needs ; that it did nc 
 originally depend upon the lapse of our first parent, bi 
 only received a new shape and purpose in consequence 
 that " etiamsi non peccasset homo, Deus tamen esset incai 
 natus." Pew would venture nowadays to affirm or to di: 
 pute so bold a thesis as that. All that we know is that tf 
 earliest intimations of God's gracious purposes towards \ 
 are linked to the first steps in the degradation of our rac< 
 1 Rom. iii. 9. 2 Tit. iii. 4. 3 The Scotists. 
 
CI.] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 213 
 
 nd we dare not speculate upon what He might have done 
 rith a sinless world, so utterly unlike that world of which 
 ve have actual experience. We know that " all have 
 inned and come short of the glory of God, being justified 
 reely by His grace through the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus." 1 We know that " because the children are 
 )artakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise 
 00k part of the same; that through death He might 
 lestroy him that had the power of death, that is the 
 levil ; and deliver them who through fear of death were 
 .11 their lifetime subject to bondage." 2 We know that 
 le was made " sin for us Who knew no sin, that we 
 night be made the righteousness of God in Him." 3 
 
 Christianity, then, appeals to a matter of fact ; it insists 
 hat the deficiencies of our nature are such as to require some 
 noral and intellectual aid from heaven. There are many 
 jifts of God which enrich human life, but which do not come 
 0 it as knowledge comes to those who are perishing through 
 gnorance, or as medicine comes to those who are the victims 
 )f neglected disease. These gifts are embellishments of 
 mman life ; they are not essential to its wellbeing. They 
 lo not fill up a gap ; they only add to what was already in 
 ts way complete without them. Now that we enjoy them 
 ve know their value, and perhaps they have created wants 
 vhich would beset us sorely if they were withdrawn; but 
 it least we did not crave for them ; we did not feel, until 
 hey were vouchsafed to us, that something of the kind 
 vas absolutely needed for the welfare of our race. Take, 
 or example, two such gifts of God as poetry and photo- 
 graphy; the one almost as old as the human family, the 
 >ther a gift to this Western world within the lifetime of 
 he present generation. No doubt poetry has its moral 
 'alue, sometimes of a very high order ; and a world from 
 vhich it should be utterly banished would seem to many 
 
 1 Rom. iii. 23, 24. 2 Hcb. ii. 14. 3 2 Cor. v. at. 
 
214 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 of us to be by comparison an impoverished and uninviting 
 world. Still it would get on — this prosaic world — some- 
 how, even without the poets ; and as for photography, we 
 remember that not many years ago the most civilized 
 nations in Europe were not conscious of any vital deficiency 
 in the absence of this beautiful and interesting art. And 
 in like manner, although astronomy has enlarged out 
 knowledge of God, perhaps, more than any other non- 
 theological branch of human knowledge, and the use oi 
 steam-power has done more than any recent discovery 
 to improve the conditions of man's physical life, yet the 
 world did not yearn for a Watt or a Copernicus, howevei 
 ready it now is to admit its indebtedness to them. Anc 
 it may well be that in future years our children will hav( 
 discovered powers in nature and made the most of them 
 — new gifts of God, which we do not look for, because w» 
 have no want which suggests even a suspicion of thei 
 existence. 
 
 With Christianity it is otherwise. It was vaguely an 
 ticipated by the thoughts and hearts of men for age 
 before it came. Not merely Judaea, but Athens aw 
 Alexandria — not merely the heirs of Abraham's promises 
 but heathens feeling after God, if haply they might fin 
 Him — expected Him to reveal Himself, listened for Hir 
 to speak. They looked out upon the old world, such as : 
 was — a stage on which all the moral laws witnessed to b 
 the natural conscience were perpetually violated; the 
 looked up to the throne of heaven. " Surely," they said, " 
 there be a moral God He must interfere ; sooner or lat< 
 He will rend the heavens and come down; the clow 
 and darkness that seem to be round about Him will w 
 always hide from our eyes the righteousness and judgmei 
 that are the habitation of His seat." 
 
 And now He has spoken, nay, He has come among t 
 And if a man is to accept Christianity, he must recogni 
 
XL 
 
 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 2 1 5 
 
 n his own case, as well as generally, the force of the fact 
 0 which Christianity appeals ; the fact that man needs it. 
 [f he has no appetite based on this sense of want ; if he 
 las never known that instinctive feeling after God which 
 St. Paul ascribes to the old Gentile world ; 1 if his con- 
 science is treated as a mere bundle of associations, or at 
 east has never been sufficiently active, 
 
 "Nocte dieque suiim gestare in pectore testem," 
 
 is it ranges over his past life ; if he has been living, and 
 still lives, as though the universe were self-existent, and 
 ;here were no such thing as absolute moral truth ; then, 
 :or him, the Gospel is of course unwelcome, if in no other 
 ^ense, yet as being superfluous. It offers a supply where 
 :here is no demand, and it is naturally rejected. As our 
 Lord said, with the tenderness of Divine irony, " They that 
 ire whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ; I 
 :arne not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." 2 
 
 But this insensibility to the facts of man's existence will 
 not always last. Sooner or later the truth will avenge 
 itself. Happy they w T ho in this world experience the 
 sentence of the Magnificat; in whom pride and self- 
 reliance is put down from its seat, and spiritual hunger is 
 rewarded ; who discover ere it is too late that, in Scripture 
 language, they are poor and blind and naked, and who 
 :ake the Divine counsel to buy raiment and fine gold and 
 3ye-salve from the Son of Man. 3 
 
 Observe the bearing of this on a point which sooner or 
 ^ater has a practical meaning for most men, in days like 
 ^urs. 
 
 When men get perplexed about the claims of Chris- 
 tianity, they are often led to complain that the evidences 
 Christianity are not more cogent than they are. They 
 1 Actsxvii. 27. 2 g t Matt> ix< I2> I3> 3 R ev> ift lS< 
 
216 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 ask, " Why, if Christianity is true, and of such great impor- 
 tance to all of us, we cannot have mathematical demon- 
 stration of its claims ? Why are we thrown back upon 
 moral considerations, which confessedly present themselves 
 so very differently to different minds ? Does it not look 
 as if the producible evidence was really unequal to the 
 task required of it, and as if Christian apologists, con- 
 scious of this fact, were anxious to blunt the keenness o; 
 criticism by insisting that inquirers about Christianity 
 should take up a moral position which already half dis 
 poses them to allow its assertions ? " 
 
 Certainly, my brethren, it must be admitted that th( 
 Christian evidences presuppose a certain moral sympathy 
 in an inquirer. They are in fact moral and not mathe 
 matical or experimental. They are not of so imperative \ 
 character as to impose themselves, as the sensible experi 
 ence of an earthquake or of an eclipse imposes itself, upoi 
 reluctant wills. We do not accept the Apostles' Cree< 
 by a mental act identical with that which accepts th 
 conclusion of a proposition in Euclid. For the Cree< 
 addresses itself not simply to our capacity for speculativ 
 thought, but also by implication to our sense of dut} 
 because we know that if it is true, a great many practice 
 consequences immediately follow. Therefore the evidenc 
 in its favour is so adjusted as to be sufficient for thos 
 who wish for attested information as to the nature an 
 will of the Author of the law of risdit and wrong withi 
 them, and insufficient for others who, conscious of dis 
 loyalty to that inner law, would rather be without sue 
 information. In this sense it must be granted that Christ 
 anity expects to be met — if not half way, yet to a certai 
 point — by the yearnings of human nature ; by desire base 
 upon a clear discernment of its need of knowledge and i 
 its need of strength. If the evidences for Christianit 
 were of such a character that no honest and educated ma 
 
XI. 
 
 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 217 
 
 could possibly reject them without intellectual folly, what- 
 ever his moral condition or history might be, then Chris- 
 tian belief would be like a university degree, a certificate 
 of a certain sort of mental capacity, but it would be no 
 criterion whatever of a man's past or present relation to God. 
 St. Paul makes faith such a criterion ; because faith is a 
 moral as much as an intellectual act ; because it combines 
 our sense of moral want with our perception of the bearings 
 of moral evidence. Thus a margin of deficiency, mathe- 
 matically speaking, is even necessary in the Christian evi- 
 dences as a whole, in order to leave room for the exercise 
 of faith; that vital, emphatic act of the whole soul, by 
 which the soul throws itself on the invisible, and thus 
 secures the proper moral objects of Christianity itself. 
 
 III. 
 
 It would be easy to show how intimately our prospects 
 of improvement in all departments of human activity and 
 life must depend upon our faith in the continuous fulfil- 
 ment of the words of the Magnificat. The temper which 
 is there foredoomed is in reality the great obstacle to the 
 attainment of our best hopes for the future. 
 
 What is the master passion of many of the noblest men 
 who have ever lived ? It is the conquest of speculative 
 truth. And in our day this passion, always energetic, 
 seeks its object more eagerly than before in the experi- 
 mental sciences. Every Christian must admit that a 
 physical fact is just as much a part of God's truth, 
 although not possibly as necessary for all men to know, 
 as is any fact of the Christian creed. Eeligious men have 
 been slow to own this. The Church of Borne made a 
 signal mistake in the case of Galileo, and no candid person 
 would affirm that a mistake of that sort was, either two 
 centuries ago or since, likely to be peculiar to the Church 
 
218 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 of Eome. All ascertained facts are parts of a perfectly 
 harmonious whole, and must be welcomed by any sincere 
 workman who is employed in any corner, spiritual or 
 natural, of the great temple of Truth. But religion has 
 two complaints to make against some representatives of 
 modern physics. It complains, that the submission of 
 Christian intellect is again and again peremptorily de- 
 manded not for facts, but for some hypothesis, which, if we 
 are to judge from the past, may be presently discredited 
 and abandoned. It complains further, that there is, on 
 the part of some scientific men, a strange indisposition, 
 which at least rivals any private theological prejudice in 
 its irrational tenacity, to admit facts of a different order 
 from their own. No a priori doctrine about the absolute 
 invariability of natural law will persuade us Christians 
 that Jesus Christ did not really rise from the dead. The 
 Eesurrection rests upon adequate testimony, and a really 
 comprehensive science will recognise and account for it, 
 whether by supposing the intervention of a higher law or 
 otherwise. It is irrational to demand that Christians shall 
 forget the great fact which sustains their faith because 
 science has formulated a doctrine of invariable law ; Chris- 
 tianity may be denounced as unprogressive or reactionary, 
 but Christians will keep their eyes on the evidence which 
 has sustained the highest minds and the noblest efforts for 
 eighteen centuries, and will repeat their own " E pur se 
 muove." Surely there are yet mists of intellectual 
 assumption to be scattered, forms of thought to be put 
 down from their seat ; surely there is a simple hungering 
 after all truth to be encouraged, in more quarters of the 
 world of thought than one, if our common object, to know 
 all that we can of the Will and ways of God, is to be suc- 
 cessfully attained. 
 
 What is the most earnest aspiration of every Christian 
 soul in its best moments ? Is it not spiritual improve- 
 
XL] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 219 
 
 merit ? And why is it that the main source of this, the 
 study of the Bible, is so often unproductive ? Because 
 men only study the surface of the Bible, or at best the 
 mind of the Bible. They do not study its heart. Doubt- 
 less the Bible, more than any other book, is a centre of 
 interest ; philological, historical, philosophical, moral. The 
 man of letters was right who said, that if he must have 
 the companionship of only one book to the end of his 
 days, he would choose the Bible. But to see in Holy Scrip- 
 ture the most interesting history, the strongest and most 
 pathetic poetry, the most searching moral teaching known 
 among men, is to do less than justice to the true majesty 
 and power of the sacred volume. We learn all these things 
 from the Bible as its critics ; but there is something be- 
 yond to be learned from it only when we have the grace 
 to be simply learners, anxious that it should speak to our 
 inmost souls. And its power of doing this is best realized 
 when the great moral barrier of self-complacency has been 
 removed, and the soul hungers to be filled with the good 
 things of spiritual truth. Here it is that we often see the 
 illuminative office of sorrow : sorrow forces us on our 
 knees ; sorrow disperses our prejudices ; sorrow casts down 
 our mental idols; sorrow sharpens our appetite for the 
 unseen and the eternal. There are psalms, there are pas- 
 sages in the Gospels and in St. Paul, which no man can 
 understand without the preparatory discipline of mental 
 pain; and thousands of Christians have learned to say, 
 with the Psalmist, " It is good for me that I have been in 
 trouble, that I may learn Thy statutes." 1 
 
 And what is the prayer which Christians must most fre- 
 quently use for the distracted Church of Christ ? Must it 
 not be, that " all they that do confess His Holy Name may 
 agree in the truth of His Holy Word, and live in unity 
 and godly love ? " Must it not be the earthly echo of that 
 
 1 Ps. cxix. 71. 
 
2 20 The Prophecy of the Magnificat. [Serm. 
 
 intercession, begun in the supper-chamber and continued 
 in heaven from century to century, that " they all may be 
 one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they 
 also may be one in Us : that the world may believe that 
 Thou hast sent Me " ? 1 Who, indeed, can have any mode- 
 rate acquaintance with the unbelieving thought of our 
 time without knowing that it appeals to no fact more 
 frequently or with more force than that of the divisions 
 among Christians, when it would justify its rejection of 
 our Master's claims ? Doubtless there are real differences 
 of principle underlying our divisions. On the one side 
 the unwarranted claims of Eome, on the other the Puritan 
 denial of what our Lord has revealed as to the structure 
 of His Church, and the grace and power of His sacra- 
 ments, make separation necessary, until He Who rules 
 the hearts of men as well as the course of events, shall 
 bring about, in whatever way, an understanding between 
 those who sincerely confess His Name. But meanwhile, 
 how different would the situation be if the still inevitable 
 separation were not so often embittered by social and 
 political antagonisms, by accumulations of prejudice and 
 passion which overlay the real points at issue, and which 
 make the angel-chant of peace on earth and goodwill 
 amongst men sound from the heavens, Christmas after 
 Christmas, like a hideous sarcasm ! There is enough in 
 some recent circumstances almost to provoke despair ; and 
 yet, as Christians, we may be sure that the forces which 
 will ultimately reunite the Church of God and secure its 
 triumph are not really in abeyance. The Conference which 
 was held at Bonn two months ago 2 under the presidency 
 of the first of Church historians, may have achieved less 
 than its more sanguine wellwishers had hoped. But at 
 least it has proved how petty and trivial are some of the 
 misunderstandings which have contributed to produce the 
 
 1 St. John xvii. 21. 2 In August 1874. 
 
XL] The Prophecy of the Magnificat. 221 
 
 widest chasms in Christendom ; it has helped to dissipate, 
 it any rate within a certain area, the moral obstacles to 
 concord between disconnected Churches; it has even seemed 
 0 foreshadow, not indistinctly, the advent of a happier day 
 ;han ours, when a wide unity may be enjoyed without 
 confiscating truth ; when truth will be acknowledged, in 
 io half-hearted or indifferentist spirit, at a less costly 
 sacrifice than that of outward and inward unity. 
 
 It is encouraging to reflect that we can all work for 
 *reat and noble ends like this, by learning the moral lesson 
 >vhich is the traditional subject of to-day's sermon in this 
 pulpit. Some assumptions to dissipate, some mental idols 
 ;o depose, some truth and goodness to hunger after, there 
 mist be for all of us. And, as a great living analyst of 
 luman nature has lately reminded us, " The growing good 
 )f the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts ; and 
 :hat things are not so ill with you and me as they might 
 aave been is half owing to the number who have lived 
 faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 THE FALL OF JERICHO. 
 
 Heb. xi. 30. 
 
 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed ahout 
 seven days. 
 
 FEW events in the history of the Old Testament possess 
 a more varied interest than the fall of Jericho. It 
 marks the first decisive step towards the real conquest of 
 Canaan, and the conquest of Canaan forms an epoch in 
 the history of Israel and of the world. The fall of Jericho 
 sounds the knell of an old civilization : it marks the suc- 
 cession, if not the birthday, of the new. The true Lord of 
 the land has come to take possession, and the tenant, who 
 has so ill discharged his trust, must at last give account 
 of it. The historian is concerned to note how at this 
 epoch a body of social and political truth, which the greatest 
 of human lawgivers had delivered to his rude countrymen, 
 is passing the frontier of desert life, in order to take up a 
 settled place and home among the nations of the world. The 
 moralist dwells upon the tragic collapse of races endowed 
 with some fine natural qualities, but the willing victims of 
 an incurable corruption, which had sapped the best elements 
 of healthy national life, long ere the invader appeared on 
 the hills of Bashan ; he bends before that sterner side of 
 the Divine Justice, upon which no sinner can gaze without 
 
The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 223 
 
 ipprehension, but which no serious Theist can presume 
 0 question. And the theologian, who knows what was 
 lie real mission of Israel as the preserver and herald of a 
 nessage from above, sees in the fall of J ericho a decisive 
 ,tep towards the formal establishment of the theocracy ; he 
 lere welcomes the presage of a triumph which the Gospel 
 vould one day win over a prouder and stronger world. 
 
 the New Testament, however, the event is noticed, 
 lot for its wide historical, or ethical, or theocratic inte- 
 •est, but simply as a victory of faith. Under that 
 ispect let us regard it to-day. The ground, the diffi- 
 lulties, above aH the power of faith, may well engage 
 ;ome attention on a festival, when Christians endeavour 
 steadily to contemplate faith's highest Object ; when " by 
 he confession of a true faith we acknowledge the glory 
 )f the Eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine 
 \Iajesty worship the Unity." 1 Nor is the subject much less 
 ippropriate on an occasion consecrated by the custom of the 
 University to considering the extension of the Church of 
 Christ in the dependencies of this great Empire. There 
 ire many other reasons for wishing well to such a cause 
 resides those which faith suggests ; but faith alone can 
 nidertake to promote it with any hope of serious and 
 asting success. 
 
 I. 
 
 "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." Whose 
 'aith ? The faith, not of a single leader merely, but of a 
 people ; the faith, not only of Joshua, but of Israel. And 
 n whom was this faith reposed ? In Him Who, as Israel 
 jelieved, had spoken to the ancestors of the race, had con- 
 tacted with them a covenant of grace and service, had 
 caught their descendants His Law, and had made them, 
 done among the nations, its depositaries and guardians. 
 
 1 Collect for Trinity Sunday. 
 
224 The Fall of Jericho. [Serm. 
 
 To Israel, He was a living King, ever at hand to teach, to 
 rebuke, to judge, to bless. It was Israel's faith which 
 realized His Presence, as a substantial fact ; Israel's was a 
 faith which, needing no daily proof of that which it could 
 not see, was itself the evidence of the truth of its object. 
 It was in short a new sense, a second sight. It was not 
 without relations to reason and conscience, to preceding 
 mental information and to moral life, but it was really 
 an intuitive perception, which habitually pierced the veil 
 of sense, and rested on the Invisible. And its main object, 
 as has been said, was the Personal God. A singular paradox 
 has lately been projected, to the effect that Israel did not 
 believe in a Person at all, but only in some power or 
 stream of tendency, not ourselves, making for righteous- 
 ness. 1 The object of this theory is to eliminate, if possible, 
 from the earliest records of the faith of Israel, from the 
 primitive religion of the Bible, the last trace of a meta- 
 physical element. The author is clear-sighted enough to 
 see that if you say that God is a Person, you make an 
 assertion which is just as metaphysical as any one of the 
 propositions in St. John's Gospel, or in the Mcene or Atha- 
 nasian Creeds; and he wishes to relieve the primitive 
 religion of Israel from what he conceives to be a damaging 
 imputation. So Israel, he maintains, knew nothing of a 
 personal God ; Israel assigned the name God to conduct or 
 righteousness, contemplated for the time being with deep 
 emotion ; or if to something not in any sense ourselves, thee 
 to a power, a tendency, conceived of very indefinitely, but 
 moral in its general drift. Now, certainly the God of Israe" 
 is not stated in terms to be a Person, since the Hebrew 
 language contains no word to express the idea of Person ir 
 the sense of a self-conscious and self-determining being 
 The idea of Personality, as it has been elaborated by moden 
 philosophy, is not in that elaborated form recognised ii 
 
 1 Literature and Dogma, by Matthew Arnold. 
 
The Fall of Jericho, 
 
 225 
 
 Scripture ; orthodoxy is not concerned to invert the 
 listory of thought. And the particular sense 1 in which 
 he word Person is applied by the Church to Each of 
 he Divine Three, Who yet are One in the Indivisible 
 Substance of the Godhead, is not here in question. But if 
 >y Person be meant a union of consciousness, will, 
 md character, then who will say that the God of the 
 Patriarchs, the God of the Psalter, the God of Israel in 
 he desert, or of Israel in Canaan, was conceived of as im- 
 )ersonal, or as lacking any one of these ingredients of 
 jersonality. Insert the definition, "an eternal power or 
 tream of tendency, not ourselves, making for righteousness," 
 vherever you read the words God or Lord in the Psalter, 
 md see what will be, I do not say the religious, but the 
 ntellectual outcome. Suppose for a moment that He 
 »Vhom Israel owned as God was not believed to be endowed 
 vith consciousness or will; how are we to explain the 
 ove and worship of which He was the object ? A power 
 >r tendency might provoke fear : it is so with the powers 
 )f the physical world. If such a power were believed to 
 >e mind, it might, as in Hindostan, attract long and 
 Ernest meditation. But love and worship are offered 
 >nly to a Being Who is presumed to be conscious of the 
 •ffering, to be willing to receive it, to be of a certain 
 haracter, which is the earnest of His Will. As Strauss 
 las recently observed, there can be no doubt of the 
 ntention of the Old Testament to represent God as a 
 Personal Being ; 2 the history of Israel and the devotions 
 'f Israel are alike conclusive on the subject. 
 
 Yes, it was this Unseen, Almighty Friend, — the Friend of 
 heir departed ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, — the 
 nspirer and Guide of the Great Lawgiver who had led 
 hem forth from the furnace of Egyptian slavery, — the 
 
 1 This would perhaps be most accurately expressed by subsistentia. 
 
 2 Der Alte und der Neue Glanbe, p. 104. 
 
226 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 [Serm 
 
 Gracious and Awful Being Whom they had alternately 
 loved and feared, neglected and served, sought and forgotteD 
 Who was, the men of Israel believed, still with them. The] 
 were entering on a new tract of their history ; they wen 
 face to face with the resources of a comparatively ancien 
 and settled civilization, with which their rude experienci 
 of the desert ill enabled them to cope. The walls anc 
 gates of Jericho, the key of a country which they believec 
 was to become their own, frowned down on their anxieties 
 and they could but turn upwards to Him "Who had mad< 
 them what they were. In the words of one of the late 
 retrospective Psalms, He had " divided the Red Sea in tw< 
 parts, because His mercy endureth for ever." He had le( 
 His people through the wilderness ; He had smitten grea 
 kings; He would give their land to be an heritage unt< 
 Israel His servant. 1 He, at once the Creator of th 
 world, and the Captain and Patron of Israel, was stil 
 with them even before the walls of Jericho: He — Hi 
 Presence, His Power, His Loving-kindness — was the objec 
 of their faith. 
 
 Certainly the word faith is used vaguely enough i: 
 these days ; and men talk of faith in their destiny, faith i 
 the future, faith in a cause or principle, faith in progress 
 faith in humanity. If these phrases are taken to piece: 
 they will be found to mean faith in a will that can brin 
 to pass what men variously conceive to be the highes 
 good in the coming years. We Christians enjoy a wide 
 horizon than any of those which are determined by th 
 limits of sense or the limits of time. We are concerne 
 not merely with the fortunes of our race on this plane 
 but with the destiny of its individual members in an Etem 
 "World. For us the Personal God, Who has revealed Hin 
 self as Threefold in His Absolute and Unchanging Bein, 
 Who, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, has disclosed H 
 
 1 Ps. cxxxvi. 13, 16, 17, 21, 22. 
 
[II.] 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 227 
 
 ?epest and most important relations to ourselves, is the 
 >ject of all that deserves the name of faith. His word, 
 hen once we are sure that it is His, commands our unhesi- 
 ting submission. If we, in our fashion and measure, have 
 ly hopes for the advance of truth and goodness ; if, amid 
 ie many sinister appearances which darken the higher 
 :ospects of man, we still cling to the faith that in the 
 id the walls of Jericho will fall, it is because He, as we 
 joice to know and believe, is with us. 
 
 II. 
 
 " By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." What was 
 ie connection between Israel's faith in his Lord and the 
 .11 of the walls of Jericho ? Simply this : that that event 
 apended upon Israel's obedience to the command of God. 
 j some way or other God speaks to us all. He speaks to 
 ae generation by specific and external communications, to 
 aother by the pressure of its recognised principles or of 
 s conscience, as questions of conduct successively arise, 
 lost assuredly, whether to instruct or rebuke, whether to 
 istain or to test us, He leaves not Himself without 
 itness. At that moment of solemn anxiety, Joshua was 
 acouraged and instructed by the appearance of a heavenly 
 •ruide in the precincts of the camp at Gilgal. 1 The sacred 
 arrative will not bear the gloss that this appearance was 
 purely internal or subjective one ; a visible phenomenon 
 f some kind was the accredited language, so to call it, in 
 'liich these primitive generations of men looked for, and 
 iscovered what they knew of, the Will of God. " There 
 tood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his 
 and." 2 What the sight of the Burning Bush had been 
 o Moses at Horeb, that the vision of the Captain of 
 ae hosts of the Lord was to Joshua at Gilgal. In each 
 
 1 Josh. v. 13-15. 2 Josh. v. 13. 
 
228 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. [Serb 
 
 case the specific character of the vision was in sympath 
 with the circumstances of the time. The furnace of th 
 Egyptian bondage and the warlike preparations for ti 
 approaching campaign, are reflected in the forms of th 
 respective apparitions. This is to be explained, not b 
 supposing that men externalize and divinize their ow 
 hopes or fears, clothing them in the garb which the 
 thoughts or circumstances suggest; but by the simpL 
 and truer consideration that God speaks to His creaturt 
 in all ages, through sights and sympathies which the 
 most readily understand. Was the mysterious Being, tl 
 Malaach Adonai, Who appears so constantly in the ear] 
 history of Israel, and Who here is the Prince of the Am 
 of the Lord, a created Angel, like the Michael of the Boc 
 of Daniel ? Or was He One Who, before He entered by 8 
 Incarnation into time, had been already the instrume] 
 of communications between the invisible God and tl 
 world of men ? Not to enter on this difficult question, \ 
 may remark that upon either supposition the communicatk 
 was from God : and that it made a serious demand up( 
 the faith of Israel. For seven days the soldiers of Isra 
 were to march in procession round the city, with the a: 
 of the covenant, and with seven priests blowing trumpe 
 before the ark. They were to complete the circuit of t 
 city once in every day until the seventh. 1 On the seven 
 day they were to march round Jericho seven times ; t 
 priests were to blow a long blast ; the people were to rai 
 a loud shout of war ; the walls of the city would fall, a] 
 its capture follow. 
 
 Now these directions would have tested the faith 
 Israel in two particulars more especially. 
 
 They suggest, first of all, an entire inadequacy, in hum 
 judgment, of means to ends. We can trace no relati 
 between the means prescribed and the end proposed. Wl: 
 
 1 Josh. vi. 3, 4. 
 
vl I. ] The Fall of Jericho. 229 
 
 .-as the end proposed ? The capture of Jericho ; a town 
 trongly fortified after the fashion of that age. What were 
 lie prescribed means ? A daily procession with trumpets 
 ound the walls for seven days, repeated seven times on the 
 eventh. Attempts have indeed been made to assign a 
 ailitary value to this procession with trumpets. Thus 
 iosenmiiller 1 suggests that it was an invitation or challenge 
 0 the terrified citizens to make a sally, and so to en- 
 leavour to take the besiegers at a disadvantage. But this 
 pinion has no warrant in the narrative, and it would 
 »e condemned by ordinary military prudence. Nor can 
 ^e suppose that Joshua's design was to lull the men of 
 ericho into a false security, and then to surprise them, 
 "he walls of Jericho were not first mined and then carried 
 »y storm ; and the security of the besieged, if it ever could 
 lave been fostered by such a method, would surely have 
 )een disturbed by the sevenfold repetition of the procession 
 »n the seventh day of the siege. It is clear that the pro- 
 fession was not a military measure ; its meaning was 
 iltogether religious. The Book of Numbers had already 
 issigned a specific religious value to the use of the trumpet 
 )y the people of the theocracy : 2 it was a symbolical 
 vyrie Eleison, by which Israel claimed the mercy and 
 he aid of God. The purpose of the proceedings before 
 Tericho was to repeat the lesson which had been taught 
 jo vividly by the circumstances of the Exodus ; to check 
 )he habit, so deeply rooted in the race, of trusting in the 
 risible and the material, in what the Scriptures call " an 
 urn of flesh ;" to throw them back upon their Gracious and 
 Unseen Protector, and to convince them, by the very form 
 jf their triumph, that the work was His. 
 
 The apparent disproportion or absence of any traceable 
 relations between means and ends in the kingdom of God 
 has in all ages proved a serious trial of faith. Think 
 
 1 Scholia in Vet. Test, pars undecima, p. 82. 2 Numb. x. 9. 
 
230 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. [Serm. 
 
 steadily of the magnificent object which the Church of God 
 sets before herself ; it is not merely the instruction and 
 elevation of the human race, but the eternal salvation of 
 souls. Yet how feeble and unworthy seems her machinery 
 for effecting it ! The " foolishness of preaching " does not 
 less accurately express the opinion of a large section 
 of the modern world than it did that of the Corinthian 
 critics who discussed St. Paul." 1 How, men ask, can the 
 perpetual repetition and enforcement of a few doctrines, 
 of a few precepts, of a Great Example, effect the result 
 of lifting the world off its axis, and giving a new direc- 
 tion to the lives of men ? How should the Christian 
 Sacraments achieve more than any other picturesque 
 and affectionate memorials of the past ? How can a few 
 drops of water, or a little bread and wine, be the 
 channels or the veils of a Heavenly Gift warranted 
 to cleanse the sinful and to reinvigorate the weak? Or 
 to what hands has the burden of the Apostolical charge 
 been again and again committed in all ages of the Church : 
 to what hands, it may indeed well be asked, when 
 the drift and purpose of the commission is considered; 
 " Side by side," it has been said, " with the Cyprians, the 
 Augustines, the Chrysostoms, the Gregories, — side by side 
 with an Andrewes, a Ken, a Wilson, — the Church hat 
 witnessed an Episcopate presenting the most various mora, 
 complexions ; the Papacy alone has exhibited every grada- 
 tion of moral life, from angelic holiness to outrageou; 
 wickedness ; and the typical prelates of our Eevolution an( 
 of the early Hanoverian period had their prototypes amon< 
 courtly and selfish ecclesiastics who once cringed on th< 
 steps of the throne of Constantinople." 
 
 This trial to faith is probably as old as Christianity ; bu 
 it is only one department of a larger perplexity suggests 
 by the whole action and bearing of the Church of Christ 
 1 i Cor. i. 21. 
 
XILj 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 231 
 
 .4s she moves through, the centuries, on her errand of 
 ruth and mercy, yet maimed through internal divisions, 
 yt weighed down to the very dust by worldliness and 
 corruptions, men ask if this can be the Divine Society 
 which, for eighteen centuries, has been attempting to 
 regenerate the world, and which has not altogether failed 
 :n her mission. What is the historical manifestation of 
 Christianity but one long procession around the walls of 
 Jericho, in which the means employed seem to be altogether 
 .mequal to achieving that which nevertheless they do in a 
 aieasure achieve ? What is it but a prolonged contrast be- 
 tween the ideal and the actual, between the anticipated and 
 the real ? That traceable order and proportion of cause and 
 affect, that array of powerful influences and of commanding 
 personages who achieve striking and magnificent results in 
 the field of secular history, seems constantly to be want- 
 ing in the history of the Church, which thus presents us 
 with a continual paradox, that we may look for its explana- 
 tion beyond the realm of sense. Yes ; now, as at the first, 
 " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound 
 the wise : and God hath chosen the weak things of the 
 world to confound the things which are mighty: and base 
 things of the world, and things which are despised, hath 
 God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to 
 nought things that are:" and why? "That no flesh should 
 glory in His presence." 1 
 
 Besides this, the faith of Israel was tried by the delay 
 which was to be interposed between the first procession 
 around the city and its final capture. If such a plan of 
 operations were adopted, why should it not take effect at 
 once ? The walls would not really be more shaken by the 
 procession on the seventh day than by the procession on 
 the first. Meanwhile, how difficult it would be to carry out 
 such instructions for six days without any result. It does 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 27-29. 
 
232 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. [Serm. 
 
 not seem long for us ; but, depend upon it, for men who 
 were face to face with an uncertain future and a great peril, 
 the days, the hours, the minutes did seem long. When the 
 second day had passed, and the third, and the fourth, and 
 the fifth, and still the walls of Jericho stood as they had 
 stood for years, do you suppose that there was no addi- 
 tional temptation to question the wisdom of the method 
 which had been prescribed to Joshua ? You cannot sup- 
 pose it. 
 
 This delay of expected and warranted results, when the 
 conditions which ought to ensure them have been complied 
 with, even though it be a delay which is itself predicted, 
 is to many minds one of the sorest trials that faith has to 
 encounter. Not to go further for illustrations, did those 
 three centuries, think you, which intervened between 
 Pentecost and the Edict of Milan seem a short interval to 
 the generations who lived and died, one after another, in 
 the belief that when persecution had done its worst, the 
 meek would inherit the earth, and would be refreshed in 
 the multitude of peace ? 1 Did the cry " How long, 0 Lord, 
 how long ? " never under the stress of persecution shade 
 off into " Thou hast abhorred and forsaken Thine Anointed, 
 and art displeased at him : Thou hast broken the covenant 
 of Thy servant, and cast his crown to the ground?" 2 
 Was the old temptation ' of Israel never repeated, never 
 yielded to in the heart of Christendom; the temptation 
 to think that God had forgotten to be gracious, and had 
 shut up His loving-kindness in displeasure ; 3 that the 
 Church had been led out to die in a social wilderness, and 
 had better turn back to Egypt ? How many of Christ's 
 early worshippers may, like Demas, have failed under that 
 temptation, One only knows. It is not for us to underrate 
 trials which, through God's mercy, we have never experi- 
 enced; but the delay of Christ's triumph must have 
 
 1 Pa. xxxvii. u. 2 Rev. vi. io. Ps. Ixxxix. 37, 38. 3 Ps. lxxvii. 9. 
 
XI L] The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 weighed heavily on our forefathers in the faith. Again 
 and again the walls of the old heathen society were nod- 
 ding to their fall ; again and again it seemed as if Jericho 
 must presently capitulate, — when lo ! the hope proved an 
 illusion. After Philip the Arabian came Decius; after 
 Probus, Diocletian. " Hope deferred maketh the heart 
 sick;" 1 and one of faith's highest and hardest duties is to 
 sustain hope wdien its fulfilment is delayed, even though in 
 accordance with previous intimations. 
 
 III. 
 
 " By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." Faith, 
 then, is a power. She plants her foot upon a sure founda- 
 tion; she grapples with her difficulties, and, in the end, 
 she conquers. It is not to be imagined that the faith of 
 Israel exercised over the material Avails of Jericho any 
 compulsion of a magnetic character which they could not 
 but obey. If the triumphs claimed for faith in removing 
 human disease or suffering should hereafter be explained 
 by reference to some unsuspected natural law, which faith 
 has only brought into active play, we need not fear to 
 welcome the discovery. But at least the fall of the walls 
 of Jericho, and a large proportion of the Gospel miracles, 
 would be totally unaffected by it. Again, there is no 
 ground for supposing that the walls were mined, and that 
 they fell at a preconcerted signal. It is possible that their 
 fall was due to the shock of an earthquake. But if this be 
 assumed, we still have to account for the occurrence of the 
 catastrophe at a predicted point of time, and at the 
 apparent escape of the buildings wuthin the city from the 
 effects of the shock. Upon any supposition, the agency of 
 faith on this occasion was limited to its determined reliance 
 and hold upon the unseen agency of God, Who, whether 
 
 1 Prov. xiii. 12. 
 
234 The Fall of Jericho. [See:j. 
 
 through some natural law or independently, effected the 
 downfall of the walls. The power of faith is the same ; if 
 it does not itself act, it accepts the conditions of action 
 which are prescribed by the real Agent ; it thereby, we 
 may dare to say it, puts His Arm in motion ; it acts — but 
 through Him. 
 
 There is another reason for the power of faith. It is the 
 parent of two of the greatest forces that can move the 
 human soul ; it produces hope and trust. The man who 
 believes can trust: his faith sees God, and that sight 
 creates confidence. The man who trusts can ignore or 
 resist present and visible danger, through his clear per- 
 ception of an Unseen Protector ; and his trust is, of itself, 
 a force, whether for purposes of action or purposes of 
 resistance. It has been said that the strength of an army 
 is more than doubled when it has general confidence in 
 its commander. To trust in a great power is to share 
 its strength. The success of every enterprise depends 
 mainly on the belief that it will be achieved : and when 
 the present offers nothing but materials for discourage- 
 ment, hope comes to the aid of trust, and transfigures 
 the present before our eyes with the enthusiasms of the 
 future. And thus out of weakness men and women are 
 made strong ; and many a feeble Christian has felt, in the 
 strength of this moral irivigoration, of which faith is the 
 source, as he resolutely takes the difficult line of painful 
 or unwelcome duty, that 
 
 " Si fractus illabatur orbis 
 Impavidum ferient ruinae." 
 
 For to him it has been said, " If thou canst believe, all things 
 are possible to him that believeth," 1 even through these 
 magnificent endowments of hope and trust ; and he, in his 
 consciousness of mingled strength and weakness, cannot 
 
 1 St. Mark ix. 23. 
 
XII.] 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 235 
 
 but answer, " I will not trust in my bow ; it is not my 
 sword that shall help me ; but it is Thou that savest us 
 from our enemies, and puttest them to confusion that hate 
 us." 1 
 
 Yes ; faith is power. And we of this day who have so 
 largely impaired or lost it must feel that we are w T eaker 
 and poorer for the loss. It may be that the scepticism which 
 has played so relentlessly over the Creed of our fathers, 
 and whose brilliant sallies have seldom been held in check 
 by any profound moral seriousness, has left us with keener 
 wits than we might otherwise have possessed. But it has 
 also left us weaker. We are not the men w r e might 
 have been, or the men we were. Do you say that it 
 is the jaundiced eye of theology which thus reads the 
 moral symptoms of the time ? Listen, then, to a great 
 writer who has lately passed from among us, and who 
 will not be suspected of any undue tenderness for the 
 Christian Creed. " Energetic characters," says Mr. Mill, 
 " on any large scale are becoming merely traditional. There 
 is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this country, except 
 business. The energy expended in this may still be re- 
 garded as considerable. What little is left from that 
 employment is expended on some hobby ; which may be 
 a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, but is always some 
 one thing, and generally a thing of small dimensions. The 
 greatness of England is now all collective: individually small, 
 we only appear capable of anything great by our habit of 
 combining ; and with this," he adds, not quite accurately, 
 P our moral and religious philanthropists are perfectly con- 
 tented. But it was men of another stamp than this that 
 made England what it has been; and men of another 
 stamp will be needed to prevent its decline." 2 The writer 
 of course has his own way of accounting for what he thus 
 describes : with him it is only the sacrifice of all marked 
 1 Ps. xliv. 7, 8. 2 On Liberty, pp. 125, 126. 
 
236 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. [Serm. 
 
 individuality to the ever-encroaching tyranny of society 
 and its conventionalisms. But why is there not force 
 enough in individuals to resist the encroachment ? Is it 
 not because the secret and parent of the highest force 
 has been so largely forfeited ? The men who made England 
 what it has been were men of faith. The great Plantagenet 
 kings and statesmen had a faith, which, if, as we hold, 
 not free from error, was at least clear and strong. The 
 Puritans of the seventeenth century had a faith, — 
 narrow, it is true, mutilated, distorted; but it too was 
 clear and strong. Yet not a few of the men who would 
 now mould the thought and destinies of England plainly 
 say that they have no faith — only views and aspirations. 
 " We laugh," says the author of the " Enigmas of Life," 
 " at the scholastic nonsense of Irenaius, and are disgusted 
 at the unseemly violence of Tertullian ; but these men 
 were ready to die for their opinions, and ive are not" 1 
 Yes, the scepticism of our day, speaking through its most 
 accomplished representatives, betrays a consciousness of its 
 impoverishment : it knows and feels that God, in His Mercy 
 and in His Justice, has stricken it with moral paralysis. 
 And yet we are moving on towards a period when the 
 strongest moral energies will be at least as necessary as they 
 have ever been in the past. The European revolutions of 
 the beginning of the century turned chiefly, although not 
 solely, upon the structure of government ; the revolutionary 
 movements of its close, we need no prophet to tell us, 
 will be animated by those fiercer passions which are 
 kindled by questions of social right. All the devotion, 
 the unselfishness, the intrepidity, that could be forthcoming 
 under the most favourable circumstances will be needed 
 in order to surmount these perils with safety and honour; 
 the walls of Jericho will not fall down at the bidding of 
 sentiment which has lost all moral nerve, and has forfeited 
 
 1 Enigmas of Life, by W. E. Greg, p. 163. 
 
XIL] 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 237 
 
 all right to the name of faith. And it lies with yon, my 
 younger brethren, to decide whether the productive cause 
 of the highest moral force shall be there, and equal to the 
 emergency. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In dealing with the particular subject of to-day's sermon, 
 missionary statistics are less likely to be useful than a 
 restatement of principles on which missions must rely for 
 success. We live in days when the duty of extending 
 the Church of Christ is vehemently disputed; when the 
 difficulties of extending it are greatly exaggerated ; when 
 the final failure of our attempts to Christianize the greatest 
 of our dependencies is confidently predicted. 
 
 The duty of extending the Church of Christ cannot be 
 a serious question between Christian and Christian ; it can 
 only be a question between Christianity and unbelief. It 
 is part of that larger problem, whether Christianity is worth 
 the trouble and expense which its propagation entails; 
 whether it is really what, in the writings of St. Paul 
 especially, it claims to be, the absolute and therefore the 
 iiniversal Religion needed by man, of whatever race, or in 
 whatever stage of civilization; and needed in order to enable 
 man to realize the true idea and end of his existence. We 
 are not to-day discussing that vital question : we take the 
 Christian solution of it for granted. Only let those who 
 dispute our conclusion mark well the premiss on which it 
 rests, and which must be set aside in order to dispute it 
 successfully. My brethren, if it be true that God has so 
 loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life ; if Jesus our Lord is not merely a literary 
 study, but a living Being ; if His Holy Incarnation, His 
 Atoning Death, His Perpetual Intercession, His Gifts of 
 
2 3 S 
 
 1 he rail oj Jericho. 
 
 Grace, are real things upon which we have staked our 
 deepest hopes and our best activities, — there can be no 
 doubt as to the practical interest which we must take in 
 the extension of His Church. To every Christian, Christ 
 gives a commission to do what he can, in his sphere and 
 measure, for the spread of the Faith. To Englishmen He 
 has given the responsibilities of empire, and among them its 
 highest responsibility — that of doing the best thing that can 
 be done for the largest possible number of human beings. 
 Colonists who have left a Christian home and friends; and 
 heathens, who have been brought under the sway of a 
 power which owns, however inconsistently, the Name of 
 Christ, have alike a claim on His Church which she 
 cannot disown. The true Captain of the Lord's Host, 
 revealing Himself amid the providences of our national 
 history, appears once more to true hearts in Israel near the 
 camp at Gilgal, and points to the duties which await them 
 beneath the walls of Jericho. 
 
 To make the Church of Christ co-extensive with the 
 dependencies of this Empire may appear, at first sight, a 
 hopeless enterprise. Doubtless much may be done in those 
 .colonies to which our civilization has been transplanted 
 from home almost in its integrity ; or where we come into 
 contact with pagan religions of such low, embryonic, un- 
 formed, and fluctuating types, that no more serious resist- 
 ance is offered to the advance of the Church than to 
 other features of European thought and life. In South 
 Africa, for instance, as beyond the Atlantic, and in Australia, 
 the difficulties of the Church, in the main, are those which 
 she encounters at home ; they arise from the divisions of 
 Christians, or from the godlessness and indifference of large 
 sections of a commercial and materialized community. But 
 in India it is far otherwise. There we meet with religions 
 which were ancient in days when Christianity was not yet 
 born ; with religions which, like Brahminism, have lost and 
 
XII.] The Fall of Jericho. 239 
 
 regained their empire, or which, like Islam, have wrenched 
 from the Church of Christ her most ancient home, the 
 hallowed centre of her most cherished memories, the scenes 
 of her earliest triumphs. And too often our missionaries 
 have represented not our strength but our weakness, as 
 they have gone forth to grapple with these mighty 
 traditions of error, embodied in vast literatures, defended 
 and propagated by immense organizations, pressing a subtle 
 philosophy, or all that is popular and concrete in human 
 superstition, into their service ; and we naturally marvel 
 at an enterprise which seems, at first sight, to be so 
 hopelessly out of proportion to the proposed results. Some- 
 thing, indeed, may be done — is being done — to diminish the 
 interval. Christian missionaries, who, with the learning 
 and frankness of the Alexandrian teachers of old, can recog- 
 nise in ancient religions those stray elements of truth 
 which in fact constitute their strength, will find that one 
 great barrier has disappeared. And Christian bishops, who 
 should organize a native ministry, and with it a vernacular 
 liturgy of Indian growth, would probably demolish another. 
 If the object be to extend the Church of Christ, with all 
 that is really essential to the tradition of the Faith and the , 
 Sacraments, but not necessarily with all the forms and 
 associations which for a thousand years have encrusted 
 that tradition in Western Christendom, then sooner or later 
 this problem must be considered. Certainly it is impro- 
 bable that a liturgy which is so dear to ourselves, because 
 it is the outgrowth of our spiritual and national history, 
 and which bears on its front not a few traces of our Saxon 
 temper, should ever be regarded, on the banks of the Indus 
 and the Ganges, at least by the people at large, as other 
 than an exotic. Points like these may safely be left 
 in the hands of the prelates who now rule the Indian 
 Church, and who have brought to their work a union 
 of religious fervour and philosophical insight from which 
 
240 
 
 me rau oj fericno. 
 
 |_bERM. 
 
 the happiest results may be expected. 1 Surely the efforts 
 of such meu might be reinforced more largely than they 
 are, not merely by clergy, but by the many laymen 
 who, whether in the civil service or in the army, 
 pass the best years of their life in India, and who 
 prepare for those years not unfrequently at Oxford. If 
 I am speaking to any such, I would beg them to remember 
 that Christianity is judged in India as in Europe, not so 
 much by the arguments of its professional advocates, as by 
 the lives of the great mass of its professed adherents ; that 
 laymen have it in their power to raise barriers to its advance 
 among the heathen, which no clerical or missionary zeal 
 can hope to surmount; and that laymen have it also in 
 their power to recommend Christianity, by word and ex- 
 ample, with a success which too often is denied to clergymen, 
 however earnest or instructed. A layman has not to struggle 
 against the rooted suspicion which is so often fatal to 
 clerical enterprise, and which constitutes the only serious 
 " clerical disability ;" — the suspicion that what he says for 
 Jesus Christ our Lord is only the language of professional 
 propriety, and not that of personal conviction. It would 
 be wrong to pretend that this suspicion is invincible, or 
 that it is not counterbalanced by the immense religious 
 opportunities of clerical service. Yet those of you who 
 have not to encounter it should know your strength. 
 
 When all have done what they may, no doubt it will still 
 seem that we are making a procession with trumpets ; that 
 the means at our disposal are unequal, on every ordinary 
 principle of calculation, to achieving the end proposed. 
 Jericho will still seem inaccessible to our efforts ; and those 
 efforts will be criticised almost in the terms in which some 
 recent writers comment on the text of Joshua. The Church 
 of Christ can never expect to escape such criticism: let 
 
 1 The allusion is especially to Dr. Milman, Bishop of Calcutta, and 
 Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Bombay. 
 
XII. 
 
 The Fall of Jericho. 
 
 241 
 
 her never fear it. She may be unable to trace the process 
 by which ultimate success will be secured ; but does this 
 matter, if He be near to Whom the coming centuries are 
 already present, and Whose word is sure ? She may have 
 to encounter many disappointments, much delay, abundant 
 presages of failure. But he that belie veth will not make 
 haste: 1 a Christian knows his portion, and is not dis- 
 heartened by anything but his own unfaithfulness. God, 
 he knows, is patient, as being Eternal : duties are impera- 
 tive ; results are in wise and strong Hands ; we can afford 
 to wait. " The vision is yet for an appointed time ; but 
 at the end it shall speak and not lie : though it tarry, wait 
 for it ; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." 2 
 
 1 Isa. xxviii. 1 6. 8 Hab. ii. 3. 
 
 Q 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE COUEAGE OF FAITH. 
 Rom. i. 1 6. 
 
 / am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the power of God unto 
 salvation to every one that helieveth. 
 
 IN days that have passed away, such a subject as " the 
 extension of the Church throughout the colonies and 
 dependencies of the British Empire " would probably have 
 suggested questions of one kind only. It would have been 
 generally agreed that such an extension is desirable; 
 and any possible discussion would have turned upon the 
 best means of carrying it out. In these latter days, as we 
 know, it is somewhat otherwise. Propose to propagate 
 the Gospel, and to extend its concrete embodiment, the 
 Church, and you raise in certain minds the previous 
 inquiry, whether the Gospel or the Church are worth the 
 effort. In former days, it was a question of the minor 
 premiss alone, now it is a question of the major. Then 
 men asked how they could do least wrong to a great con- 
 viction ; whereas now, some of us seem to doubt whether 
 or not, in the Apostle's language, to be " ashamed " of it. 
 
 St. Paul is led to use this expression by an association 
 of ideas which it is easy to trace. He is writing to a 
 Church, founded by other hands than his, founded, it would 
 seem, some years before, but by no Apostle or Apostolic 
 man. As befits an Apostle, he yearns to visit this Church 
 
The Courage of Faith. 
 
 243 
 
 that he may impart to it some spiritual gift. 1 He has 
 desired to visit it long ere now ; but again and again 
 lie lias been hindered. 2 He still hopes some day to 
 carry out this purpose. 3 For he has in his keeping a 
 truth, which, as he believes, belongs by right to every 
 human being, although as yet only a few members of the 
 great human family have claimed it as their own. He, 
 for his part, is, in his own words, a debtor until all rights 
 are satisfied ; and his creditors comprise the world. " I 
 am a debtor," he exclaims, " both to the Greeks and to the 
 barbarians, both to the philosophers and the unintelligent." 4 
 Therefore he must do what he may do, always and every- 
 where. Therefore he will add, "As much as in me is, I am 
 ready to preach the Gospel to you that are in Eorae also." 5 
 
 In Eome also ! It might seem as if a word had escaped 
 him which, even for an Apostle, had some disturbing — 
 I had almost dared to say — some magic power. For 
 here, suddenly, his thought takes a new direction and a 
 wider range. In Eome also ! The little half-organized 
 Church disappears from view, and before the imagination 
 and mind of Paul there rises — indistinct, no doubt, but 
 oppressively vast — the imperial form of the mistress of 
 the world. And this vision of Eome, thus for the moment 
 present to the Apostle's mind, produces in it a momentary 
 recoil ; so that, like a man whose onward course has been 
 sharply checked, he falls back to consider the resources at his 
 disposal. He falls back upon himself, upon the faith that is 
 in him, upon the Author and Object of that faith. There is 
 a moment's pause, and then he writes, " I am not ashamed." 
 If he were speaking he might almost seem to falter in his 
 tone ; " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ," 
 
 He is not ashamed of the Gospel. We are struck at 
 first by the reserved and negative phrase ; it seems to fall 
 below the requirements of the occasion, and the character 
 
 1 Rom. i. 11. 2 R om> 1 I3< 3 j> om> 1 l5i * £ um> 1 I4> 3Eom. i. 15. 
 
244 
 
 The Courage of Faith. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 of the man. Is this, we ask, the language of passionate 
 feeling, so strong that it shrinks from the attempt to say 
 what it is, and ventures only to say what it is not ? Or 
 is there some subtle irony, flavouring the phrase that seems 
 thus to disappoint us ? No, this cannot be. Putting other 
 considerations aside, this mood is inconsistent with what 
 those who know him best would anticipate from the 
 simplicity, the sincerity of the Apostle's literary manner. 
 And yet, if we understand him literally, how is this mere 
 negative state of feeling equal to the desire which burns 
 within him, or worthy of his past and present relations 
 to the Gospel of his Lord and Master ? 
 
 Certainly, brethren, elsewhere the Apostle uses very 
 different language from this. He loves to call the Gospel, 
 as the Jews called their law, his " boast." Consider only 
 one sentence, in his Epistle to the Philippians, in which he 
 states positively what the Faith of Jesus Christ was to 
 him. " I count all things but loss for the excellency 
 of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whom I 
 have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them 
 but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him." 1 
 
 And yet, ten years later, quite at the close of his great 
 career, when he now knows Eome well, by a first and a 
 second imprisonment, when the last scenes are now almost 
 in view — the tyrant's throne, the accusation and the defence 
 the solemn travesty of justice, and the sharp suffering 
 beyond — he writes to a disciple, " I am not ashamed : foi 
 I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded tha 
 He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Hin 
 against that day." 2 
 
 The truth is that the Apostle is not using a rhetorica 
 figure; his negative and measured phrase is imposed 01 
 him by the thoughts which rise before him. He is con 
 fronted by the idea of Pagan Eome ; he is making hea( 
 
 1 Phil. iii. 8, 9. 2 2 Tim. i. 12. 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith, 245 
 
 against and resisting a feeling which threatens to overawe 
 him; and it is in this travail of protest and disavowal 
 that he cries, " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." 
 
 Why, we may ask, should he be ashamed of it ? What 
 was there in the prospect of a missionary visit to Eome 
 which could, even for a moment, suggest any feeling of 
 the kind to such a soul as St. Paul's ? 
 
 L 
 
 Would not a man have been struck first of all by 
 the apparent insignificance of the Gospel, when viewed 
 relatively to the great world of thought and action repre- 
 sented by and embodied in Eome ? 
 
 That which impressed every subject of the Empire when 
 his thoughts turned towards Eome, was its unrivalled 
 grandeur. The very name of Eome was the symbol of 
 magnificence and power. For Eome was the seat of 
 empire; the city which had conquered and which ruled 
 the world. Eome was the centre of society ; she welcomed 
 to her receptions all that was noble and wealthy and 
 distinguished; a]l the year round her palaces were thronged 
 by dependent kings and princes. Eome was the nurse 
 and patroness of such learning and thought as was tolerated 
 by the political jealousies of the Imperial age ; the great 
 days of Athens were already of the past; literature was 
 too much of a courtier to take up its abode contentedly in 
 a conquered province. Nay, Eome was, in a sense, a great 
 religious centre too, or at least a great centre of the current 
 religions. At that date, all that was spiritual, all that 
 was debased and superstitious and grotesque, found a 
 place and a haunt in Eome ; with magnificent impartiality, 
 she smiled a welcome to all the truths and all the false- 
 hoods that presented themselves at her gates. She was 
 to ancient civilization what since the Revolution Paris 
 
246 
 
 The Courage of Faith. 
 
 [Serh. 
 
 .has been to France : everything else was provincial. From 
 her went forth law, and the secrets of administration, 
 and the varied enterprise of a ruling race, and the canons 
 of taste and fashion, and the rewards of honour, and the 
 authoritative opinions which swayed the world. Back to 
 her returned all that the subject peoples could give ; 
 their skill, their arts, their wealth, their customs, their 
 philosophies, their religions. Learning might yet linger 
 around the walls of Athens ; Jerusalem, we know, was a 
 sacred spot. But, cherished in the imaginations of the men 
 who dwelt on the shores of the Gulf of Salamis, or on the 
 shores of the Lake of Tiberias, there dwelt ever an image of 
 the distant Empire City, in which this world's splendours 
 reached their utmost height ; the city which every man who 
 aspired to fame or power dreamt at least of seeing before 
 he died. Truly Eome was the " colluvies gentium;" at 
 once the queen and ruler of the nations, and the sink into 
 which they poured their corruptions and their filth ; but we 
 must remember that men who looked at her from a distance, 
 as St. Paul had hitherto done, did not share any such keen 
 political discontent as that of Tacitus, or any such social 
 irritation and disgust as that of Juvenal. Now and then, 
 indeed, as when Philo the J ew, with his four Alexandrian 
 companions, sought to obtain justice at the court of Cali- 
 gula, the provincials might discover what lay beneath 
 the splendid robe of their imperial mistress. But when 
 Philo is describing that extraordinary interview with the 
 emperor in the gardens of Maecenas, in which the caprice, 
 and the insolence, and the buffoonery of the master of 
 thirty legions vented themselves on the terrified envoys, he 
 is profoundly impressed with the magnificence of Eome; 1 
 and it is certain that St. Paul, writing to the Eomans 
 eighteen years after Philo's visit, would have been no 
 stranger to a like impression. 
 
 1 Philo Judaeus, Lcgatio ad Caium. 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith. 247 
 
 And the Gospel — how did it look when placed in juxta- 
 position with this popular estimate of the greatness of 
 Eome ? If it had yet been heard of in the upper circles of 
 the Imperial city, how did men think of it ? what did they 
 say of it ? Was it not, relatively to everything in the great 
 capital, as far as the natural senses and judgment of man 
 could pierce, poor and insignificant ? The best informed, who 
 deigned now and then to bestow a thought upon the morbid 
 fancies of the Eastern w r orld, could have distinguished in it 
 only a rebellious offshoot from the most anti-social and de- 
 tested religion in the Empire ; it w T as itself an " exitiabilis 
 superstitio ; " and it had about it a touch of inconsequence 
 and absurdity from which Judaism was free. The estimate 
 which an average French Academician might be supposed 
 to form of Quakerism is probably not unlike the estimate 
 which approved itself to the most cultivated minds in Eome 
 as due to the religion of St. Paul and St. John. If Christi- 
 anity meant to propagate itself, where was its organization ? 
 how could the government of a few unnoticed congregations 
 enter into any sort of rivalry with the mighty system of the 
 Imperial Eule ? To what could it point in the way of 
 literature, at least so far as the literary public knew ? how 
 could it compete with the genius of poets and historians who 
 had the ear of the world ? What was the capacity of its 
 leading men — at least in public estimation — when set side 
 by side with the accomplished statesmen who had created, 
 and who still from time to time ruled the Empire ? Well 
 might it have seemed that Eome, the centre of Imperial life, 
 must bring the infant Church to bay ; Eome must teach it 
 to measure itself by other standards than any which could 
 be supplied by a remote Asiatic province; Eome must 
 overawe, by the magnificence of its collective splendours, the 
 pretensions of any system or teacher coming forth from 
 some obscure corner of the Empire on a mission to illumi- 
 nate and to change the world. 
 
248 The Courage of Faith. [Serm. 
 
 True enough it is that St. Paul had his eye on higher 
 things ; but his was too sympathetic a nature not to be 
 alive to what was meant by Eome. Yet, if I have said 
 that his voice might seem for a moment to falter, he 
 at once recovers : the glories of Eome do not overawe 
 him. He is not enslaved by the apparent at the cost of 
 the real. He knows that a civilization which bears a 
 proud front to the world, but is rotten within, is destined 
 to perish. Already, five years before, he has shown in one 
 line of his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians that he 
 foresees the end of all this splendour j 1 already he may have 
 caught some of the accents of that Christian prophecy 
 which, a few years later, on the lips of another Apostle, 
 chanted the doom of the mistress of the world : " . . . She 
 saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and 
 shall see no sorrow. . . . Alas, alas, that great city 
 Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment 
 come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and 
 mourn over her ; for no man buyeth their merchandise any 
 more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious 
 stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, 
 and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of 
 ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and 
 of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, 
 and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and 
 fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, 
 and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. . . . The 
 merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, 
 shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and 
 wailing, and saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was 
 clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked 
 with gold, and precious stones, and pearls ! For in one 
 hour so great riches is come to nought." 2 
 
 In Christian eyes, Alaric was at the gates of Rome long 
 
 1 2 Thess. ii. 7. 2 Rev. xviii. 7, 10-13, 15-17. 
 
XIII.] * The Cotcrage of Faith. 249 
 
 before his time. The luxury, the ostentation, the lofty 
 confidence and scorn, which were concentrated in the 
 Empire city were doomed. " All that is in the world, the 
 lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride 
 of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the 
 world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth 
 the will of God abideth for ever." 1 Like St. John, St. 
 Paul knew that one man, of no great culture or accomplish- 
 ments, yet with a clear, practical faith, is more than a 
 match for a brilliant society, which at heart believes in 
 nothing as right and true. St. Paul was well aware of the 
 insignificance of the Gospel, and of the insignificance of the 
 Church, when measured by ordinary human standards : it 
 was his own observation that " not many wise men after 
 the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble," are called to 
 take their places in the Kingdom of the Redemption. 2 But, 
 then, in his estimate of the relative value of the seen and 
 the unseen, of the Divine and the human, of nature and of 
 grace, this very insignificance is power. " God hath chosen 
 the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and 
 God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
 the things which are mighty ; and the base things of the 
 world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, 
 and things which are not, to bring to nought things that 
 are: that no flesh should glory in His presence." 3 There 
 was nothing in the glories of Rome to arrest the exclama- 
 tion, " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." 
 
 II. 
 
 Another reason might have deterred the Apostle from 
 proclaiming the Gospel in the face of the society and 
 thought of Rome ; there was about it a suspicion, if not 
 an appearance, of failure. Had it succeeded as yet in 
 
 1 I St. John ii. 16, 17. 2 I Cor. i. 26. 8 I Cor. i. 27-29. 
 
250 The Courage of Faith. 
 
 Serm. 
 
 achieving all that men might have looked for in a 
 religion which claimed to have come from heaven ? It is 
 common, and very natural in us Christians of the latter 
 days, to idealize the Church of the Apostolic age. But, in 
 sober fact, missions working under the eyes of the Apostles 
 were not always prosperous; and Churches, founded and 
 visited by Apostles, were not always united or always pure. 
 If when St. Paul wrote the sentence, " I am not ashamed 
 of the Gospel of Christ," he was thinking of Eome, it is 
 well to remember that he was writing from Corinth. And 
 Corinth, that Church of Corinth, from the midst of which 
 he wrote thus bravely, what was it, at any rate a short 
 year before, in the judgment of the Apostle himself ? If 
 it was to be judged from St. Paul's First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, might not this Church have seemed to be a 
 typical sample of the failure of the Gospel to realize its 
 ideal ? Its discipline was forgotten ; its unity was rent 
 by schisms ; some fundamental articles of the faith were 
 questioned or denied among its members. The Gospel 
 was designed to purify unto Christ a peculiar people zealous 
 of good works. But at Corinth there were scandals, " such 
 as were not even named among the heathen ; " and the 
 Corinthian Christians had not on this account felt the 
 impatience and shame which became a Christian Church. 1 
 The Gospel was based on the truth that Christ died for our 
 sins, and that He was buried, and above all that He rose 
 from the dead the third day, according to the Scriptures. 2 
 It was based on this last fact so entirely, that if Christ 
 was not risen, then was the preaching of the Apostles vain, 
 and the faith of Christians was also vain. 3 But at Corinth 
 there were men who still maintained some sort of con- 
 nection with the Christian Church, and who yet " said 
 that there was no resurrection from the dead." 4 Once 
 more, the Gospel had for its motto those words of Jesus 
 
 1 1 Cor. v. 1, 2. 2 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4. 3 1 Cor. xv. 14. 4 I Cor. xv. 12. 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith. 
 
 Christ, "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, 
 if ye have love one to another ; " 1 Christianity was the 
 religion of those who were "one Body and one Spirit, even 
 as they were called in one hope of their calling." 2 But at 
 Corinth w r ere heard the discordant cries, " I am of Paul, 
 ami I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ." 3 It 
 might have been supposed by a looker-on that Christ was 
 divided ; or that Paul had been crucified for at least some 
 of the Corinthians ; or that they had been baptized in the 
 name of Paul. 4 Of all this the Apostle was sufficiently 
 conscious ; he had many enemies keen-sighted and clever 
 enough to make the most of it ; and yet with Corinth behind 
 him, and with Eome and its gigantic and unattempted 
 problems before him, he still exclaims, " I am not ashamed 
 of the Gospel of Christ." 
 
 The truth is, that in this matter St. Paul distinguished 
 between the Ideal, revealed to man, as it lay in the Mind of 
 his Master, and the Eeal, embarrassed by the conditions 
 imposed on it by fallen human nature; and he did not 
 expect to see the Heavenly Jerusalem displayed in its 
 unsullied and majestic beauty here upon earth. In his own 
 words, he knew that the treasure of the faith was deposited 
 in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power might 
 be of God, and not of us. 5 And therefore, when human 
 nature, even though illuminated and invigorated by grace, 
 was still more or less feeble or corrupt; when it sanc- 
 tioned moral wrong, or denied certain truth, or split up the 
 kingdom of faith and righteousness into fragments — St. 
 Paul was not surprised. The cause of the failure lay not 
 in the gift, but in its recipient; not in the Gospel of 
 Christ, but in the race which had professed it. Men could 
 still believe that there was a Truth abroad differing utterly 
 from all the recent guesses at truth, and from all the 
 
 1 St. John xiii. 35. 2 Eph. iv. 4. 3 I Cor. i. 12. 
 
 4 1 Cor. i. 13. 5 2 Cor. iv. 7. 
 
252 
 
 The Courage of Faith. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 ancient and popular errors ; it was still possible to pro- 
 claim that a new power had entered into our fallen world, 
 and that it was not therefore incapable of raising and 
 saving human nature, because it did not rob man of his 
 free will, and crush out his instincts of resistance and 
 mischief. The failures of the Gospel were such as it 
 could afford in view of its successes. They might have 
 been fatal to a mechanical scheme for the improvement 
 of mankind, but they were even to be expected in a moral 
 system which put no force upon the wills and hearts of 
 men, while it invited them to the knowledge and love of 
 God. "I am not ashamed," said St. Paul, when writing 
 from the midst of such failures — " I am not ashamed of 
 the Gospel of Christ." 
 
 III. 
 
 But might not the Apostle entertain misgivings lest 
 the very substance of the message which he bore would 
 be a bar to its reception ? Assuredly he was well aware 
 that there were features of the Christian Creed, and those 
 not outlying or accidental, but of its very core and essence, 
 which were in the highest degree unwelcome to the non- 
 Christian world. Less than this he cannot mean by such 
 an expression as " the offence of the Cross ;" or when he 
 speaks of " Christ crucified " as being * foolishness " to the 
 Greeks. 1 How was this Gospel then to make its way to 
 the hearts and convictions of men ? How was this mys- 
 terious teaching — familiar enough to a generation which 
 has learned from infancy to repeat the Creed of Christen- 
 dom, but strange beyond all measure to the men who 
 heard it from its first preachers in the towns and villages 
 of heathendom, — how was it to compass acceptance and 
 victory? Between the means employed and the contem- 
 
 1 Gal. v. II. i Cor. i. 18-23. 
 
XIII. 
 
 The Courage of Faith. 
 
 253 
 
 plated result there must be some kind of correspondence 
 and proportion : what was the weapon by which the Gospel 
 hoped to win the obedience of the world ? 
 
 Was it the cogency of the evidence which could be pro- 
 duced in order to show that Jesus Christ was what He 
 claimed to be, and that His Apostles were sent to bear 
 His message to the world ? ISTo doubt, much of the earliest 
 preaching of the Apostles was devoted to insisting on the 
 reality and worth of such evidence as this. The fact to 
 which the Apostles pointed as proving the truth of their 
 message to the world was the fact that Jesus Christ had 
 risen from the dead. For them it had been a matter 
 of personal experience. And they were only a small 
 minority of a larger number of persons — these "five 
 hundred brethren at once," 1 for instance — who had seen 
 the Eisen Christ. In those days a man's personal witness 
 was not liable to be set aside as worthless by an a priori 
 dogma about the impossibility or the inconceivableness of 
 the supernatural; or by some pedantic criticism of a simple 
 unguarded narrative, which, if generally employed, would 
 be fatal to all ordinary human testimony whatever. The 
 Apostles were strong in knowing that they had in their 
 different ways seen and heard our Eisen Lord; and in 
 virtue of this their personal contact with Him, they 
 invited in His [Name the faith and obedience of the world. 
 
 Certainly the Eesurrection of Christ was sufficiently well 
 attested ; and yet its witnesses were not believed. For evi- 
 dence of the truth of an occurrence, although at first hand, is 
 powerless against a strong hostile predisposition of the will. 
 It is a matter of very modern experience that if men of 
 good faith tell the world of some strictly natural occurrence, 
 of fair antecedent probability, they will not be believed, if 
 their narrative should interfere rudely with existing pre- 
 judices. The will has various tried devices for protecting 
 
 1 1 Cor. xv. 6. 
 
254 The Courage of Faith. [Serm. 
 
 itself against the intellectual cogency of unwelcome evi- 
 dence ; and as the will is the soul's centre and stronghold, 
 it is clear that something beyond evidence is needful, if 
 the hearts of men are to be taken captive by such a religion 
 as the Gospel. 
 
 And here it is that the Apostle would give his reason 
 for not being ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for not 
 despairing of its capacity to win a hostile and scornful 
 world. He says that it is " the power of God unto salva- 
 tion to every one that believeth." 1 There is lodged in it 
 a moral impetus and constraining force, which pours forth 
 from it into the human soul, and quells proud thoughts and 
 lustful passions, and lands the soul on the Eternal Shore. 
 For this is what St. Paul means by salvation ; he means 
 a process begun here, and completed, so as to be placed 
 beyond all risk of reversal, hereafter. Observe that St. 
 Paul does not say that the Gospel was an instrument in 
 the Hands of God, which He designed to make efficacious. 
 He speaks of it as being itself " the power of God," and 
 this because it is the self-unveiling of God ; because in 
 and through it the Eternal Son of God, Incarnate and 
 Crucified for man, speaks and acts ; because the truth and 
 grace given to men in the gift of the Gospel are the secrets 
 of true moral force. And by the Gospel he means most 
 assuredly no mere fragment of the Gospel ; such as Christian 
 morality without Christian doctrine, or the Atonement 
 without the grace and power of the Sacraments. Eor all 
 that God has given us in His Blessed Son is really implied 
 in that free, unmerited gift of righteousness which faith 
 receives at the hands of Christ, and which robes human 
 nature in the " garments of salvation." St. Paul knew that 
 this had been his own experience. Since that scene on the 
 road to Damascus he had been another man ; he had lived 
 a new life ; " old things had passed away, behold all things 
 1 Rom. i. 1 6. 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith. 255 
 
 had become new." 1 Now he could do all things through 
 Christ, that strengthened him. 2 And as w r ith himself, so 
 with others : the Gospel had made many a man whom he 
 knew utterly unlike his former self. Before it was received, 
 men had been " foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers 
 lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful 
 and hating one another." 3 But now the Gospel was the 
 power of God unto salvation: it had changed the moral 
 scene : it had conferred peace, courage, love, joy, patience, 
 hope, the power of controlling self, the power of assist- 
 ing others, resignation and trust both in life and death. 
 These things are not natural to human beings ; and when 
 we find them in anything like excellence, they show that 
 some new force has entered into human life, and made it 
 what it never could be, if it were left to its own natural 
 resources. 
 
 It may be said that this reason for not being ashamed 
 of the Gospel is after all only a subjective reason. It may 
 be satisfactory enough to the individual who has had 
 inward experience of its reality, but it says nothing to the 
 intellect of the world. Doubtless it is true that a personal 
 conviction of the truth of a doctrine, based upon the 
 knowledge of what it has done for the man who holds it, 
 is in a great degree incommunicable. No other man can 
 exactly feel what is felt by the most conscientious exponent 
 of such an experience; others can only take what is stated as 
 to the internal effects of Christian truth more or less upon 
 trust. But St. Paul does not say that the fact that the Gospel 
 is " the power of God unto salvation " is an intellectual 
 evidence of the truth of the Gospel : he merely says that 
 this fact warrants him in not being ashamed of it. With 
 St. Paul, for the moment, it is a question not of a logical 
 weapon, but of moral decision. Why is he to go forward 
 when there is so much to discourage him ? Why is he not 
 
 1 2 Cor. v. 17. 2 Phil. iv. 13. 3 Titus iii. 3. 
 
256 
 
 The Courage of Faith. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 to be ashamed of Christ's Gospel ? Because he knows per- 
 fectly what it has been to himself ; he knows something of 
 what it has been, within the range of his own observation, 
 to multitudes besides, and he infers that it is the power of 
 God unto salvation to every one that believeth. 
 
 Before we pass on, let us observe that the Eeligion 
 of Jesus Christ is here upon ground peculiarly its own. 
 There are many claimants, in our modern world, for the 
 throne which it has owned for eighteen hundred years in 
 the souls of Christian men. There are metaphysical and 
 physical claimants ; names which have won the thinking and 
 the unthinking homage of educated Europe. But whether 
 the eye rests on the masters who have done what they could 
 for mind, or on the masters who have spent themselves in 
 manipulating matter (they are near enough to us, and I 
 need not name them) ; let me ask what has been achieved 
 by these most distinguished men that could by any de- 
 fensible use of language be described " as a power of God 
 unto salvation " ? No, the deeper aspects of life, and, much 
 more, the grave significance of death, are quite beyond 
 them — 
 
 — "nec quidquam tibi prodest 
 Aerias tentasse domos, animoque rotundum 
 Percurrisse polum, morituro." 
 
 It is only Jesus Christ Who has thrown light on life 
 and immortality through the Gospel; and because He 
 has done so, and has enabled us by His Atoning Death 
 and Intercession to make the most of this discovery, His 
 Gospel is for all who will a power of God unto salvation. 
 
 Yet, even in the case of men to whom St. Paul's 
 language describes their own happy experience, there 
 may be, not indeed shame, but hesitation, in proclaiming 
 it. Those to whom the saving power of Christ's Cross is 
 most intimately certain, as being to them a matter of 
 personal experience, cannot at once, and without difficulty. 
 
XIII.] 
 
 1 he Courage of Faith. 
 
 257 
 
 bring themselves to say much about it. "We do not, any of 
 us, readily talk about that which most nearly touches us. 
 Men have no objection to talk politics in public, even 
 when they feel strongly on political questions ; and the 
 reason is, because politics address themselves not to that 
 which is exclusively personal, but only to those common 
 sympathies and judgments which we share with some 
 section of our countrymen. But no man will consent, if 
 he can help it, to discuss his near relations, or a family 
 interest, in public. This is not because the details of 
 private life do not interest other people ; every one must 
 know how very far this is from being true. It is because 
 the feelings which they arouse in those concerned are too 
 tender to bear exposure. 
 
 And this motive operates not unfrequently in the case 
 of religion. Religion, even in its lower and most imperfect 
 forms, twines itself round the heart like a family affection ; 
 it is throned in an inner sanctuary of the soul, the door 
 of which is closed to all except a very few, if not indeed 
 to everybody. Eeligion has its outward and visible side ; 
 its public acts of homage ; its recognised obligations. But 
 its real strength and empire is within; it is in regions 
 where spiritual activity neither meets the eye nor commits 
 itself to language. All to whom our Saviour is a real Being- 
 know that their souls have had and have relations with 
 Him which belong to the most sacred moments of life. If 
 we may employ a metaphor which Holy Scripture suggests, 
 they hesitate to discuss these relations almost as naturally 
 as a bride would shrink from taking the world into her 
 confidence. The case of each soul is altogether peculiar to 
 itself; the relations of each soul to the Lord of souls are, 
 like the character or the countenance of every man, quite 
 unique. And therefore the best of men are not unfrequently 
 least able to talk freely upon the one subject respecting 
 which they feel most deeply. Especially is this the case 
 
 K 
 
25B 
 
 The Courage of Faith. [Serm. 
 
 with us Englishmen, who are naturally at once sincere and 
 reserved ; reserved perhaps, in fact, because sincere. Be- 
 yond any other race of men we shrink from the risk of 
 saying more than we feel, or even from the duty of 
 saying as much as we feel, unless it be strictly necessary 
 to do so. 
 
 Some of you who hear me, and who look forward to 
 taking your part in that work for which St. Paul lived 
 and died, will one day, if you do not now, understand me. 
 You will understand that often in exact proportion to the 
 reality of a religious experience may be the difficulty of 
 making it public property ; and that one of the most trying 
 features in a clergyman's work may consist in his having 
 to make a perfectly sincere proclamation of that which 
 he knows to be true, after actual contact with it in the 
 chambers of his own soul. Doubtless a nature so human 
 and sympathetic as St. Paul's would have felt this diffi- 
 culty in its full force ; yet we know how completely, how 
 generously, he overcame it. In his large, self-forgetting 
 charity, he has made his inmost life — its darkest as well 
 as its brightest passages — the common heritage of the 
 world. If he did not yield to the instinct which would 
 have sealed his lips, this was because he knew that the 
 Gospel of his Lord and Master was not really, like some 
 family secret, a private matter. The Friend of his soul, 
 Who knew its wants and weaknesses, Who had healed its 
 diseases, Who was privy to its inmost confidence, was 
 surely the true and much-needed Friend of every human 
 being ; and therefore no false reserve could persuade St. 
 Paul to treat the Gospel as if it concerned himself alone, 
 or to shrink from saying with the Psalmist, " Come near, 
 and hearken, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what 
 He hath done for my soul." 1 
 
 1 Ps. lxvi. 14. 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith. 259 
 
 IV. 
 
 St. Paul's mind about the Gospel is the mind of Christ's 
 true servants to the end of time. The pagan Home of 
 history has perished ; and vet that which it represented to 
 the Apostle's eye is still, in a modified form, before us. 
 The vast and complex organization of human life — ma- 
 terial, social, mental, moral — which we call civilization, so 
 far as it lies beyond the scope of the Gospel, is substantially 
 what it was of old. The outer aspects of the world, as a 
 thinking and acting force, now, as then, reduce the Church 
 to a relative insignificance. And throughout Christendom 
 the Church confronts the world with a faith in the Unseen, 
 perhaps enfeebled by some false philosophy, perhaps dis- 
 coloured by superstition ; with a unity which is a dream of 
 the past, or of the future ; with a message which is treated 
 even less respectfully than it was at the hands of Porphyry 
 and Celsus. 
 
 And yet, to any who can take a sober measure of men 
 and things, there are no reasons for being ashamed of 
 Christ's Gospel. The world which confronts us is not 
 really more splendid or more solid than the empire which 
 has long since perished. The religious weakness and dis- 
 organization which alarms us in the Church is not different 
 in kind from that which was familiar to St. Paul. The 
 assaults upon the faith, which have been conspicuous 
 features of the mental life of this generation, are not more 
 formidable, and do not cut deeper, than those which he 
 resisted. And the Gospel is now, as it was then, but in 
 a much greater multitude of souls, "the power of God 
 unto salvation." There is no reason whatever for bein^ 
 ashamed of it ; it will live with or without our advocacy ; 
 it has an inward force that is all its own. 
 
 " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." This is 
 the profession — need I say it — not merely of Christ's great 
 
26o 
 
 The Courage of Faith. [Serm. 
 
 Apostle, but of the humblest and weakest of Chris- 
 tian ministers. No man who wears Christ's livery can be 
 ashamed of His Gospel without incurring even the scorn 
 of the world. The world itself has no pity for those who 
 voluntarily undertake the championship of a religion which 
 can never natter the wayward errors or the natural pro- 
 pensities of man, and who yet, like the children of Ephraim 
 of old, " being harnessed and carrying bows, turn them- 
 selves back in the day of battle." 1 
 
 " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." Is not 
 this, too, the rule of every Christian man, of every young 
 man who is entering upon life ? You know, my brethren, 
 what is practically meant by being ashamed of the Gospel. 
 The Creed is best confessed in the life of the believer. 
 The sermon which is lived is the most eloquent of all 
 sermons. The act of loyalty which is not foregone because 
 of a frown or a sneer, seen or anticipated ; the act of 
 wrongdoing which is not consented to under the more 
 imperious pressure of a personal friendship, or of a false 
 code of social ethics : these are the victories to which every 
 man among us is invited, in very various degrees, and 
 our equally various ways of meeting the invitation are 
 registered above against the great Hereafter. 
 
 " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." Here, 
 surely, is a fitting motto for a Christian nation ; for a 
 country which owes to Christ's Gospel so great ' a debt as 
 England has owed it for fourteen hundred years ; for a 
 people which might well say to Him, " Thou, Lord, hast 
 taught me from my youth up until now ; therefore will I 
 tell of Thy wondrous works." 2 
 
 They tell us, indeed, that the Gospel is an admirable 
 guide of life for individuals, but that it has no business to 
 venture within the sphere of politics. Political life is said 
 to be beyond its scope; the Gospel must content itself 
 
 1 Ps. lxxviii. io. 2 Ps. lxxi. 15. 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith. 261 
 
 with the useful career which is open to it in the privacy of 
 the Christian home. 
 
 But language of this kind is impossible for a serious 
 believer. If Christianity has really come from heaven, it 
 must renew the whole life of man ; it must govern the life 
 of nations no less than that of individuals ; it must control 
 a Christian when acting in his public and political capacity 
 as completely as when he is engaged in the duties which 
 belong to him as a member of a family circle. If a 
 religious principle is worth anything, it applies to a million 
 of human beings as truly as to one ; and the difficulty 
 of insisting on its wider application does not furnish any 
 proof that it ought not to be so applied. Yet many a man 
 who is exemplary in all the private relations of life, is in 
 his public conduct, and in the political opinions which he 
 professes, too often ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; and 
 this repudiation of the public claims of Christ is by no means 
 confined to any one of our political parties. How is it pos- 
 sible to reconcile any true sense of the value of His Gospel 
 with the support of educational schemes which, if they 
 were carried out to their full results, would virtually banish 
 Him from every infant schoolroom in the country ? How 
 can we Englishmen look steadily in the face of the Chinese 
 who asks us whether we mean our Eeligion of the Cross, 
 when, as a nation, we have forced on him, at the sword's 
 point, a trade in opium, which has involved his country- 
 men in physical and moral misery unknown to them before ? 
 How can we really confess Jesus Christ, if we are ready, for 
 the sake of some material interests, real or hypothetical, to 
 perpetuate the sufferings of millions of human beings, whose 
 chief crime in the eyes of their persecutors is that they 
 own, amid whatever imperfections, Christ's Adorable Name? 
 No, brethren, let us be honest ; let us either have the 
 courage not to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ in any 
 department of life and thought, or let us own that we have 
 
262 
 
 The Courage of Faith. [Serm. 
 
 adapted the morals of the New Testament to suit a state 
 of feeling and conduct which they were intended gradually 
 to render impossible. 
 
 However men may think or feel upon these serious 
 questions, there ought to be no room for controversy 
 among Christians as to the duty of England towards her 
 great dependencies. And that duty, as it affects some 
 among us, may take a practical form. 
 
 If, in some respects, there is grave reason for anxiety in 
 the present circumstances of the Church of Christ, there 
 is also ground for thankfulness and hope. And one 
 subject which may warrant this, is the spirit in which 
 Holy Orders are now approached. Time was when young 
 men drifted into ordination, for social and family reasons, 
 almost without any will of their own ; and it could not be 
 that they added to the real strength of a society which 
 is nothing if not an aggregate of spiritual convictions. 
 Now, the current of feeling runs the other way ; and if a 
 man is ordained at all, it is in virtue of a strong personal 
 conviction. The embittered controversies of the time, the 
 uncertainties of the future, the enemies, many and fierce, 
 who prowl around the camp of the Church, — these things 
 make some men's hearts faint, and their resolves feeble. 
 But what is lost in one direction is probably gained in 
 another. A stirring time, though it be a time of danger, 
 is welcome to every active and generous spirit. 
 
 " Per damna per caedes ab ipso 
 Ducit opes animumque ferro." 
 
 It is not in quiet days that the Apostolic hymn is best 
 understood ; — 
 
 If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him ; 
 If we deny Him, He also will deny us ; 
 If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful : 
 He cannot deny Himself. 1 
 
 1 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13 
 
XIII.] The Courage of Faith. 
 
 263 
 
 And if any man who hears me is in doubt what to do 
 with his life, one suggestion may be furnished by the sub- 
 ject of to-day's sermon. It will not be hereafter a matter of 
 regret if you should resolve to devote yourselves to Apostolic 
 work in the dependencies of this great Empire; in those cities 
 of America, and Australia, and India, which, before long, 
 must powerfully affect, if they do not even govern, the course 
 of the civilized world. AVe are not far from the time 
 when Sydney, and Melbourne, and Calcutta, and Cape 
 Town will rank with the old capitals of Europe ; already 
 a new world is being created by the colonial enterprise 
 of England. Xo light privilege is it to have a hand in 
 building up the moral life of these new communities; 
 no common honour surely to help to lay side by side with 
 the foundations of their free political institutions the 
 broad and deep foundations of the Church of God. Often 
 enough it is little that can be done in an old country, 
 where life is ruled by fixed and imperious traditions; while 
 much may be done where all is yet fluid, and where, if 
 religion is sometimes unprotected and unrecognised, she 
 is not embarrassed by influences which deaden or cramp 
 her best energies at home. But wherever we labour, the 
 rule and the profession of the Apostle must be ours ; and 
 whatever be our personal mistakes and failures, God 
 grant that our consciences may never accuse us of being 
 ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 THE CURSE OX MEROZ. 
 Judges v. 23. 
 
 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants 
 thereof; because they came not to the help of tlie Lord, to the help of the 
 Lord against the mighty. 
 
 ISRAEL'S struggle against the Canaanitish king Jabin 
 closes the first period of the history of the Judges. Of 
 that struggle the central figure is the speaker in the text, 
 Deborah, prophetess and mother in Israel. This extra- 
 ordinary woman might have ranked, so far as natural 
 strength of character is concerned, with those of her sex 
 who, by splendid examples, whether of energy, or intellect, 
 or sanctity, have from time to time reversed the ordinary 
 relations of men and women, and have left their mark 
 for ever upon the history of the world. She belongs 
 to the same class, in respect of natural ascendency, as 
 Joan of Arc, as Elizabeth of England, as Catharine the 
 Second of Russia, not to mention humbler but, speaking 
 religiously, greater names. She had, besides her natural 
 gifts, the gift of prophecy, as before her had Miriam the 
 sister of the Lawgiver ; as had Huldah the wife of Shallum 
 in a later age. Her husband Lapidoth is mentioned ; he 
 is mentioned only to be forgotten : Deborah's was a life 
 
The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 265 
 
 shaped by the pursuit of public rather than of domestic 
 objects. In her song of victory Deborah implies that the 
 rule of her predecessors, although marked by deeds of 
 heroism against the oppressors of Israel, had failed alto- 
 gether to restrain the predatory ravages of the Canaanites. 
 The public ways were unsafe and deserted ; men skulked 
 from place to place by out-of-the-way paths; there was 
 no safety for property or life. 1 Especially would the whole 
 level country of the Kishou valley, and Deborah's native 
 tribe, have been exposed to the violence of the Canaanitish 
 tyrant of Hazor and his general Sisera. This may explain 
 her removal to her southern home. Under a palm-tree of 
 Benjamin she judged Israel: she heard appeals from the 
 sentence of lower tribunals, as became the supreme judge 
 of the nation. 2 Of the actual extent of her influence, of 
 her relation in particular to the northern tribes, of the cause 
 which immediately determined her to proclaim a rising 
 against the Canaanites, we really know nothing. She 
 summoned Barak, her fellow-tribesman, to advance from 
 Kedesh, in the extreme north of the country, upon Mount 
 Tabor, with ten thousand men, in order to attack Sisera. 
 Barak refused, unless the prophetess would herself accom- 
 pany him; soldier as he was, he lacked the needful 
 strength and convictions to brace him for the conflict. 
 Deborah warned him that he would thus forfeit the 
 honours of victory. But she joined him at Kedesh. Upon 
 their reaching Mount Tabor, Sisera brought up the asso- 
 ciated Canaanitish forces, and nine hundred chariots of 
 iron. Barak suddenly rushed from the heights into the 
 valley ; and at Taanach, by the brook Megiddo, a desperate 
 encounter resulted in the utter defeat of Sisera. The 
 original word denotes the extraordinary character of the 
 victory as effected through some unmentioned natural 
 phenomenon : it even seems to rank Sisera's defeat with 
 
 1 Judges v. 6. 2 Deut. xvii. 8. 
 
266 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. [Serm. 
 
 the destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, and of the 
 Canaanites at Gibeon. 1 The rout was indeed complete. 
 The host of Sisera was driven in a north-west direction to 
 Harosheth, where Sisera kept a kind of independent court ; 
 the waters of the Kishon, then at their height, swept many 
 of the fugitives into the Mediterranean ; but ere the last 
 man had been destroyed at Harosheth, Sisera had left his 
 chariot, and had fled on foot towards Lake Merom, where, 
 in the neighbourhood of Kedesh, he met his death in the 
 tent of Jael. 
 
 It was in the course of this hot pursuit that Meroz in- 
 curred the curse of the Angel of the Lord, who, as the 
 revealer of the Invisible God, fought for Israel, and smote 
 the Canaanites. Meroz, situated, it is probable, on the 
 southern slope of Tabor, would seem to have closed its 
 gates against the conquerors, or at any rate to have refused 
 to take its part in the great struggle against the enemies 
 of the theocracy. Whether it was destroyed at the time, 
 or left to perish through the fear and aversion of all good 
 Israelites for the spot, we know not. It is not mentioned 
 again in Scripture. Deborah heard and uttered its doom 
 on the day of Israel's triumph; and forthwith it disappears 
 from history. 
 
 t 
 
 It is in the song of Deborah, rather than in the prose 
 narrative of the sacred writer, that we best understand the 
 exigency of the time, and the spirit, the passion of the 
 leaders of the theocracy. The theocracy was for the 
 moment almost impersonated in Deborah. And Deborah 
 lives in her song ; in all the power of her prophetic utter- 
 ance, in all the penetrating intensity of her womanly feel- 
 
 1 Exod. xiv. 24. Josh. x. 10. Cf. Keil's remarks on Qn s l in loc. 
 
XIV. 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 267 
 
 ing. In her prelude she glances at the great days of 
 Israel, when God was felt to be among His people march- 
 ing from Sinai j 1 she mourns the period of weakness and 
 degradation that had followed; 2 she does not shrink, 
 through any false modesty, from marking her own arising 
 as the epoch of her country's resurrection. 3 She proclaims 
 her sympathy with the national leaders; with the volun- 
 teers from among the people : nobles and people are to 
 reflect on the mighty acts of the Lord — for such indeed 
 they were — as the returning warriors related them among 
 the women watering their flocks. 4 And then, after again 
 rousing herself to the task of minstrelsy, while Barak is 
 leading the captives in procession before her, she repeats 
 the story of the victory : the streaming of the heroes of 
 Israel down from the heights to fight the enemy in the 
 plain of Jezreel; the terrific, never-to-be-forgotten shock 
 of battle at Taanach ; the fighting of the very stars in their 
 courses against Sisera, through some storm or other natural 
 phenomenon which increased his difficulties or hastened 
 his discomfiture ; the swollen waters of the Kishon, laden 
 with the bodies of the dying and the dead ; the w T ild con- 
 fused flight of the dreaded chariots of iron before the men 
 of Israel. 5 She ends with the tragic death of the general 
 himself in the tent of Jael, and with the picture suggested 
 by her own woman's heart ; the picture of Sisera's mother 
 expecting her son's return, explaining to herself the delay, 
 for which there was, she already instinctively feels, all too 
 surely another explanation. And then the song pauses 
 suddenly with a burst of prayer, that all the enemies of 
 the Lord might perish as did Sisera. 
 
 Yet Deborah is not merely a poet: she is a judge; and 
 in the midst of her passion she apportions with discrim- 
 inating accuracy their exact measure of desert to the 
 
 1 Jii-^r-^-^, 5. 2 Judges v. 6, 7. 3 Judges v. 7. 
 
 4 Judges v. 9-1 1. 5 Judges v. 19-22. 
 
268 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 different tribes ; to all who had contributed, or who ought 
 to have contributed, to the great victory. The place of 
 honour is reserved for Naphtali and Zebulun : these had 
 been unsparing in self-sacrifice; they had hazarded their 
 lives unto the death upon the high places of the field. 1 
 Less had been done, but something had been done by 
 Ephraim, by Benjamin, by western Manasseh, by Issachar; 
 they had sent contingents, probably with Deborah herself, 
 to the aid of Barak. 2 Then there came the defaulters. 
 Eeuben had felt the agony, the enthusiasm of the moment 
 there had been all the agitation, it would seem, in this tribe 
 of a prolonged indecision ; but at last it was resolved to 
 prefer the comfortable repose of a shepherd's life to tak- 
 ing part in the struggle for God and for Israel. 3 In the 
 same spirit the other tribes beyond the Jordan had re- 
 mained at home ; while on the western side of Palestine 
 commerce proved as enervating as did pastoral interests in 
 the east. Dan and Asher were both too absorbed in the 
 interests of seafaring populations — Dan especially in the 
 growing prosperity of the young port of Joppa and the 
 early Phoenician trade — to have a heart to take part in the 
 national struggle. 4 But the language used as to these 
 tribes is widely different from that which is provoked by, 
 or rather reserved for, Meroz. They were at a distance 
 from the scene of action ; they were removed from the sights 
 and sounds which brought the true bearing of the contest 
 in all its anguish before the mind of the inhabitants of the 
 upper Kishon valley. Meroz saw all, knew all, felt all, 
 yet would take no part. To Meroz, even Jael, the Kenite 
 chieftainess, was a reproach. Though it were true that 
 her act fell below the morality of the Law, yet was she 
 "blessed" for the spirit of loyalty which it expressed; 
 while nothing could be said on behalf of the townsmen 
 
 1 Judges v. 1 8. 2 Judges v. 14, 15. 
 
 3 Judges v. 15, 16. 4 Judges v. 17. 
 
XIV.] 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 269 
 
 who had refused in that moment of unparalleled agony to 
 bring help to the sacred cause of their country, and of 
 their God. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now, are we to say that the curse of Meroz is a " dark 
 patch of human passion ; " that Deborah, in the heat of 
 her exultation and vengeance, was strictly incapable of a 
 balanced moral judgment ; that not to have taken part in 
 the pursuit of Sisera w 7 as naturally a crime in the eyes of 
 a passionate woman, eager for the emancipation of her 
 race and for the triumph of her cause ; but that it is 
 altogether impossible to read history by the light of such 
 excited feelings, and to suppose that Meroz drew on itself, 
 not merely the invectives of Deborah, but also the dis- 
 pleasure and condemnation of a Eighteous God ? 
 
 This way of looking at the lano-ua^e before us ignores 
 one remarkable characteristic of the Jewish theocracy ; it 
 ignores what we should term in a secular history its lofty 
 public spirit, its superiority to all that is merely personal 
 and selfish. David and other psalmists especially illustrate 
 this. David reserves his enthusiasms for the friends of 
 God ; his aspirations for the success of the cause of God ; 
 his anxieties for the risks of God's kino-dom ; his hatred 
 for the enemies of God's truth, and glory : " "Whom have I 
 in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I 
 desire in comparison of Thee." 1 "Do not I hate them, 
 0 Lord, that hate Thee ? and am not I grieved with them 
 that rise up against Thee ? Yea, I hate them right sore ; 
 even as though they were mine enemies." 2 So Ezra : 
 " Mine eyes gush out with water, because men keep not 
 Thy law." 3 So a captive in Babylon : " If I forget thee, 0 
 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do 
 not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
 
 1 Ps. lxxiii. 24. - Vs. cxxxix. 21, 22. 3 Ps. cxix. 136. 
 
270 The Curse on Meroz. [Serm. 
 
 mouth; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth." 1 
 The language of Deborah was not the expression of a 
 personal, or social, or political spite any more than was 
 the language of David and Ezra. It was not her own 
 cause ; not even the cause of her country, as such ; it was 
 the cause of the Lord God which she had at heart, which 
 had long since won her love, and now fired and guided her 
 indignation. 
 
 Are we to say, then, that if this language be in keeping 
 with the stern spirit of the Law it is out of place in the 
 religion of the Gospel ? This, indeed, is often said. But 
 it assumes too hastily that the Gospel repealed not merely 
 the ceremonial but the moral teaching of the Law, not 
 merely its forms of worship but its representation of the 
 Divine attributes, not merely its carnal weapons of warfare 
 but its loyalty to and zeal for truth. In point of fact, the 
 Gospel explained or it enlarged the teaching of the Law. 
 It removed misconceptions which had gathered around that 
 teaching. It did not destroy what God Himself had given. 2 
 God's earlier Eevelation of Himself as a whole, as well as 
 its particular gifts and promises, was, in Apostolic phrase, 
 " without repentance ; " 3 it did not admit of repudiation 
 or recall. The Divine attribute of mercy, sufficiently re- 
 vealed in and insisted on by the Law, acquired under the 
 Gospel a practical and concrete shape in the life and death 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. The duties of charity, loving- 
 kindness, patience, benevolence, unselfishness, already 
 prescribed by the Law, were elaborated and enforced with 
 a new determination and precision in the Gospel. But 
 the Gospel Revelation . did not thereby repeal the earlier 
 Eevelation of the Justice of God as a necessary principle 
 of His government ; nor did it define the virtue of charity 
 to mean indifference on the subject of moral evil or of 
 
 1 Ts. cxxxvii. 5, 6. 2 St. Matt. v. 17, 18. 
 
 3 Kom. xi. 29, aixeTOLfxfK-qTa. 
 
XIV.J The Curse on Meroz. 271 
 
 intellectual falsehood. It prescribed to men the largest 
 consideration for the difficulties, the weaknesses, the 
 failures of others ; it taught the doctrine of the relativeness 
 of all responsibility for knowledge of truth and duty, as 
 that doctrine had never been taught before ; but it did not 
 slur over the lines which define the boundaries of moral 
 and intellectual truth ; it spoke as sternly as did the Law 
 when truth required outspokenness. Why else should our 
 Lord have foretold woe to Chorazin and Bethsaida ; why 
 should He have said that Capernaum once exalted to 
 heaven should be cast down to hell; 1 why should He have 
 predicted, with tears of sorrow, the coming desolation of 
 Jerusalem ? 2 What was the meaning of the many sayings 
 in which He proclaimed the necessity of accepting, and the 
 danger of rejecting Himself? 3 What is to be said of St. 
 Paul's anathemas against propagating a false faith and 
 against want of love for Christ ? " If any man love not the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha." 4 " If 
 any man preach any other gospel than that which we have 
 preached unto you, let him be accursed." 5 It has been urged 
 that this language of our Lord's and St. Paul's constitutes 
 a foreign element in the New Testament ; that it belongs 
 to modes of thinking and speaking which were accepted 
 traditionally from the earlier religion, without being revised. 
 But, not to mention the impossibility of reconciling any 
 such doctrine as this with our Lord's claims to be obeyed 
 as an unerring Teacher of Divine Truth, it proceeds upon 
 a false estimate of the real demands of all religious truth 
 and duty upon man, however partial may be his knowledge 
 of it. It presumes that the acceptance of truth and the 
 performance of duty is really, in the last resort, an affair of 
 
 1 St. Matt. xi. 21, 23. St. Luke x. 13, 15. 
 
 2 St. Matt, xxiii. 37. St. Luke xiii. 34 ; xix. 41-44. 
 
 3 E.g. St. Luke xix. 27. St. Mark viii. 38. 
 
 4 1 Cor. xvi. 22. 5 Gal. i. 8, 9. 
 
272 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. [Serm. 
 
 taste ; and it is tins vital misconception which makes the 
 sterner language of the Gospel, not less than that of the 
 Law, unwelcome and unintelligible. 
 
 III. 
 
 What, then, precisely was the sin of [Meroz ? Meroz 
 was found wanting on a great occasion, as it could not 
 have been found wanting had it been sound at heart. 
 Certainly it failed first of all in the duty of patriotism. 
 If we are tempted to think that Deborah's language was 
 unwarrantable, let us consider what we ourselves should 
 say under similar circumstances. Let us suppose that this 
 country had been successfully invaded by a foreign 
 enemy; that during his occupation every form of social 
 and personal misery had been inflicted ; that, not to speak 
 of the ruin of our credit, of our trade, of our national 
 character, the exercise of our religion, the sanctity of our 
 homes, the freedom of our persons, had been imperilled or 
 sacrificed ; and that at last, under whatever leadership, an 
 organized rising against the invader had been successful, at 
 least within limits, and that he had sustained a decisive 
 reverse. And let us further suppose that at the very 
 crisis of his discomfiture, when everything depended upon 
 making his position untenable, and upon converting a first 
 disaster into irremediable defeat, some single English town, 
 lying in the very valley along which the torrent of war 
 was sweeping, should refuse assistance or even sympathy 
 to the national forces. Do you think that English public 
 men, or English public writers, reviewing the campaign 
 when all was over, w T ould be sparing of denunciation, after 
 their own fashion, of such treachery to the national cause ? 
 Would they not insist upon the preciousness, the sanctity 
 of the national life; upon the folly and wickedness of 
 preaching any doctrine which could destroy or impair it ; 
 
XIV.] 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 273 
 
 upon the duty of laying aside all private opinions, grudges, 
 hesitations, in presence of so absorbing, so overwhelming a 
 catastrophe as an invasion ? And should it be suggested 
 that in using this language they were only indulging 
 some kind of selfish passion, would they be careful to 
 answer the taunt ? Certainly Deborah is passionate ; but 
 it is a noble passion which animates her — if it is a true 
 love of her country. Alas ! for us Englishmen, if a sickly 
 cosmopolitanism — appealing, not to a pure deep love of 
 humanity at large, but to an unmanly shrinking from 
 exacting efforts and sacrifices, which might be prescribed, 
 I do not say by our historical traditions, but by the posi- 
 tion and duties assigned to us in His world by God — 
 should have made us unable to understand her. 
 
 Meroz failed, secondly, in a far graver duty, a duty 
 towards its religion. For the cause of Israel against 
 Jabin was not merely the cause of the country; it was 
 the cause of the Church. In Israel Church and State 
 were not " united," for the simple reason that they were one 
 and the same thing. When we Christians use the phrase 
 "Union of Church and State," we imply what is the 
 historical fact, namely, that since the Incarnation, Church 
 and State are fundamentally distinct things ; distinct in 
 their origin, in their laws, and in their corporate life ; but 
 that under favourable circumstances they may be brought 
 into relations of harmony and interdependence. If the 
 Church were, to use a modern phrase, merely the " expres- 
 sion of the varying religious consciousness of the country," 
 as was really the case with the religions of pagan anti- 
 quity, it would be absurd to speak of the " union " of this 
 " expression " with the body politic which alone, moment 
 by moment, produces and sustains it. In Israel Church 
 and State were two aspects of one and the same organi- 
 zation; and hence the politics of an Israelite could not 
 be merely civil; they were always made up of religious 
 
 s 
 
2 74 The Curse on Meroz. [Serm. 
 
 principles and opinions. Thus it is that the political 
 language of the Psalter is the natural religious language of 
 the Christian Church. God was in the midst of the Holy 
 State •} its prosperity was His glory among men ; its failures 
 and humiliations were His dishonour. Meroz was not 
 merely wanting in duty to the race of Abraham and Jacob; 
 to the memories and traditions of Moses and of Joshua ; it 
 was undutiful towards the true King of the sacred nation, 
 as yet unrepresented below by any earthly viceroy; the 
 King Who, though He could have done otherwise, had 
 made His honour dependent on the loyalty and affection of 
 His subjects. Meroz would not come " to the help of the 
 Lord against the mighty." Why Meroz failed we know 
 not. It may have been pusillanimity; although this is 
 the less probable explanation at such a moment. It may 
 have been the result of a selfish calculation that the tide 
 of war might yet turn again; that a time might come 
 when Jabin would know how to reward the friends of 
 his adversity. It may have been a fastidious coldness, 
 an isolation of aims and sympathies from those which 
 governed the heart of the sacred nation, a peevish jealousy 
 of the tribes which had taken a lead in the great work of 
 deliverance ; it could hardly have had its root in intellec- 
 tual bewilderment as to the course of duty. Probably it 
 was a strictly analogous case to that of the conduct of the 
 men of Succoth and Penuel towards Gideon in his pursuit 
 of the Midianitish kings. 2 To refuse aid to the sacred 
 cause until it was certain of success, was in a man or a 
 community belonging to the covenanted nation an act of 
 virtual apostasy ; and Meroz was not merely politically 
 disfranchised, it was religiously excommunicated. 
 
 1 Ps. xlvi. 5; xlviii. i-8; lx. 6-12. 
 
 2 Judges viii. 13-17. 
 
XIV.] 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 275 
 
 IV. 
 
 Aleroz is never unrepresented in history. And the con- 
 duct of its representatives has been sometimes explained 
 to imply a faith so strong, and withal so humble, that it 
 caunot venture to offer assistance to One in AVhose Power 
 it unreservedly trusts. 
 
 God, we are told, will do what He sees best, whether 
 we help Him or not : He can conquer Sisera, at the proper 
 time, without the aid of Meroz. Doubtless He can. But 
 the question is, whether He wills to do so or not ; whether, 
 if He wills us to be His agents, we can wisely disobey 
 Him by pleading that we have too much reverence or too 
 much faith to obey. This kind of argument, it must be 
 plain, leaves great room for self-delusion. Men will not 
 argue thus, who know by experience that they are likely 
 to be, at least sometimes, swayed by selfish motives of 
 indolence, or timidity, or self-aggrandizement. The faith 
 in the self-propagating power of Christianity which is so 
 strong that it will not support the cause of Christian mis- 
 sions ; the robust faith in the indestructible vitality of the 
 Church which, when occasion permits, would illustrate her 
 life by depriving her of the agencies and resources that 
 ordinarily support it ; the faith, in short, in God's power of 
 upholding His own cause in the world, which carefully 
 abstains from contributing anything to serve it, so fearful 
 is it of offering a slight to the Divine Omnipotence ; this 
 faith, which would seem to be too vigorous to be in any sense 
 practical, would not yet have been developed in the days of 
 Deborah. It is hardly probable that Meroz declined its 
 part in the great struggle from an excess of trust in the 
 strength of Israel's cause and Israel's God : men had not 
 then discovered that to obey God's will was to incur some 
 risk of dishonouring His attributes. 
 
 " Curse ye Meroz." Yes. the words still live. May 
 
276 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. [Serm. 
 
 they not be heard within the soul when a man has con- 
 sciously declined that which conscience has recognised as 
 plain duty ? Such a man needs no audible voice of the 
 Angel of the Lord or of the prophetess; conscience pro- 
 phesies within him. The soul becomes inevitably and at 
 once aware of a great moral and spiritual impoverishment. 
 It is a condition of enjoying continued insight into the laws 
 which govern spiritual truth, that we should conform our 
 moral being to that measure of truth which we already 
 see. A deliberate rejection of duty prescribed by already 
 recognised truth, cannot but destroy, or at least impair most 
 seriously, the clearness of our mental vision. Since the 
 affections can only retain their freshness by free expansion 
 towards their highest Object, a refusal to do that which their 
 healthful exercise would imply and prompt reacts upon them 
 in producing coldness, shyness, reserve. Since the will only 
 preserves those qualities of directness and energy in which 
 its excellence consists, by undeviating loyalty to the law 
 of conscience which should guide it, it follows that failure 
 to obey that law on a critical occasion, when the issues 
 are clearly comprehended, means nothing less serious than 
 such grave diseases of the moral constitution as crooked- 
 ness of purpose and feebleness in resolve. A single act 
 may thus involve grave inward deterioration ; it may land 
 the soul upon a lower level of moral life, where there is 
 less light, less warmth, less force ; where passion is more 
 imperious and principle is weaker ; where a man is less his 
 own master and more readily enslaved to the circum- 
 stances and beings around him. 
 
 It is a charge against the higher education, as it is pur- 
 sued in the universities, especially in Oxford, that it has 
 not unfrequently a tendency to unfit men for the battle of 
 life; to make them merely critical or speculative when 
 they ought to be taking an active part on the field of duty. 
 Some very signal instances to the contrary will indeed 
 
XIV.] 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 277 
 
 occur to everybody ; but the question is as to a general 
 tendency. Your own experience, brethren, will best decide 
 on the justice of this charge. Have you learned to defer to 
 a standard of taste which is often too fastidious to permit 
 a man to engage in eager action ; which is so sensitively 
 alive to the dreaded criticisms of an academical public, 
 that it has no heart to act or to write under the pressure 
 of a sense of duty and in simple forgetfulness of self? 
 Do your studies or your friendships tend to weaken and 
 pulverize, instead of bracing and developing those central 
 convictions, apart from which life resolves itself into a 
 somewhat wearisome game of chance ? Eefmement and 
 subtlety of intellect have a market value in a literary 
 society which does not belong to them in the world at large. 
 Human life is governed, not by the masters of the abstract 
 sciences or of good taste, but by powerful and glowing 
 enthusiasms which prompt and which imperatively demand 
 action in order to express themselves, in order to live. 
 And therefore, in such proportion as an educational 
 system eats out the core of strong convictions by logical 
 solvents, or paralyzes action by a continuous appeal to 
 some standard of propriety which treats all earnestness 
 as of the nature of vulgarity, it necessarily diminishes 
 capacity for strenuous and heroic action, or even for such 
 modest but praiseworthy efforts as fall far short of being 
 either heroic or strenuous. This is a subject which may 
 be considered from many points of view besides that of 
 religious faith : the curse of Meroz may be the voice of a 
 clearsighted public spirit, as well as of a religious view of 
 life and duty. 
 
 Certainly we have been summoned into life at a time 
 when the lesson of the text may have a serious significance 
 for any one of us. The old quiet days when everything 
 was so established as to be almost unchallenged are gone. 
 Sisera is at the head of his wild warriors ; and ere we die 
 
278 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 [Seem. 
 
 the life of the nation or the wellbeing of the Church may 
 demand at our hands exceptional sacrifices. Are we pre- 
 pared for them ? There is no single feature of the circum- 
 stances of the United States of America upon which the 
 most intelligent and devoted friends of the great Eepublic 
 look with more unconcealed alarm than the withdrawal 
 from public life of almost the whole of the educated class, 
 and the consequent abandonment of some of the highest 
 and most responsible places in the State to earnest but 
 uncultivated fanatics, or to mere adventurers. It will 
 be an evil day for England if the natural leaders of the 
 people forego their duties because the course of modern 
 politics is unwelcome to them ; mistakes of this magnitude 
 are made by an instructed and governing class only once. 
 There are vestigia nulla retrorswrn ; the ground once lost is 
 irrecoverable. 
 
 Amon" the nobler lives which have been lived during 
 the last twenty years in Oxford few can have excelled 
 that of the late Edward Denison. As an undergraduate 
 he determined to qualify himself for combating social 
 mischiefs by close observation and experience. He acted 
 upon the opinion, that in order to represent the poor a 
 man should have had actual companionship with them. 
 And so, at an age when most men in his position would be 
 thinking only of pleasure Or of ease, he lived among the 
 poor as one of themselves, in a lodging in a back street 
 at the East end of London. Enough has been published in 
 his letters to disclose something of his real temper and 
 aspirations ; but when he was from time to time showing 
 himself at his club, and making his first speeches in the 
 House of Commons, men little knew what kind of life he 
 was leading, and by what principles he was governed. Yet 
 he too had passed through a moment of indecision, when 
 it was doubtful whether he would obey the high ideal of 
 conduct which had been set before him. To miss an oppor- 
 
XIV.J 
 
 The Curse on Meroz. 
 
 279 
 
 tunity, he said at that time, is not simply to leave undone 
 what you might do : it is too probably to fail to be what 
 you might have been ; it is to exchange a higher place in 
 the scale of moral life for a lower one. 
 
 But it is Christ's spiritual kingdom against which 
 Satan directs his fiercest assaults, and to which Christians 
 owe their most devoted service. Devotion to the Church 
 should be another name for devotedness to Christ. " Inas- 
 much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My 
 brethren, ye have done it unto Me ;" — this is the motive 
 and the blessing of all forms of work in the Church of God. 
 It is said that men who would have spent their lives in 
 her service a generation since do not do so now. Some, 
 because they have a higher sense of what such service 
 means than had their predecessors: they may do well. 
 Some who shrink from the manifold annoyances, the 
 controversies, the disappointments, the great and perhaps 
 increasing difficulties of modern clerical life : these must 
 do ill. A great necessity is a great opportunity. Much 
 more is to be done for Truth amid the agitation and 
 turmoil of an a^e like ours than in the old davs of stae- 
 nation, when the life of the Church was frostbound and frost- 
 bitten, when there was little place for and recognition of 
 heroism and self-devotion. Xothing is really lost by a life 
 of sacrifice : everything is lost by failure to obey God's 
 call. The great struggle of good and evil, of truth and 
 error, which was raging when Deborah judged Israel, rages 
 still. The great laws of the moral world do not vary, how- 
 ever different, under different dispensations, may be the 
 authoritative enunciation of truth, or the means of propagat- 
 ing and defending it. J abin and Sisera never really die : 
 Deborah is always despairing, triumphing, hoping, judging 
 by turns. And the opportunities of generously serving Jesus 
 Christ are few ; perhaps not more than one, in a lifetime. 
 They come, they do not return. The day before Meroz failed 
 
28o 
 
 The Ctirse on Meroz. 
 
 there was no warning of its coming trial; the day after there 
 was no reversal of its moral doom. What we do upon a 
 great occasion will probably depend upon what we already 
 are ; what we are will be the result of previous years of 
 self-discipline, under the grace of Christ, or of the absence 
 of it. But to most men some opportunity of service is 
 offered, though it be only one. And what that opportunity 
 may be matters much less than whether, when it comes, 
 it is made the most of. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE POOK. 
 
 (WHITSUN-DAY.) 
 
 St. Luke iv. 18. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to 
 preach the Gospel to the poor. 
 
 IT is not perhaps too bold to say of this sentence that it 
 is the motto of our Lord's ministry. He had already 
 entered on His public life when He came to Nazareth, 
 "where He had been brought up." As had been His 
 wont, certainly since His thirteenth year, possibly since 
 His fifth or sixth, He was present in the well-known 
 Synagogue on the Sabbath day. The lesson from the Law 
 had been read; the lesson from the Prophets was to 
 follow. He rose, as wishing to read ; and a servant of the 
 Synagogue handed Him the roll of Isaiah. There was, no 
 doubt, at that period an appointed lesson for the day ; but 
 on this occasion the Eeader knew Himself to be Lord of 
 the Synagogue as well as Lord of the Sabbath. He let the 
 roll unwind itself from the cylinder ; one after another the 
 great passages describing His Person and His work passed 
 beneath His eye. The first group of Isaiah's writings had 
 gone ; the last was rapidly disappearing, when He placed 
 His finger on the passage before us. " The Spirit of the 
 Lord is over Me ; because He hath anointed Me to preach 
 
282 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 good tidings unto the poor ; He hath sent Me to bind up the 
 broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
 opening of the prison to them that are fettered ; to preach 
 the acceptable year of the Lord." 1 
 
 The passage plainly refers to the year of jubilee, which 
 at somewhat distant intervals came as a season of benevo- 
 lence and grace to heal the social wounds of Israel. In 
 this happy year the Israelite who had been sold into 
 slavery might recover his freedom ; the proprietor whose 
 ancestral lands or houses had been alienated might re-enter 
 on his patrimony on easy terms; the prisoner for debt 
 might obtain his discharge ; poverty and distress could 
 put forward their claims, and be sure of a hearing. The 
 blessings of the jubilee were earthly shadows of the 
 blessings of Eedemption; and the herald of the jubilee 
 foretold by Isaiah is clearly not the prophet himself, but 
 that Other Figure who is so often before us in Isaiah's later 
 writings; He is the Servant of the Lord, at once distinct from 
 the prophet and greatly raised above him. And thus when, 
 His task being over, Jesus had folded the roll, and had 
 given it to the minister and had sat down, and the eyes 
 of all that were in the Synagogue were fastened on Him, 
 He began to say unto them, " This day is this scripture 
 fulfilled in your ears." 2 There could be no mistake as to 
 His meaning. He Himself was the Preacher Whom 
 Isaiah had foretold; and His message was the predicted 
 announcement of good tidings to the poor. 
 
 In Israel the poor did not merely represent that average 
 of failure and destitution which, as it would seem, is the 
 inevitable product of organized human life; they had a 
 more recognised, almost a religious standing in the national 
 system. They were never to cease out of the land ; 3 and 
 our Lord's words, " The poor ye have always with you," 4 
 
 1 Isa. lxi. I, 2. 
 3 Deut. xv. ii. 
 
 2 St. Luke iv. 20, 21. 
 4 St. Matt. xxvi. 11. 
 
XV. 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 283 
 
 meant this and more. The anavim of the Psalter appear 
 both in the earlier and the later psalms: they are not 
 merely poor in circumstances, but poor in spirit. As 
 Gesenius remarks, the word is commonly used with " the 
 added notion of a lowly, pious, and modest mind, which 
 prefers to bear injuries rather than return them." 1 Pro- 
 bably, when our Lord spoke, these religious associations 
 with poverty had somewhat disappeared; His express 
 blessing on the "poor in spirit" 2 might seem to imply 
 this. When He explained Isaiah's words as referring to 
 Himself, He would have been understood to be drawing 
 a distinction between the social condition of the mass of 
 His own hearers and that of other learners in other con- 
 temporary schools. The classes who thronged the lectures 
 of the great Eabbis in Jerusalem, and who listened to that 
 compound of occasionally lofty moral maxims and far- 
 fetched or grotesque interpretations, which afterwards be- 
 came the Talmud — these were not the poor. The students 
 of those writers who undertook to establish an understand- 
 ing between Jewish thought and the outer world of Greek 
 culture and philosophy ; the readers of Xicholas of Damas- 
 cus, of Philo of Alexandria, as later of Josephus; these 
 were not the poor. But the Galilaean peasants, sitting 
 before Jesus in the Synagogue of Xazareth, did answer to 
 the description ; and it was that He might announce the 
 good tidings to such as they were that the Spirit of the 
 Lord was upon Him. 
 
 That our Lord's ministry was eminently a ministry for 
 the poor is a commonplace which need not be insisted on. 
 His relations were poor people, with the associations, the 
 habits, the feelings of the poor. He passed among men as 
 "the carpenter's son." 3 He spoke, it would appear, in a 
 provincial north-country dialect, at least commonly. His 
 language, His illustrations, His entire method of approacli- 
 1 Ges. s. v. «|jy. 2 St. Matt. v. 3. 3 St. Matt, xiii. 55. 
 
284 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. [Serm. 
 
 ing the understandings and hearts of men, were suited to 
 the apprehension of the uneducated. When He spoke, the 
 common people heard Him gladly. 1 When He was asked 
 by what signs He could prove His claims, He replied, 
 among other things, " The poor have the Gospel preached 
 to them." 2 His first disciples were poor men; "not many 
 wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble 
 were called." 3 As they looked back on it, the grace of His 
 example was felt by His disciples and servants to consist 
 pre-eminently in this ; — " that though He was rich, yet for 
 our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty 
 might be rich." 4 
 
 So it was with His earliest Church. The Church of the 
 Apostles was a Church of the poor ; of silver and gold it 
 had none. 5 One of the first incidents in its history was an 
 economical experiment for the relief of poverty. Of St. 
 Paul's time and thought a large portion was devoted to 
 organizing collections among the Greek churches for the 
 poor Christians in Palestine. In St. James's short epistle 
 nothing is more remarkable than the apostolic energy 
 with which he upholds the rights, the dignity of the poor, 
 against the insolence of their wealthy neighbours. 6 Here 
 and there, no doubt, there were converts who brought 
 learning, station, wealth, within the fold of the Church. 
 But, upon the whole, it was at once the reproach and 
 the glory of Apostolic Christendom, that it first won its 
 victories, and then lavished its blessings, chiefly among 
 the poor. 
 
 L 
 
 This is mere history; it lies upon the surface of the 
 New Testament. But that which may well arrest our 
 
 1 St. Mark xii. 37. 2 St. Matt. xi. 5. 3 1 Cor. i. 26. 
 
 4 2 Cor. viii. 9. 5 Acts iii. 6. 6 St. James ii. 1-7; v. 1-6. 
 
XV.] 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 285 
 
 attention, on to-day's festival, is the marked connection, 
 in this and other passages, between the preaching of the 
 Gospel to the poor and the gift of the Eternal Spirit. 
 Such a purpose, in so great a gift, looks, at first sight, like 
 an unnecessary expenditure of force. Why, men may ask, 
 should This Almighty Visitor be thus associated with such 
 a humble effort ? Why should the Spirit not reserve Him- 
 self to dissipate the objections of the intellectual, or the 
 fastidiousness of the highly born, or the pride of the 
 wealthy ? Does not Christianity claim to be the religion 
 of the whole human family; and is there not something 
 invidious as well as unaccountable in the primacy of 
 honour thus awarded to poverty by the Unseen Agent 
 Who was to convert the world ? Poverty, it is added, is 
 already half-Christian by its very nature ; it has everything 
 to gain by a doctrine which makes so little of the present 
 and the visible, and so much of the future and the unseen. 
 
 Undoubtedly, my brethren, man needs a heavenly teacher, 
 be his social station or his mental characteristics what 
 they may. Intellect and wealth have dangers all their 
 own, if the wisdom of the one, as it sometimes is, be 
 foolishness with God, 1 and if it be often easier for a rope 
 to pass through the eye of a needle than for the other to 
 enter the kingdom of heaven. 2 But it does not therefore 
 follow that poverty is Christianity in the bud, or a sort 
 of social sacrament, conferring grace, so to phrase it, ex 
 opere ojperato, on all who happen to be poor ; or that the 
 mere absence of those specific obstacles to religion which 
 beset the educated and the rich, ensures the virtual pre- 
 sence of religious principles and practice in the poor. The 
 contrary is, in fact, the case. Poverty without a faith 
 and rule of life, jj° ver ty without any illuminating- 
 principle to turn it to moral account, may well appear 
 to be almost unmitigated misfortune ; for poverty does 
 
 1 1 Cor. iii. 19. 2 St. Matt. xix. 24. 
 
286 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 not of itself promote either religion or any of the higher 
 interests of human beings. It may do good to those of us 
 who, through no merit of our own, have entered upon life 
 under very different circumstances, if we forget for a few 
 minutes the ancient East, and contemplate some of the 
 most obvious results of poverty in the lives of many 
 thousands of our countrymen. 
 
 A first effect of poverty, then, is the confiscation of a 
 poor man's best time and thought, from sheer necessity, 
 to the task of providing food and clothing for himself and 
 his family. Many men who are far from being poor have 
 to work for a livelihood. But a man can work hard, if he 
 can at will command a holiday. A man can work hard, 
 if his work is also felt to be a source of refinement, of 
 instruction, of discipline, of recreation ; if it enlightens his 
 mind, if it purifies his affections. As a rule, a poor 
 man's work is not of this description : it is, from all points 
 of view save that of the wages it yields, unremunerative, 
 because it is more or less mechanical. It cannot be inter- 
 rupted unless from sheer necessity ; the poor man cannot 
 afford to lose a day's wages, and therefore, though feeling 
 depressed or ill, he cannot forego a day's work. As he 
 works he is not thinking of his place in the moral uni- 
 verse, although he is at least as capable of true nobility as 
 is any other human being ; he is thinking of the next meal, 
 of the next pay-day, of the next rent-clay. The next rent- 
 day is probably his most distant horizon. Earely can he 
 aspire to win an independence, and so to purchase exemption 
 from the necessity which is laid upon him of supporting 
 existence by incessant toil. Who does not see how this 
 liability must clog and depress the human spirit ; how it 
 chokes up the avenues through which even natural light 
 and heat penetrate within the understanding and the heart? 
 Some room must be made for religion amidst the thoughts 
 and occupations of life before it can inspire or control them; 
 
XV.] The Gospel and the Poor. . 287 
 
 and in the case of the poor man, who has to work hard for 
 his daily bread, and to whom all mental effort is very 
 serious, the difficulty of even getting a hearing for the good 
 tidings which Christ our Lord has brought to earth from 
 heaven is often great indeed. 
 
 Another effect of poverty is that it often blights those 
 domestic scenes of happiness which prepare the way of 
 religion in the soul. In the natural course of things, 
 kindliness, courtesy, refinement, are the products of home- 
 life ; the home is the centre and the manufactory of these 
 natural graces. It is to his family that a man escapes 
 when his day's toil is over. At home he forgets the 
 passions and the rivalries, be they great or small, of his 
 public life, whatever its sphere or scale of importance ; at 
 home the finer side of human nature has a chance of grow- 
 ing, as being SU re of its nutriment and its welcome. At 
 home a man knows, if nowhere else, what it is to be inter- 
 preted generously, to be trusted, to be loved ; here he finds 
 a field for the play of those affections in the exercise of 
 which ' earthly happiness mainly consists. But for this 
 two things are needed ; competency and order. And how 
 often are these wanting in the households of the poor ! 
 Many of us must have visited cabins in which a numerous 
 family inhabits a single room; in which the young, the 
 aged, the sick, the hale, the parents and children, herd 
 together by day and by night ; in which the mother, who 
 should be a presiding genius of kindliness and of cleanli- 
 ness, is the representative of ill-humour and of dirt; in 
 which all that protects ordinary intercourse against coarse- 
 ness, and ordinary tempers against irritation, and average 
 health against disease, and modest efforts to improve 
 against brutal interference, is too often absent ; in which 
 all is so crowded that there is no room for delicacy, for 
 reserve, for the charities, for the proprieties of common 
 life. Certainly — 
 
288 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 "Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat 
 Res angusta domi. " 
 
 Worse off, it has been truly said, may be the poor man, 
 whom civilization has made what he is, than was his 
 savage ancestor ; for worse his lot who lives in the back 
 lane of a great city, where pure air, and light, and room, 
 and cleanliness are denied him, than that of the man of 
 another time, who roamed in the forest beneath the sky of 
 heaven, and who could at least command, amid whatever 
 disadvantages, the requisites for healthy animal existence, 
 and for the unstinted play of pure affections. Yes ! A 
 comfortless home is often even more fatal to character than 
 to health. It chills the affections ; it sours the temper ; it 
 ends by doing more. Nothing is more common than to 
 hear severe language applied to the poor man's habit of 
 spending his evenings at the public-house. But who of 
 us, when by chance walking at night through the neglected 
 quarters of a great town, has observed how, at more or less 
 frequent intervals, the monotony of dreariness and squalor 
 is broken by the brilliant lights and the ostentatious hos- 
 pitalities of these establishments, can wonder that the poor 
 man is attracted by the contrast which they present to 
 all that characterizes his home, and that, yielding to their 
 fatal welcome, he essays to drown in an hour of brute half- 
 consciousness the memory of the griefs that too sorely 
 embitter his domestic life ? It is the road to ruin, without 
 a doubt. But it is not for those of us who have never felt 
 even the shadow of the troubles which are eating out his 
 heart to cast a stone at him. 
 
 The worst result of poverty is that it often destroys self- 
 respect. Self-respect is a different thing, as it is needless 
 to add, from the most venial form of self-complacency. The 
 forfeiture of self-respect does not necessarily take place 
 when a poor man becomes a pensioner on the bounty of 
 others. A man who receives from his fellow-man that 
 
XV.] The Gospel and the Poor. 289 
 
 assistance which, if their circumstances were reversed, he 
 would gladly bestow, undergoes no moral damage in conse- 
 quence ; he is merely a party to a transaction which effects 
 on a small scale an equitable redistribution of property. 
 If, indeed, he prefers dependence to exertion : if, forgetful 
 of the intrinsic nobleness of work, he attempts to purchase 
 leisure by the servilities of beggary, then, beyond doubt, 
 his manhood is impaired, and he is in a fair way to be and 
 to do much that is fatal to the respect which a good man 
 should entertain for the sanctities of his life. But of itself, 
 dependence does not degrade. Children are not the worse 
 for depending on their parents ; servants are not injured 
 by the kindness of their employers ; tenants are not 
 humiliated by the considerate liberality of the landlord; 
 nor do we any of us suffer because we are all indebted for 
 all that we are and have to the Eternal Bounty, and He 
 knows us too well, and has too good a care of us, to have 
 ordered anything really inconsistent with our true well- 
 being. No, his dependence does not threaten the poor 
 man's self-respect ; but, especially in large centres of life, 
 he is peculiarly exposed to the ravages of a passion which, 
 if yielded to, degrades and brands the soul with a fatal 
 certainty. Certainly, envy is no monopoly of the poor; 
 it makes itself felt in all sections of society : it haunts the 
 court, the library, the barrack-room, even the sanctuary ; 
 it is provoked in some unhappy souls by the near neigh- 
 bourhood of any superior rank or excellence whatever — 
 
 " Pectora felle virent, lingua est suffusa veneno. 
 Risus abest ; nisi quern visi movere dolores. 
 Nec fruitur somno, vigilacibus excita curis : 
 Sed videt ingratos, intabescitque videndo 
 Successus hominum : carpitque et carpitur una 
 Snppliciumque suum est." 
 
 But who can marvel if this miserable species of passion, 
 which is stirred even in the prosperous by the achieve- 
 
 T 
 
290 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 ments, the success, the good fortune of a comrade, finds 
 encouragement amid the hard circumstances of the poor ? 
 From their narrow and squalid homes they go abroad to 
 gaze on the mansions of the great and wealthy ; at their 
 scanty meals they discuss the splendid banquets which 
 can command every luxury but appetite ; as they pursue 
 their daily toil, they see around them men of their own 
 race and age to whom life is made so easy as to become 
 little less than a protracted weariness. Of those unchang- 
 ing laws which will always create great inequalities in 
 the circumstances of human lives they know little or 
 nothing. Why should things be thus ? Why should there 
 be these immense contrasts, this unaccountable caprice 
 — for such it must seem — in the distribution of life's 
 prizes and blessings ? These are questions which force 
 themselves naturally enough into a poor man's mind ; and 
 the bitter thoughts which they breed lead him from time 
 to time to take part in deeds of violence and blood. The 
 outrage in a foreign capital last Sunday afternoon, which 
 sent a thrill of pain and fear through the civilized world, 
 was the product of social theories created by the passion 
 that finds a ready stimulus in the circumstances of the 
 poor. 1 A writer who has lately sketched with vivid 
 power some of the approaches to the first French Eevo- 
 lution, has analyzed generally with a master hand the 
 explosive forces by which was shattered a social fabric that 
 had lasted already for a thousand years. 2 But he has 
 apparently failed to point out how intimately the moral 
 degradation of the men who trampled the old monarchy 
 in the dust of Paris Was due to the pent-up energy of 
 a hidden passion, capable almost beyond any other of 
 brutalizing the human soul. 
 
 1 The second attempt to assassinate the Emperor of Germany, made by 
 Dr. Nobeling, on Sunday, June 2, 187S. 
 
 2 M. Tame. 
 
XV.] The Gospel and the Poor. 291 
 
 Poverty of course is and means a great deal more than 
 has thus been stated. But at least let us bear in mind 
 that it involves, very commonly, the exhaustion of life by 
 mechanical work, the degradation of character in the home 
 and in the usual expedients to escape from it, and the loss 
 of self-respect, and of all that that loss implies, through 
 the continued, unappeased, ever-increasing envy of the lot 
 of others. Not that poverty has not produced its heroes, 
 who have vanquished its disadvantages with stern deter- 
 mination. We have here to consider, not the splendid 
 exceptions, but the average result. And that result may, 
 within limits, be counteracted by wise philanthropy and 
 by wise laws. When a sufficient number of regular 
 holidays are secured by law, as in bygone ages the Church 
 did secure them by her festivals for the working poor; 
 when the hours of daily labour are kept within reasonable 
 limits ; when homes have been provided for the people on 
 any considerable scale in which the first conditions of 
 healthy living shall be insisted on; when it shall have 
 been made fairly possible for every poor man so to better 
 his condition by work as to escape from poverty into com- 
 fort ; and when education shall have done all that may 
 be done towards furthering this result, legislation and 
 philanthropy will have achieved what may be fairly 
 required of them. Useful knowledge, practical kindness, 
 and beneficent laws, — these are not the Gospel ; but, like 
 philosophy, they are, or may be, its handmaids. They 
 may make its task smooth and grateful ; they may asso- 
 ciate themselves with its victories, or they may prepare 
 its way. 
 
 But for more important results a higher force is needed ; 
 nothing less than the Christian faith itself. The faith of 
 Christ reverses the disadvantages of poverty with decisive 
 force. It acts upon poverty not from without, but from 
 within ; it begins not with legislation, but with hearts and 
 
292 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. [Serm. 
 
 minds ; not with circumstances, but with convictions. 
 When this faith is received, it forthwith transfigures the 
 idea of labour : labour is no longer deemed a curse, but a 
 discipline ; work of all kinds is sensibly ennobled by being 
 done with and for Jesus Christ ; and by this association it 
 acquires the character of a kind of worship. When this 
 faith is received, it sweetens, consecrates, elevates the 
 affections of the husband, of the father, of the child; it 
 sets the physical difficulties of a pauper household at 
 defiance by referring them to the Holy Home of Nazareth; 
 or it lifts the whole conception of human relationships 
 into an atmosphere where the risks to which they are 
 ordinarily exposed have ceased to exist. When this faith 
 is embraced it changes the estimate of different conditions 
 in life ; the first become last, and the last first. The old 
 pagan feeling was that wealth meant character ; that — 
 
 ''Quantum quisque sua nummoruni servat in area 
 Tantum habet et fidei," 
 
 and that poverty was fatal even to human dignity — 
 
 "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se 
 Quam quod ridiculos homines facit." 
 
 But Christian faith knows that wealth means respon- 
 sibility, and that responsibility may come to mean only 
 heavy arrears of sin ; and it knows too His Blessed Name 
 Who worked as the Carpenter's Son in the shop at 
 Nazareth, and Who shed upon the condition and nature 
 which He made His own the glories which belong to the 
 Infinite and the Everlasting. And thus, indeed, it has 
 come to pass in Christendom that the heirs of wealth and 
 station have of their freewill sought lifelong companionship 
 with the ignoble and the poor ; and that the poet's words 
 have had a practical meaning of which he little dreamt — 
 
 " Plerumque grata? divitibus vices ; 
 Mundseque parvo sub lare pauperum 
 Ccense, sine aulseis et o&tro, 
 
 Sollicitam explicuere frontem." 
 
XV.] The Gospel and the Poor. 293 
 
 II. 
 
 From what has been said it will have been inferred 
 I that the work of preaching the Gospel to the poor is very 
 far from being either commonplace or easy; let us briefly 
 notice two mistakes which have been made in under- 
 taking it. 
 
 It has failed sometimes from a lack of sympathy with 
 the mental condition and habits of the poor. 
 
 An educated man looks at his religion, not merely as a 
 rule of thought and life, but as a theory or doctrine about 
 
 I the Unseen, about the universe, about human nature. 
 His mind is constantly playing about it, examining its 
 
 ■ contents, adjusting it with other departments of thought or 
 knowledge, or, as we should say, treating it philosophically. 
 There are more ways than one of doing this, as men con- 
 ceive themselves to be below truth or above it ; the early 
 
 i Gnostics illustrate one method, the Alexandrian fathers 
 another. But between faith and this active intellectual 
 
 : interest in its subject-matter there is no necessary misun- 
 derstanding ; on the contrary, an interest of this kind is 
 
 \ inevitable in every educated and thoughtful Christian. He 
 surveys his creed philosophically, without impairing its 
 
 I authority in thought and life ; and the fact that the Chris- 
 
 | tian faith lends itself to this intellectual treatment helps 
 to recommend it to each generation of cultivated men. 
 But it is not this way of approaching or exhibiting 
 
 I Christianity which wins the poor. In the questions 
 which are debated between Pievelation and particular 
 schools of criticism, or mental or physical science, the poor 
 
 ; have generally no part. They are not sensitively alive to 
 the logical inconsequence, or to the historical inaccuracy, 
 or to the absence of due method and proportion in the 
 exposition of truth which vex their lettered brethren. For 
 
2Q4 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 them the whole region of abstract thought and language, 
 which is so natural and so welcome to cultivated men when 
 dealing with sacred subjects, does not even exist. If 
 religion is to reach them, its object must be presented as 
 concrete and personal ; so presented as to give the largest 
 amount of satisfaction to the spirit which is compatible 
 with the smallest demands upon the understanding. The 
 poor need religion, not as additional material for specula- 
 tive enterprise, but as a friend who can help them along 
 the road of life, and through the great change beyond it. 
 For them life is always real. Its hopes, its misgivings, its 
 joys, its heartaches, its catastrophes, its dim sense of the 
 seriousness of being where and what we are, and of the 
 possibilities before us, are quickened by poverty. The 
 poor man, if religious at all, must believe in One Who is 
 not less an Object of affection and obedience, than the 
 most awful and sublime of intellectual truths. And there- 
 fore, in order to win the poor, religion must ever study to 
 be such as she was on His lips Who spoke in parables 
 and simple sayings, and Who taught all who listened as 
 they were able to bear it. 1 
 
 There have been times when, in their ministry to the 
 poor, the Christian clergy have failed to forget the schools. 
 And at these times the Church has lost the people. Such 
 a time to a great extent, at least in this country, was the 
 last century. It was indeed the age of Wilson and of 
 Butler. But it was also the arid age in which the Church 
 of England ceased to be the Church of the wdiole English 
 people. If an educated man is to teach the good tidings 
 which our Master brought from heaven to the poor, he 
 needs a special gift, to which charity and imagination 
 should each contribute. In our day imagination has been 
 withdrawn from the exclusive jurisdiction of the poets ; it 
 has been welcomed by a high authority as the pioneer of 
 1 St. John xvi. 12. St. Mark iv. 33. 
 
XV.] The Gospel and the Poor. 295 
 
 even scientific venture; 1 it has been bidden, not in vain, 
 to reconstruct out of few and dead materials the once 
 living past of history. Why should not a Christian love 
 of souls enlist the services of this versatile faculty, and 
 bid it enter with sympathy into the mind and life of the 
 poor man, that it may lead him to acknowledge the truths 
 which, after all, are best worth knowing ? 
 
 The other mistake referred to has lain in an opposite 
 direction. Men who have sympathized warmly with the 
 mental difficulties of the poor have endeavoured to recom- 
 mend the Christian faith, sometimes by making unwar- 
 ranted or semi-legendary additions to it. and sometimes by 
 virtually mutilating it. 
 
 No impartial student can deny that throughout its 
 history the Eoman Church has been the teacher of the 
 poor. It has peculiarly inherited the aspirations and the 
 anxieties of that troubled age when, standing on the ruins 
 of the old Empire, Christendom found itself face to face 
 with the task of converting its barbarian conquerors. The 
 difficulty of that task, perhaps more than any other cause, 
 has resulted in developing some of the popular features 
 of Latin Christianity. If the question, "What is true?" 
 was not forgotten by the evangelists of the seventh and 
 eighth centuries, it was less present to them than the 
 question, "What is edifying?" And this tendency cul- 
 minated in the active efforts of those great Orders which 
 played so considerable a part in Western Christendom 
 during the ages preceding the Eeformation. Like the first 
 preachers of Christianity, they were largely sprung from, 
 and were friends of, the people ; the street nomenclature 
 of our old English towns still reminds us that they made 
 their home among the poor. But side by side with their 
 sincere, even passionate devotion to the Person of our Lord, 
 there were other features of their work dictated rather by an 
 
 1 Professor Tyndall. 
 
296 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 anxiety to popularize Christianity than by a zeal for God 
 according to knowledge. Hence, for example, a whole 
 family of new devotions, unthought of in early ages, and 
 often inspired by local or temporary enthusiasms ; hence a 
 totally new position, disclaimed by scientific theology, but 
 certainly assigned in popular language and thought to 
 Mary; hence such strange outgrowths of the old peni- 
 tential system of the Church as the system of indulgences, 
 which is in its practical aspects rather a commercial than 
 a theological conception ; hence the graceful but baseless 
 legends which sprang from the imagination of the people, 
 and which in turn attracted it, but which, before the 
 sixteenth century had dawned, were already threatening 
 to bring about in Italy a rebellion of educated thought 
 against the whole creed of Christendom. 
 
 The Eeformation came. It often did its work by tyran- 
 nical or rude hands; and sometimes it left behind it 
 crude exaggerations or unsightly ruins. But at least it 
 did effect for a section of the Western Church one signal 
 service : it cut away that coating of legendary and unpri- 
 mitive matter which, in the course of preaching the Gospel 
 to the poor, had partly overlaid the faith of the Apostles. 
 To many a pious soul, no doubt, the operation was painful; 
 for religious feeling, like the ivy, will often fasten upon 
 the crumbling cement as eagerly and as trustfully as on 
 the rock which defies the storm. But looking to the 
 intrinsic nature and to the permanent interests of Chris- 
 tianity — looking on to the ages of criticism, then looming 
 in the distance, and which are now upon us — it must be 
 felt that this corrective and expurgatory action of the 
 Eeformation has been a substantial service to the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 On the other hand, in later days warm-hearted men have 
 sought to popularize the Gospel by methods which have 
 involved, however unintentionally, its mutilation. The 
 
XV.] 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 297 
 
 so-termed Evangelical movement was, in its origin, a 
 serious and noble attempt to reawaken a sense of what 
 was due to their faith in the heart of the English people. 
 No one can read Mr. William Wilberforce's " Practical 
 View of Christianity" without respect for the motives 
 which inspired that remarkable work, and for the move- 
 ment of which it was a typical expression. Mr. Wilberforce 
 thought that Christianity was dying out, as a practical 
 power, from the thoughts and lives of Englishmen, and 
 that a great effort was needed to reaffirm its claims. In 
 prosecuting this effort its pioneers were largely attracted by 
 an expression of St. Paul. When St. Paul spoke of " the 
 simplicity that is in Christ," 1 they understood him to 
 sanction a very narrow estimate of the contents of the 
 Christian Creed that would go far to ensure its acceptance 
 by the people. " The simplicity of the Gospel !" That was 
 a phrase by repeating which they made their way ; and by 
 f the Gospel " they meant the doctrine of our Lord's atoning 
 death, the justification of the sinner through faith in His 
 merits, and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit. 
 These precious truths are, no doubt, essential features of 
 the good news which is taught in the New Testament. 
 But they are very far indeed from being the whole of it ; 
 they are only a fragment of the real creed of St. Paul and 
 St. John. Had such an account of "the Gospel" been 
 exhaustive, some four chapters of the Epistle to the Eomans 
 and two of the Epistle to the Galatians would have enabled 
 us to dispense with the rest of the New Testament; the 
 disclosures of the Inner Life of God, the example of our 
 Divine Saviour, the purpose and the grace of the Chris- 
 tian sacraments, the principles and precepts of Christian 
 morality, the nature and structure of the Christian Church, 
 would have been superfluous, or even misleading additions. 
 To such an impoverished estimate of the Gospel as that in 
 
 1 2 Cor. xi. 3. 
 
298 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 question a discriminating criticism and a consistent faith 
 must equally object; it retains too little, unless indeed 
 it includes too much. In truth, like the experiments of 
 an opposite kind which have been noticed, it was the 
 product of unconscious but excessive deference to the 
 empire of a single and generous motive; it sprang from 
 the passion to help the people, from the desire at almost 
 any cost to reach the heart of the poor. 
 
 These considerations, then, may lead us to reflect that 
 the connection implied in the text between the presence of 
 the Spirit and the task of evangelizing the poor is not, 
 after all, so surprising. To be sympathetic yet sincere; 
 true to the message which has come from heaven, yet alive 
 to the difficulties of conveying it to untutored minds and 
 hearts ; sensible of the facilities which a few unauthorized 
 additions or mutilations would lend to the work in hand, 
 yet resolved to decline them, — this is not easy. For such 
 a work something higher is needed than natural quickness 
 of wit or strength of will, even His aid Who, as on this 
 day, taught the peasants of Galilee in the upper chamber 
 to speak as with tongues of fire, and in languages which 
 men of many nations could understand. And the effort 
 for which He thus equipped them continues still; and 
 His aid, adapted to new circumstances, is present with us 
 as it was with them. Never was that aid, never was this 
 work, more needed than in our own generation. It was a 
 saying of De Tocqueville's that, " if the great questions of 
 the beginning of this century were mainly political, those 
 which will convulse the world at its close will be social." 
 Already there is an uneasy apprehension that this pre- 
 diction may be realized ; and as men look around them 
 for reassurance and protection, they will find it nowhere 
 save in a more sincere and general acceptance, on the part 
 
XV.] 
 
 The Gospel and the Poor. 
 
 299 
 
 of all classes in society, of that Divine religion which 
 Christ has taught us. Of course piety, even more than 
 charity, must begin at home. But as a Christian patriot, 
 what can a young man do better with his life than offer it 
 to God for the work of preaching the Gospel to the poor ? 
 Doubtless the Gospel is preached, indirectly but effectively, 
 by the example of Christian laymen, and especially by the 
 efforts which they make to improve the condition, temporal 
 and spiritual, of their poorer brethren ; and the lot of a 
 clergyman, living in a remote agricultural district, or in 
 the back streets of a manufacturing town, is often con- 
 trasted disadvantageously with the career of some friend 
 who has made his mark in politics or in literature. But 
 it is more than doubtful whether, when from another state 
 of being we look back upon this life, we shall indorse this 
 judgment. Our brief tenure of earthly existence is best 
 spent in doing what we may for the lasting happiness of 
 others ; and it is a sufficient answer to the promptings of 
 natural modesty or timidity, that the Eternal Spirit rests 
 upon Christ's servants to the end of time, to give them the 
 charity, the wisdom, and the courage which are needed by 
 the evangelists of the poor. 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 CHRIST AND HUMAN LAW. 1 
 
 St. John xix. 10, n. 
 
 Then saith Pilate unto Him, Spcakest Tlwu not unto me? knowest 
 Thou not that I have povser to crucify Thee, and have power to release 
 Thee ? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, 
 except it were given thee from above : therefore he that delivered Me unto 
 thee hath the greater sin. 
 
 EYEE, in the whole course of the world's history, 
 
 -L* were the forms of justice degraded to serve a purpose 
 which, in point of moral criminality and baseness, can 
 compare with the condemnation of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 Never has the administration of human law received a 
 sanction so authoritative as that which was bestowed on 
 the tribunal of Pilate. Jesus said unto him, " Thou couldest 
 have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee 
 from above." Pilate, agitated by some scruple of which 
 he could not rid himself, and little dreaming of the real 
 scope of his question, had asked our Lord, " Whence art 
 Thou ? " In his then frame of mind the Roman judge 
 would probably have regarded the full answer as unin- 
 telligible or ridiculous ; while our Lord's silence, at once so 
 merciful to His questioner and so majestic in itself, was 
 in correspondence with His rule of withholding spiritual 
 
 1 Preached before Mr. Justice Hannen and Mr. Justice Keating. H<;r 
 Majesty's Judges of Assize, Feb. 28, 1869. 
 
Christ and Human Law, 
 
 301 
 
 knowledge from minds which are, through indifference, or 
 scornfulness, or some incurable perverseness, unfitted to 
 receive it. But to the Roman judge the silence of Jesus 
 wore the aspect of a sullen contumacy, if not of a studied 
 contempt of court ; and in Pilate's next question we observe 
 the spirit of an official, accustomed to revel in the sense of 
 his wielding a fraction of the imperial authority, and irri- 
 tated at encountering even a momentary resistance to the 
 bias of his personal will. " Speakest Thou not unto me ? 
 knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and 
 have power to release Thee ? " Without noticing this 
 appeal to hopes and fears natural to a prisoner on trial for 
 his life, our Lord replies by pointing to the real source of 
 that authority, the exercise of which appeared to His judge 
 to be within the province of personal caprice. " Thou 
 couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were 
 siven thee from above." 
 
 Now, in this passage, what is the sense of the emphatic 
 but purposely indefinite word avaiQev ? To refer it with 
 Semler to the action of the high Sanhedrin which had 
 actually given Christ into the hands of the Eomans, is to 
 make our Lord lay down a very questionable proposition, 
 namely, that He could not have been brought before the 
 Roman lay tribunal unless the Jewish spiritual court had 
 authorized it. To explain avwQev with another modern 
 critic 1 as an allusion to the higher power of the Roman 
 Caesar, whose deputy and representative Pilate was, is to 
 suppose that our Lord, in that supreme moment of His 
 moral victory, was capable of making a petty criticism 
 upon the constitution of the Roman Empire, as intrusting 
 too great and too arbitrary a power to the hands of the 
 local magistracy. There is no undercurrent of complaint 
 on this or any like score in these majestic words ; since 
 again and again our Lord refers to His Father's counsel 
 
 1 Usteri, quoted by Stier. 
 
3 02 
 
 Christ and Htiman Law, [Serm. 
 
 and the Divine Providence as determining all the circum- 
 stances of His death. Who does not see in this avcoOev 
 a profound glance at Pilate's own question which his 
 Prisoner had left unanswered — "Whence art Thou?" 
 " Thy power," our Lord implies, u is from that higher world 
 with which thy secret irrepressible presentiment associates 
 Me ; that world of which I know and proclaim the secrets." 
 This is hinted; it is not said. Our Lord does not ex- 
 pressly say that Pilate's power is u from God." He does 
 not even say that it is " from heaven." He will not open 
 large theological questions before a pagan court. He will 
 not furnish material for blasphemy. He will not give that 
 which is holy to the dogs, or cast pearls before swine. 
 And yet by an expression, deliberately vague, He recog- 
 nises the indefinite surmises, it may be the dawning con- 
 victions, of His judge. Pilate would have felt the force of 
 our Lord's avwQev, yet it would have raised in him no con- 
 troversy ; our Lord would have used it just as naturally 
 before Caesar's own tribunal as before the tribunal of 
 Caesar's deputy. The administration of Roman justice, 
 with all its partialities, with all its personal tyrannies and 
 caprices, was still "from above;" and this particular 
 exercise of the Eoman authority over the Divine Prisoner 
 before it was itself a matter of special appointment. 2 The 
 words which follow imply that Pilate's coming use of 
 his authority would be sinful, for other reasons, and as in- 
 volving the sacrifice of his own sense of justice to popular 
 clamour. Mark the calm of the moral atmosphere which 
 surrounds the Soul of Jesus. Where a strong human 
 feeling would almost naturally exaggerate, Jesus will 
 weigh scrupulously the exact extent of the sin of Pilate. 
 It was less than the sin of Caiaphas and the Jews who 
 had delivered Jesus into the hands of the Romans ; but it 
 was a grave sin, especially because it prostituted to pur- 
 
 1 Cf. Stier, Eeden Jesu, in he. 2 dedo/xevov. 
 
XVL] 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 303 
 
 poses of earthly passion the exercise of an authority which 
 had a higher than earthly sanction. " Thou couldest have 
 had no power at all against Me, except it were given thee 
 from above : therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath 
 the greater sin." 
 
 L 
 
 Our Lord's words then teach, first of all, that human law 
 and the authority which wields it are from God. This is 
 the deeper ground of His earlier precept to * render unto 
 Caesar the things which are Caesar's," and of His own practice 
 as based upon it. 1 The Apostles repeat the general doctrine 
 under circumstances which tested its application severely. 
 Writing to Eoman citizens, when Nero was on the throne, 
 St. Paul bade every soul be " subject to the higher powers," 
 on the ground that " there is no power but of God," and 
 that "the powers that be are ordained of God." 2 Writing 
 to provincials in the Proconsular Asia, on the eve, as it 
 would seem, of an anticipated persecution, St. Peter bids 
 them " submit themselves to every ordinance of man for 
 the Lord's sake, whether to the emperor, as chief of the 
 state, or to his representatives." 3 St. Peter's phrase ktictis 
 avOpcowLvrj marks the fact that civil government, although 
 its original sanctions are divine, is human in its immediate 
 origin. Here civil government differs from that of the 
 Christian Church. The Apostles were immediately ap- 
 pointed by our Lord Himself; whereas civil power is 
 derived from Him only mediately, although really, through 
 the force of events, through dynastic struggles, or through 
 the will of the people. 
 
 1 St. Matt. xxii. 21. St. Mark xii. 17. St. Luke xx. 25. 
 
 2 Rom. xiii. 1. 
 
 3 I St. Pet. ii. 13, VTTOTdyrjre ovv Trd-ay avdpwrrivri KTtVei 5td rbv Kvpiov, 
 eixe fiaaikei, ws virepexovri, etre TYyefjibcriv, u>s 01 avrov 7re/>i7ro/xeVots. 
 
304 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 If we look to the historical influences which have 
 actually enacted human codes, and which have governed 
 their administration, it is at first difficult to understand 
 the sanctity which is thus attributed to the law and its 
 ministers. And if, further, we examine the contents of 
 human codes, and observe how far short they fall of 
 enforcing, even within the limits that must bound all 
 attempts at such enforcement, anything like an absolute 
 morality, this difficulty is not diminished. Between law 
 and equity there is, perhaps there must always be, a con- 
 siderable interval. Between law and absolute morality 
 there is at times patent contradiction. The undue pro- 
 tection of class interests, the neglect of the interests of 
 large classes ; the legislation which consults, chiefly and 
 above all else, the profit of the legislator, whether he be 
 king, or noble, or popular assembly ; the legislation which 
 postpones moral to material interests, and which makes 
 havoc of man's highest good in order to gratify his lower 
 instincts, his passing caprice, his unreasoning passion ; — all 
 this and much else appears to forbid enthusiasm for human 
 law. The moral element in it is so mixed with alloy, that 
 statute law must often repel a well-trained moral judgment. 
 Who could feel enthusiasm for law as represented by 
 Pilate ? If in the case of a Eoman provincial governor it 
 was really possible to distinguish between the law and the 
 will of its administrator, certain it is that in Pilate the 
 judge, and not the law, speaks to Jesus ; the judge whose 
 will is independent of law, aud, as it might seem, of 
 evidence; the judge who feels that his caprice, his irritation, 
 his cowardice, his inertness can make law, as the case pro- 
 ceeds, for the prisoner before him ; the judge who can even 
 exult in his sense of power over life and death, apparently 
 without being distressed by any sense of an accompanying 
 responsibility. " Knowest Thou not that I have power to 
 crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee ? " And 
 
XVI.] Christ and Human Law, 305 
 
 Pilate is not alone in history. Even English justice is said 
 by popular traditions, still current and stroug in the western 
 counties, to have sacrificed the impartial majesty of law 
 to the tyranny of political passion when Judge Jeffreys 
 represented her at Exeter and Taunton. 1 And the question 
 is, How can it be said of courts which habitually administer 
 fear, or prejudice, or contempt, or moral indifference under 
 the forms and in the disguise of law, that a sanction still 
 rests upon them, and should be recognised in them, which 
 has been " given from above " ? 
 
 The answer to this is to be found in the conditions under 
 which human law is permitted to exist at all. I say " is 
 permitted to exist ; " for the restraint which law lays 
 successively upon each one of the individuals who submit 
 to it would be fatal to its permanence, unless there were a 
 general and instinctive conviction of its being altogether 
 necessary. In point of fact, and historically speaking, law 
 is created by and meets a great social want. It satisfies 
 the demand for protection against the passions of anger 
 and desire which are the motive forces in the lives of 
 those multitudes of men who are unchastened, undis- 
 ciplined by religious influences. These exacting and 
 powerful passions, which make the higher elements of our 
 nature so constantly their slaves, are the incessant revolu- 
 tionists, against which society, if it would exist, must take 
 due precautions. " From whence come wars and fightings 
 among you ? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that 
 war in your members ? Ye lust, and have not ; ye kill, 
 and desire to have, and cannot obtain. " 2 Such is man's 
 nature, until its governing principle has been altogether 
 changed by Christ our Lord; it is an alternation of the 
 passion of desire with the twin passion of irritation, roused 
 at the necessary disappointments which desire must 
 
 1 Macaulay. History of England, i. 651 (ed. 1S56). 
 
 2 St. James iv. 1, 2. 
 
 U 
 
306 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 encounter ; and hence, from time to time, the propensity 
 to violent outbreaks, of individuals or of multitudes, which 
 are fatal to the security of property, of character, and of 
 life. 
 
 Now society cannot protect itself effectually against 
 these foes, who, in varying degrees, have dealings with and 
 a hold upon each of its members — these implacable foes who 
 are ever ready to break it up from within — unless it is 
 prepared to recognise and to put in force at least three 
 great moral laws of God whereon it is itself based. The 
 first business of the legislator is to protect human life 
 against violence ; the second, to protect the due transmis- 
 sion of human life ; the third, to protect the means whereby 
 human life is supported. In other words, every human 
 code must aim at enforcing more or less perfectly the 
 sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments, if it is to do its 
 work of protecting society against dissolution. The three 
 remaining commandments of the second table of the Deca- 
 logue, the law of reverence for parents, the law against 
 detraction, and the law against covetousness, are indeed 
 in a high degree precious as upholding and invigorating 
 the social fabric; reverence for superiors, charity for all 
 men, and contentedness with a man's actual circum- 
 stances, are very fair guarantees in their way against 
 indulgence in murder, or adultery, or theft. Of these 
 three commandments, however, the fifth, the ninth, and 
 the tenth, two are, in the letter, more evangelical than the 
 other three ; they belong more to the sphere of motive, and 
 less to that of outward acts. And they all provide, in the 
 first instance, for the sanctity and perfection of the indi- 
 vidual soul; they may be violated on a large scale, not, 
 indeed, without much social discomfort and distress, but 
 certainly without threatening the actual dissolution of 
 society. It is not thus with the Divine precepts against 
 murder, against adultery, against theft. These prohibitions 
 
XVI.] Christ and Human Law. 307 
 
 guard principles which are the main arches on which the 
 social structure rests. Eespect for human life, respect for 
 the marriage tie, respect for property; — here are prin- 
 ciples which every legislator must keep steadily in view ; 
 principles which must be the soul of the most despotic 
 and of the most popular of codes ; principles which cannot 
 be defied, which cannot even be trifled with, without 
 tolerating, not merely the serious injury of one man and the 
 grave criminality of another, but a neglect of the vital 
 conditions under which alone organized human life can be 
 maintained. Forms of government may vary, have varied, 
 will vary, to the end of human history. But so long as men 
 shall live together, law must in these main features be 
 invariable. And we cannot too carefully bear in mind, 
 that while the largest licence of political opinion is not 
 merely consistent with the safety, but scarcely other than 
 essential to the wellbeing of society, we no sooner call in 
 question by word or act the great laws to which reference 
 has just now been made, than we do what we can towards 
 bringing about, with all the accompanying ruin and dis- 
 tress, utter social chaos and anarchy. 
 
 If, indeed, human law were a matter of infinite caprice : 
 if it were bound to no necessary trutbs, and bounded by 
 no inexorable conditions ; to ascribe to it any heavenly 
 sanction would be impossible. But tied down as it is to 
 the particular work of protecting society, it must enforce 
 the principles which are practically essential to such pro- 
 tection. However imperfectly it may do so; however 
 these fundamental principles may be misapplied, or over- 
 laid by selfish or inefficient legislation; they remain as the 
 heart and core of all human law, while they are themselves 
 Divine. The dream of any voluntary social compact as 
 the basis of government has long since been rejected, if it 
 was ever seriously entertained, by the thought of Europe ; 
 whether men believe in God or not, they understand that 
 
3 o8 
 
 Christ and Hitman Law. [Serm. 
 
 the central laws which keep society together are not 
 matters of human choice, but are necessary and inevitable. 
 And for those who do believe in a Creator and a Pro- 
 vidence, this necessity of such laws is itself eloquent ; it 
 tells them of God's mind and will, ay, of the very har- 
 monies of His own moral life, translated into the sphere of 
 creaturely existence; impressed upon that which is not 
 less His gift and work, than are human thought and human 
 language; impressed indelibly upon, indissolubly bound 
 up with, the very being and structure of society. 
 
 This, then, was the sense of our Lord's words to Pilate ; 
 cruel and cowardly as was the Eoman judge, he yet 
 wielded a jurisdiction, he administered a code which was 
 in a sense Divine. He was not free to do his work at all 
 upon the tribunal which he occupied without enforcing, 
 amid whatever grave aberrations, some of the moral laws 
 of God. It mattered not that he was presently about to 
 condemn the absolute Purity Itself; the Truth Which he 
 would condemn Itself proclaimed that the very power 
 which he would abuse in condemning It was given him 
 from above. 
 
 • II. 
 
 But our Lord's words also suggest the grave evil of any 
 discord between the interests of Religion and the enact- 
 ments or action of civil law. " He that delivered Me unto 
 thee hath the greater sin." Pilate's condemnation of the 
 Just One would be sinful ; but a greater sin w T ould lie at 
 the door of those who had given Pilate occasion to try 
 Him. It is the very sacredness of law which makes an 
 antagonism between it and Religion so seriously deplorable. 
 If law were altogether a thing of human device and manu- 
 facture, religious men might leave it, without much scruple 
 or anxiety, to encounter the fate which mast ultimately 
 
XVI.] Christ and Hitman Law. 309 
 
 await it, when it is engaged in conflict with Revealed 
 Truth. But because law itself embodies primary moral 
 truth of the highest importance ; because it is so far derived 
 from the same source as, and can claim like sanctions with 
 Religion herself; a discord between law and Religion is 
 not simply discord between the human and the Divine, but 
 discord between one department of God's moral kingdom 
 and another. 
 
 Such a discord may arise when the statute-book con- 
 tains provisions which are at issue either with natural or 
 revealed morality. 
 
 Here it is necessary to guard against a possible exag- 
 geration, based upon the presumption that human law can 
 be made to cover the whole field of personal moral obliga- 
 tions. This has been from time to time the dream, the 
 aspiration, of noble souls, eager to heighten the functions 
 of law, and to give forcible expression to the obligations of 
 morality; longing for their country's sake to make civic 
 virtue, as nearly as might be, a convertible term with abso- 
 lute virtue, and to see the good man, without further doubt 
 or inquiry, in the good citizen. It is to the honour of 
 Puritanism that, in its earlier days, when it was morally 
 and intellectually stronger than it is now, it cherished this 
 aspiration with a self-denying fervour. And if the legal 
 annals of the New England colonies provoke the indigna- 
 tion or the amusement of the modern historian, this should 
 not prevent our doing justice to a sincere, albeit a mis- 
 taken effort, to identify absolutely the interests of religious 
 morality with those of law. Such an effort, indeed, was 
 only possible in a small community ; and it has left, we 
 may fear, the almost inevitable legacy of a reaction against 
 the moral ideas which prompted it ; a reaction which has 
 not yet died out. As it is, in the old and complex societies 
 of modern Europe, we resign ourselves to a much lower 
 idea of the possible functions of law. Law deals with 
 
31 o Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 only so much morality as it is necessary to enforce in 
 order to secure the safety of society ; unlike morality, it 
 penetrates into the sphere of motive only incidentally ; it 
 measures and judges of the outward and the tangible ; its 
 certificate of civil excellence is no certificate whatever of 
 religious excellence; it makes no pretensions to wield any 
 penetrating empire over conduct and conscience, such as is 
 claimed by the precepts of the Gospel, by the law of the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 But if civil law does not attempt to enforce all the 
 obligations of morality upon a Christian man, it may, at 
 least, avoid enactments which are in conflict with the 
 Christian conscience. And if I here proceed to illustrate 
 my meaning, it is not with any wanton desire to provoke 
 or to reanimate controversy ; but in the hope that thought- 
 ful men, w^ho love their country and their God, will give 
 to what is indeed a grave matter the needful consideration. 
 
 If there be one point more than others stamped upon 
 the very face of our Lord's moral teaching in the Gospels, 
 it is that He raised the law of marriage far above the 
 standard of Gentile or even of Jewish morality. 1 Moses 
 had allowed a bill of divorcement; but Christ reaffirms, 
 without exception, the original law, "What God hath 
 joined together let no man put asunder." 2 In other words, 
 He proclaims the indissolubility of the marriage tie. 
 Alluding to the Jewish law, He rules that if an unacknow- 
 ledged act of fornication on the part of the woman had 
 preceded the contract, the apparent tie may be dissolved. 3 
 
 1 St. Matt. v. 27-32 ; xix. 3-9. Deut. xxiv. 1, 2. 
 
 2 St. Matt. xix. 6. 
 
 3 St. Matt. v. 32, irapeKTos \6yov vopveias ; xix. 9, el fxi] ewl iropvdq.. 
 " Those who think," says Dollinger, "that in His two statements about 
 marriage, given by Matthew, Christ meant that it was dissolved or dis- 
 soluble by adultery on either side, are compelled (1) to maintain, that the 
 word iropvela may mean adultery, (2) to find a ground for its being used 
 in a crucial passage instead of the ordinary word p-oix^a., (3) to maintain 
 
XVI. 
 
 Christ and Hitman Law. 311 
 
 I say, the apparent tie ; because in reality the contract was 
 vitiated from the first ; one of the contracting parties was 
 
 the principle, that one act of adultery on either side, ipso facto, dissolves 
 marriage." Now iropveta always means incontinence in the unmarried; 
 never incontinence in the married, or adultery. There is no ground for 
 making iropveia a generic term including adultery. But supposing that 
 iropveia could be used for adulterium, why should the word be used in 
 two passages where it was essential to define accurately the one ground 
 for the dissolution of marriage ? Our Lord uses the equivalent to the 
 word /ioixeta more than once in both passages : why should He suddenly 
 substitute iropveia for it, if He only meant adultery after all? 
 
 The theory that an act of adultery, eo ipso, destroys marriage, so that the 
 legal pronouncement of divorce a vinculo matrimonii is only the natural 
 consequence and recognition of an already accomplished fact, is (i) to 
 forget that God is a party to the marriage contract, and that He ratines 
 and seals the bond. (2) It makes one sin against the lower and physical 
 side of marriage, destructive of a bond embracing the whole life and all 
 its relations, and of a spiritual fellowship entered into for the common 
 bringing up of Christian children. (3) Thus it degrades the idea of mar- 
 riage to that of a mere unitas carnis, apart from any spiritual bond what- 
 ever. (4) Lastly, if adultery does really dissolve the bond of marriage 
 before God, how can he who marries a person divorced on the score of 
 adultery, commit adultery, as our Lord says he does commit it, by doing 
 so ? (St. Matt. xix. 9. ) He is only marrying an unmarried person, if the 
 adultery has really dissolved the bond. Cf. Dollinger's " First Age of 
 the Church," transl. by Mr. Oxenham, Append. 3, p. 424, 2nd ed. 
 
 With this compare Bishop Andrewes' "Discourse against Second Mar- 
 riage, after Sentence of Divorce with a former match, the party then 
 living, in anno 1601." It is given in the concluding volume of his works, 
 Oxford, 1854, pp. 106-110. Bishop Andrewes argues against the theory 
 that the act of adultery dissolves the bond of marriage, on the broad 
 grounds that, if this were so, (1) "the party offending could not be 
 received again by the innocent to former society of life, without a new 
 solemnizing of marriage, inasmuch as the former marriage is quite dis- 
 solved." This, as he observes, is contrary to the practice of all Christian 
 Churches. He observes (2) that, according to this theory, if the innocent 
 husband were to return to the duties of wedded life with a wife who had 
 fallen into sin without remarriage, the husband himself "should in so 
 doing commit adultery, inasmuch as he hath had the use of her that is 
 now none of his. None of his, I say, because their marriage was utterly 
 dissolved by the act precedent of his wife." He further argues (3) that to 
 understand St. Matt. xix. 9 as implicitly sanctioning the theory that 
 adultery does ipso facto so dissolve marriage as to allow of the remarriage 
 
312 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 deceived as to its real terms. 1 Yet, even here, to marry 
 the woman is adulterous; for she knew the terms on 
 
 of either of the parties during the lifetime of the other, is to put a 
 premium upon the sin of the adulterer or adulteress. "If the com- 
 mitting of adultery do dissolve marriage, then maketh it the persons in the 
 same case they were before they were married ; and so may either, as well 
 the guilty as the innocent, marry, which is the very benefit the adulterer 
 propounds to himself." But, as he observes, "it is not our Saviour's 
 will to make the committing of sin gainful or beneficial to any offender." 
 Appeal is sometimes made to I Cor. vi. 16 as sanctioning the theory that 
 adultery destroys the original unitas carnis, and forms a new one. It 
 has been noticed above, that the essence of marriage lies in the moral force 
 of a contract taken before God, and not in the mere unitas carnis. If the 
 latter were the case, every act of sinful intercourse would constitute a 
 fresh marriage-bond. 
 
 On the general question see further "An Argument for not proceeding 
 immediately to repeal the Laws which treat the Nuptial Bond as Indis- 
 soluble," by the Rev. John Keble, Oxford, Parker, 1857. Also, "Sequel 
 to the Argument against immediately repealing the Laws," etc., Oxford, 
 Parker, 1857. 
 
 1 Dollinger, "First Age," p. 366. The Law punished with stoning a 
 bride who professed to be a virgin and was not. Deut. xxii. 20, 21. 
 With a people who had so strong a feeling of jealousy as the Jews about 
 a bride's virginity, deceit in the matter seemed deserving of death ; and 
 if the public conviction and execution ordered by the Law did not actually 
 take place — of which no example is known — it was natural and in order 
 for a man who discovered such treachery to send back the woman who 
 had been disgraced and had dishonoured him to her parents, with a writ- 
 ing of divorce after the Mosaic form. ... In such cases of divorce there 
 was properly no dissolving of the matrimonial bond, for every marriage 
 took place under the condition recognised by the Law, that the bride 
 should be a maid ; and deception in a point so essential to Oriental 
 notions invalidated the whole act, for in such a case the man's consent 
 could not be supposed. It was fair that the man should thus divorce a 
 girl he would never have married had he known of her sin; and he showed 
 forbearance in not getting her put to death. And when Christ added, for 
 the Jews, who could only thus understand Him, this one exception, when 
 divorce was allowable, His rule, that man may not sever what God has 
 joined, remained wholly unaffected. God only binds those who consent 
 
 to be bound It is clear how St. Mark, in a narrative designed 
 
 for Gentile converts, could omit what St. Matthew had said of the excep- 
 tional case mentioned by Christ, as something only concerning the Jews, 
 and not affecting the general principle of the indissolubility of marriage. 
 — See the whole passage and note on p. 366. 
 
XVI. 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 3*3 
 
 which she had bound herself. But when a contract is per- 
 fect, it is altogether beyond recall, at least before God; 
 a separation from bed and board may subsequently become 
 necessary ; but no suspension of the duties or enjoyments 
 of married life can cancel the indissoluble bond itself; 
 and therefore, much more than in the Jewish case referred 
 to, " whoso marrieth her that is " in this sense " divorced, 
 committeth adultery." 1 
 
 It is unnecessary to recite the terms of the Divorce Act, 
 which has become law within this generation. Suffice it 
 to say, that that Act empowers a high officer of the law, 
 sitting in his court, to pronounce, not only separations for 
 a term of years, or, under certain circumstances, for life, 
 divorce a mensd et thoro, but actual dissolution of the 
 marriage tie, divorce a vinculo matrimonii. Accordingly 
 it sanctions and makes legal marriages (so termed) of the 
 divorced parties, during the lifetime of the separated wife 
 or husband. 2 Certainly these morally impossible divorces 
 
 1 St. Matt. v. 32, os eav airo\e\viJ.evr}v yafirjcr], fj.OLxS.rai : xix. 
 9, 6 a.Tro\e\vfxevr]v yafA7)<ra.s, fxoixa,Tai. See Bishop Andrewes, ubi 
 supra. The terms of Bom. vii. 2, from which the vow of marriage seems 
 to have been framed, show that the marriage bond is only really broken 
 by death, and that though a woman "become another man's, yet is she 
 not become his wife." Accordingly, in 1 Cor. vii. 11, a woman of herself 
 departing or put away by her husband is commanded either to be recon- 
 ciled or to remain unmarried. That 1 Cor. vii. 1 1 must be understood 
 to refer to adultery, and not to other causes of separation, is argued bj r 
 Bishop Andrewes from the fact that, "were it any other cause but that 
 wherein Christ hath given leave to depart or to put away, the Apostle 
 would not have put it upon either, or upon one, but would simply and 
 absolutely have commanded her to be reconciled, as indeed in all other 
 cases she is bound to seek it, and is not less at liberty." 
 
 2 As showing the sense of the Primitive Church, Bishop Andrewes, ubi 
 supra, quotes, among other authorities, Cone. Elib. Can. ix. ; Cone. Milev. 
 Can. xvii. : "Placuit ut secundum Evangelicam et Apostolicam discipli- 
 nam neque dimissus ab uxore, neque diniissa a marito alteri conjugantur." 
 This was subscribed by St. Augustine and St. Optatus. St. Augustine 
 says expressly that "nullius viri posterioris mulier uxor esse incipit, nisi 
 prioris esse desiverit. Esse autem desinet uxor prioris, si moriatur vir ejus 
 
314 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 from the marriage tie had been before enacted by special 
 Parliamentary statutes ; and Parliament had learnt its 
 lesson from the practical claim of the Popes, to extend the 
 dispensing power not merely to all ecclesiastical regula- 
 tions, but to precepts of revealed morality. These un- 
 happy precedents, on a more restricted scale, could not 
 justify our present extension of the mischief to a much 
 larger range of cases ; — the contradiction between the pre- 
 tension to divorce absolutely, and our Lord's plain teach- 
 ing on the subject, is, to any ordinary reader of the New 
 Testament, sufficiently obvious. 
 
 The evil would be grave enough, if no bad results of the 
 measure were traceable. But on this head I may refer to 
 one who was, in former years, a distinguished ornament of 
 the judicial bench, and whose name is held in honour in 
 this his University, and, indeed, wherever the English 
 language is spoken. 
 
 " The new law," observes Sir John T. Coleridge, " has. to 
 the present time, had the advantage of being administered 
 by two judges in succession of rare excellency; men who 
 may be equalled, but will scarcely ever be surpassed in 
 their own province ; and yet, when I consider the effect on 
 the purity of the public mind of the proceedings of the 
 court, daily circulated among all ages and classes; the 
 collusion between parties, sometimes defeated, but too 
 often, no doubt, successfully practised ; and, above all, the 
 fatally strong temptation which its open doors must offer 
 to conjugal infidelity, ..... I do not believe that the 
 eminent judges to whom I have referred, could we have 
 the benefit now of their advice, would be disposed to 
 
 non si fornicetur" {De Conj. Adult, ii. 4). St. Jerome puts the case as 
 strongly as possible: "Quamdiu vivit vir, licet adulter sit, licet sodomita, 
 licet flagitiis omnibus coopertus, et ab uxore propter haec scelera derelictus, 
 maritus ejus reputatur, cui alterum virum accipere non licet" {Ep. 52, ad 
 Amandum, § 3). 
 
XVI.] Christ and Human Law. 
 
 315 
 
 commend the ]a\v which they have been called on to 
 administer." 1 
 
 It may be said, that whether it be right or wrong, this 
 legislation is irreversible ; that when the current flows so 
 stroDg in the direction of laxity, we must perforce yield to 
 it ; and that it were better to draw a veil over social ulcers, 
 which cannot be healed, than thus to expose them. 
 
 But, speaking to young men, many of whom in coming 
 years will have opportunities of serving their country by 
 helping to guide its convictions, perhaps, by moulding its 
 legislation. I cannot resign myself to this despairing view 
 of our actual circumstances. If Christians must be jealous 
 for the honour of their Lord, Englishmen must desire that 
 in days of actual and anticipated change there should be 
 the utmost possible harmony between the various moral 
 forces which sway the action of their country ; that, on a 
 subject in which law is still regarded by large numbers of 
 English people as the mouthpiece of religion, religious 
 principles should not be actively contradicted by statute 
 law ; that, so far as may be, the verdicts of our Civil 
 Courts of Justice should be accepted without question by 
 the most educated and sensitive conscience of the nation, 
 as being, within the moral sphere to which law necessarily 
 restricts itself, in substantial harmony with the Eevealed 
 Mind of the Eternal Judge. To forfeit this harmony is 
 national weakness ; to rivet it is national strength. 
 
 Another example of the discord between law and reli- 
 gious conscience which I am deprecating may be observed 
 in a legislative anomaly, to which, of late years, attention 
 has been frequently, but not too frequently, directed. 
 
 At the English Reformation, as is well known, the 
 supremacy of the Crown in all causes ecclesiastical and 
 civil, was, by the terms of the preamble of the Statute of 
 
 1 Memoir of the Rev. J. Keble, M.A., by the Right Hon. Sir J. T. 
 Coleridge, D.C.L., pp. 417, 418. 
 
316 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 Appeals (1533), harmonized with the principle, so un- 
 questionably venerable, and so necessary to the wellbeing 
 of the Christian Church, of deciding spiritual causes by 
 the spirituality. 1 Nor did the creation of the Court of 
 Delegates, by a statute passed in the following year (1534), 
 necessarily conflict with the principle of the Statute of 
 Appeals; because the power to appoint the members of 
 the court resided with the Crown, and the Crown was at 
 least free to exercise its supremacy by appointing a 
 majority of episcopal delegates, so as not to neutralize the 
 principle of the earlier statute. 2 Such, for two hundred 
 and ninety-eight years, 3 was the law of the Church and 
 State of England; but since 1832 it has been otherwise. 4 
 
 1 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 12. ""When any cause of the Law Divine hap- 
 pened to come in question, or of spiritual learning, then it was declared, 
 interpreted, and showed, by that part of the said body politick, called the 
 spirituality, now being usually called the English Church, which always 
 hath been reputed, and also found of that sort, that both for knowledge, 
 integrity, and sufficiency of number, it hath been always thought, and is 
 also at this hour, sufficient and meet of itself, without the intermeddling 
 of any exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts, 
 and to administer all such offices and duties as to their rooms spiritual 
 doth appertain." 
 
 2 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 19, sec. 4. "And for lack of justice at or in any 
 of the Courts of the Archbishops of this realm, or in any of the King's 
 dominions, it shall be lawful to the parties grieved to appeal to the King's 
 Majesty in the King's Court of Chancery ; and that, upon every such 
 appeal, a Commission shall be directed, under the Great Seal, to such 
 persons as shall be named by the King's Highness, his heirs, or successors, 
 like as in case of appeals from the Admiral's Court, to hear and definitively 
 determine such appeals, and the causes concerning the same." 
 
 3 It should be added that the above-named Acts were repealed by 1 & 2 
 Ph. and Mary, c. 8, in 1554, and revived by 1 Eliz. c. 1. 
 
 4 By 2 & 3 Will. IV. cap. 92, the whole jurisdiction exercised by the 
 Court of Delegates over the Archiepiscopal Courts was transferred to the 
 whole Privy Council. By 3 & 4 Will. IV. cap. 41, the jurisdiction thus 
 given to the whole Privy Council was transferred to a fixed Committee of 
 that body. On the history of this legislation see " The Civil Power in its 
 Relations to the Church," by James Wayland Joyce, M.A., one of the 
 Clergy-Proctors for the Diocese of Hereford ; London, Rivingtons, 1869, 
 
XVI. 
 
 Christ a7id Hitman Law. 
 
 317 
 
 In the words of the eminent authority to whom I have 
 already referred, " a modern statute has placed in the 
 hands of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 
 assisted by two or three of the bishops, not selected for 
 personal fitness as judges, but in virtue of their sees, the 
 final decision of questions touching the doctrine and disci- 
 pline of the Church. Even if the Committee were neces- 
 sarily composed of Churchmen, there would be the question 
 whether such matters are properly to be adjudicated on 
 by laymen ; but it is well known that among its members 
 may be those who are, conscientiously or otherwise, not 
 only alien from the Church, but opposed to it." 1 
 
 The waiter proceeds to point out that the Judicial Com- 
 mittee has by law much more jurisdiction than is necessary 
 to decide on doctrinal points collaterally arising in a par- 
 ticular cause, and only for the purposes of that cause, with 
 a view to its determination. On the contrary, " the Judi- 
 cial Committee often takes cognizance of doctrine directly, 
 and as the point in issue ; it does so in the last resort ; its 
 decision binds every court and even itself; so that if it 
 should happen to determine certain propositions not to be 
 contrary to the Articles, or vice versa, however manifestly 
 wrong or dangerous the decision, those propositions might 
 be maintained and preached by any incumbent to his flock 
 with impunity ; and to preach propositions logically con- 
 tradictory of them might subject an incumbent to prosecu- 
 tion and its consequences. It cannot be doubted," concludes 
 this high authority, " that this would practically be very 
 
 pp. 76 sqq. There seems to be sufficient evidence that the Ecclesiastical 
 Jurisdiction was transferred to the Judicial Committee by a pure accident, 
 due, according to Mr. Joyce, to "that excessive love of verbiage and un- 
 necessary amplification, which appears often to beset those to whom the 
 duty of drafting Acts of Parliament is committed" (p. 79). 
 
 1 Memoir of the Rev. J. Kcble, by the Right Hon. Sir J. T. Coleridge, 
 p. 467. 
 
3i8 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 much the same as making a new doctrine for the 
 Church." 1 
 
 To this it may be added, that the chief author of the 
 Act alluded to it in language which appears to imply, that 
 to refer doctrinal cases to a court so constituted was 
 nothing less than a legislative blunder. Speaking in his 
 place in Parliament, the late Lord Brougham observed, 
 that "he could not help feeling that the Judicial Com- 
 mittee of Privy Council had been framed without the ex- 
 pectation of [ecclesiastical] questions .... being brought 
 before it. It was created for the consideration of a totally 
 different class of cases, and he had no doubt that if it had 
 been constituted with a view to such cases as the present 
 [the Gorham case], some other arrangement would have 
 been made." 2 
 
 And yet, while within the past week a measure has been 
 brought before the Legislature for the reform of the eccle- 
 siastical courts, 3 it expressly leaves this capital anomaly 
 altogether untouched. Is it too much to hope that some 
 effort will be made to remedy so serious and threatening 
 an evil ? Is it really impossible to harmonize the historical 
 prerogatives of the Crown, and the just susceptibilities of 
 the guardians of the law, with the immemorial rules, with 
 the governing principles of the Church of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 It would be easy to dwell for no inconsiderable time 
 upon the grave consequences of the present state of things 
 to the best interests of religion ; and those who know any- 
 thing practically of the difficulties with which the English 
 Church has to contend in a great many quarters at the 
 present moment, know with what urgency and effect this 
 
 1 Memoir of the Rev. J. Keble, p. 468. 
 
 2 Hansard, 3rd S., vol. cxi. p. 629 ; quoted by Joyce, ubi suvra, p. 78. 
 To the same effect, the late Bishop Blomfield : "The contingency of such 
 an appeal came into no one's mind." See Joyce, ibid. p. 79. 
 
 3 By the Earl of Shaftesbury. 
 
XVI.] 
 
 Christ and Htmian Law. 
 
 3*9 
 
 feature of our actual system, is pressed against her. But 
 the question is one of national as well as of religious im- 
 portance. The strength of Christian States is to be fortified 
 and secured by relations more or less intimate with strong, 
 well-ordered, and loyal Churches, whether they are " estab- 
 lished" or not; because such Churches, while training 
 souls for a higher and better world, can, more surely than 
 any other agency, reinforce the pulses of the heart of the 
 nation with constant and abundant and harmonious infu- 
 sions of moral purpose. And when are Churches strong to 
 do this? "Not necessarily when they can command the 
 various influences of station, of wealth, of intellectual 
 culture, of seats in the Legislature ; not necessarily when 
 they are invested by the national will with temporal 
 privileges, of which no serious man will think or speak 
 lightly. Churches are strong when their spiritual self- 
 respect is unimpaired ; when their deepest life is free to 
 live in accordance with the provisions of that Divine Code 
 which is its first and most imperative law. And it is 
 neither charitable nor wise to neglect wounds in well- 
 instructed and sensitive consciences; wounds which, if 
 untended, will rankle and fester into deadly sores. The 
 Church of God is freer to acknowledge, to uphold, to insist 
 upon the Divine sanctions of the civil law, without suspicion 
 of her motives in doing so, if Caesar does not touch the 
 things of God ; she is better able to proclaim the mission 
 which civil government has received from heaven, if 
 Christian doctrine is not brought, I will not say, before 
 Pilate, but before judges, upon whom high character and 
 position will not of themselves confer the Apostolical power 
 of " sitting on thrones to judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel." 
 
320 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 III. 
 
 But the subject involves, if somewhat indirectly, a con- 
 sideration which may have a more immediate and general 
 interest even than the foregoing. What is the respon- 
 sibility of society at large for the particular crimes which 
 are published in our courts of justice ? It was Jewish 
 society which delivered the sinless Christ into the hands 
 of Pilate. It is Christian society which delivers modern 
 criminals into the hands of the officers of the law. 
 
 Doubtless it is right — it is necessary — to punish them. 
 And yet how many a criminal may use the words of 
 Christ, in a different yet in a most true and literal sense, 
 when he is placed at the bar for judgment, after being 
 found guilty of robbery or murder: "He that delivereth 
 Me unto thee hath the greater sin." " He that delivereth 
 me ! " Not the policeman who arrested me ; not the magis- 
 trate who committed me for trial ; not the witness whose 
 evidence satisfied the jury of my guilt ; but society. That 
 vast abstraction, that most real albeit complex agent, 
 society, is the greater criminal. I am but the victim of its 
 heartlessness, the fruit of its neglect, the product and 
 result of its example : " He that delivereth Me unto thee 
 hath the greater sin." 
 
 Is this a libel, or is it the voice of truth and justice — 
 of partial truth, at any rate — of some measure of justice ? 
 Let us consider. 
 
 Many of us are familiar with a modern writer who 
 would answer this question by announcing a doctrine 
 which practically annihilates freewill. He maintains that 
 full knowledge of the antecedents of a moral agent, and 
 of the circumstances which surround him, enable you to 
 predict unerringly how he will act under particular con- 
 ditions; since his action follows inevitably from a fore- 
 
XVI.] 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 321 
 
 going combination of facts, of which it is the natural 
 product and issue. 1 Obviously, according to this theory, 
 society furnishes a very large contribution indeed towards 
 individual crime. And yet, if freewill do not exist, it is 
 plainly a mistake to describe any act, however horrible its 
 results, as criminal. Upon that supposition a murder and 
 an earthquake must have exactly the same moral signifi- 
 cance ; and no more blame on the score of a social tragedy 
 ought, in fairness, to be attributed to the remote influence 
 of society than to the individual ruffian whose hand is red 
 with his neighbour's blood. 
 
 But the immorality of this doctrine should not blind 
 us to the element of truth which it contains, and which 
 is recognised nowhere more fully than in the Christian 
 Scriptures. This truth is, that although no one man 
 is simply what circumstances have made him ; although 
 he is what he is primarily in virtue of the secret, self- 
 controlling -centre of consciousness and volition, which is 
 himself, and which, by its successive thoughts, emotions, 
 and resolves, has made him what he is ; yet society has 
 supplied the mental atmosphere which has encouraged 
 and cherished, or stunted and blighted his moral growth, as 
 the case may be. Society has surrounded him with know- 
 ledge or with ignorance, with high moral ideals or with 
 base moral ideals, with encouragements to virtue or with 
 encouragements to vice, with traditions in favour of effort 
 and self-sacrifice or with traditions in favour of sloth and 
 degradation. True, these traditions do not act upon him 
 so irresistibly as to kill his liberty of breaking through 
 them. But they do make virtue easy or difficult; and 
 nothing is more certain than that the responsibility of a 
 moral being, in the eyes of the Eternal Justice, must vary 
 
 1 Buckle, History of Civilization in England, vol. i. p. 25. "The 
 individual felon only carries into effect what is a necessary consequence oi 
 preceding circumstances." Cf. p. 29. 
 
 X 
 
322 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 in exact proportion to his opportunities. An act of 
 hideous idol-worship at Tyre or Sidon, or an act of debas- 
 ing vice at Sodom or Gomorrha, implied less moral evil in 
 the agent than did indifference to truth or neglect of 
 opportunities in Chorazin, or Bethsaida, or Capernaum. 1 
 The Jews were more guilty before God than the Gentiles, 
 because " by the law is the knowledge of sin." 2 
 
 Is this not in harmony with our own experience ? 
 When we are with particular persons, or surrounded with 
 particular associations, it seems natural to do right, it 
 seems almost impossible to do wrong. When we are else- 
 where or with others, we are, it may be, other men : we 
 think and act without difficulty in ways which, but just 
 now, would have seemed impossible. This variation 
 would not hold good in the case of the extremes in the 
 moral world ; it would be true neither of the very bad nor 
 of the consistently holy. In both of these cases, moral 
 habit is sufficiently fixed and strong to defy the pressure 
 and solicitation of circumstance. But of the great mass 
 of men it is true that their moral life depends largely 
 upon the circumstances which surround them ; and it is 
 the great mass of men, after all, that is in question. 
 
 Undoubtedly the wide difference of opportunities be- 
 tween man and man, class and class, country and country, 
 age and age, is determined by, is a part of the good 
 Providence of God ; it is the visible expression of His 
 predestinating will respecting each of His moral creatures; 
 and it thus brings before us one of the most mysterious 
 features of His government of the world. But within this 
 larger aspect of the case we may safely observe a narrower 
 one, and confine our attention to it, since it is practically 
 of the highest importance. 
 
 If, for instance, we could trace out the whole personal 
 history of any one of the prisoners who will be convicted 
 
 i St. Matt. xi. 21-23. St. Luke x. 13-15. 2 Rom. iii. 20. 
 
XVI. 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 323 
 
 of theft or of graver crimes at the forthcoming assizes, we 
 should find that he has enjoyed that particular measure of 
 opportunities which society, that is, the aggregate of men 
 and women living at this present time in this particular 
 part of England, has put before him. Whether or not 
 he has made good use of his opportunities is a matter for 
 his own conscience before God. But whether he has had 
 any good opportunities to make use of is a question for 
 us, as members of society, still more as members of the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 For is not this a matter as to which the great number 
 of educated and well-meaning people in this country 
 habitually deceive themselves ? We all of us talk of the 
 duties and the responsibilities of society. But all the 
 while we mean by society an abstract entity, with the 
 action and resolutions of which we have individually as 
 little to do as with those of the English, or it may be of 
 the French Government. Whereas the truth is, that 
 society, or the only part of it with which we have any 
 concern, is but an abstract way of describing a particular 
 relation of other people to ourselves, and of ourselves to 
 other people. And if crime and poverty are upon the 
 increase in England, and this side by side with an increas- 
 ing concentration of luxury and wealth in the hands of an 
 upper class, it needs no great political discernment to see 
 in this condition of things the elements of grave social 
 danger, which may well demand the earnest attention of 
 the Legislature, but which, in the first instance, make a 
 serious call upon ourselves as individuals. 
 
 Now every one of us may individually act on existing 
 crime in three main ways. 
 
 First of all, we may do something to prevent it. This 
 chiefly by furthering the Education of the Poor. We may 
 discharge this duty, either through others or by personal 
 labour ; either in particular places or by supporting societies 
 
324 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 with larger fields of operations, whether diocesan or national. 1 
 By education I mean Christian education. An education 
 in useful knowledge, as it is termed, which leaves God, 
 conscience, the eternal future, the Atoning Blood, the 
 means of grace, out of the question, will not really do much 
 to stay the progress of crime. It will make crime less 
 "brutal and stupid ; but it will probably deepen its moral 
 complexion. Secular education only arms the brute that 
 is in us all with new weapons of offence, without doing 
 aught to tame his ferocious instincts. But to support 
 Christian education is to arrest crime at the fountain-head ; 
 it is to cut off the main supplies from the great torrent of 
 national immorality ; it is to bring heads and hearts, while 
 nature is yet impressible, under those blessed influences 
 which make crime unwelcome, and which enlist its natural 
 votaries and victims in the cause of virtue. 
 
 Secondly, we may do something towards repairing the 
 ravages of crime. There is a great deal of crime which 
 never falls under the hand of the law, or which, after convic- 
 tion, is unable to recover itself. To help those who have 
 gone wrong, probably through little fault of their own, to re- 
 turn to the paths of virtue, is a privilege which is offered to 
 most men sooner or later in private life. Such opportunities 
 occur almost always under circumstances which do not 
 admit of publicity. In view of this portion of our respon- 
 sibility towards crime, the support of reformatories and 
 of penitentiaries is of imperative obligation. 2 To give a 
 kindly hand to the many who long to rise, but who cannot 
 rise without it; to inspire hope, the very soul of moral 
 recovery, into those who are still fettered and in darkness, 
 but who hear of a comrade's return to moral light and 
 liberty ; this is to do Christ's work in the world, if anything 
 is to do it. And to do it thus in some measure is within 
 the power of every one of us. 
 
 1 Prov. xxii. 6. 2 Gal. vi. I. 
 
XVI. 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 325 
 
 But, thirdly, it is by honest, unshrinking efforts at 
 inward self-improvement that we can best act upon the 
 great abyss of contemporary crime. 1 Such is the solidarity 
 of this human social world, that the actions, the words, 
 nay, the inward moral and mental habits of each one of us, 
 may powerfully affect for good or for evil human beings 
 whose faces we never saw, but who feel, through contact 
 with others, the pulsations which radiate from our inward 
 life. Our most powerful influence upon others, be it bad 
 or good, is that natural outcome of our hearts and thoughts, 
 which proceeds from us almost without our knowing it ; 
 and which penetrates into regions of which we have no 
 suspicion. Especially is this true of those who belong, 
 for the most part, to the higher classes ; they have oppor- 
 tunities of making contributions to the world's general 
 stock of bad example and false opinions which are not 
 enjoyed by their poorer brethren. 
 
 Beneath our feet a perpetual deposit of moral mischief 
 is accumulating ; it is filtered through the thousand avenues 
 of social contact ; it forms a subsoil which generates crime 
 as its native product. We may have made more positive 
 contributions to that fund of evil than we think ; and on 
 this, as on many other matters, the discoveries of the last 
 Great Day should be anticipated, if they are not to take 
 us by a terrible surprise. 
 
 At any rate an assize is a plain call to earnest efforts ; 
 to generous efforts for others, to sincere efforts within 
 ourselves. If we are tempted, on reading of such and 
 such a criminal, to any Pharisaic self-complacency, we do 
 well to consider what we individually, being such as we 
 are, should have done if we had been placed in his 
 exact social circumstances; if we had been, perhaps, 
 undisciplined, unrefined, uninstructed, pressed by poverty, 
 uncheered, unaided by friends, unsupported by the many 
 
 1 St. Matt. vii. 5. St. Luke vi. 42. Eom. ii. 21-24. 
 
326 
 
 Christ and Human Law, 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 motives which have power with us, short of that one true 
 motive for a Christian — the ]ove of the Perfect Moral 
 Being, our Lord and God. St. Augustine used to say that, 
 but for God's grace, he should have been capable of com- 
 mitting any crime ; and it is when we feel this sincerely, 
 that we are most likely to be really improving, and best 
 able to give assistance to others without moral loss to our- 
 selves. 
 
 If it is a duty to punish crime, it is a prior duty, if we 
 can, to save criminals. If it is permitted us to be of moral 
 service, however indirectly, to others, it is safe first of all 
 to place ourselves as penitents at the foot of the Cross 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, with a prayer which can never 
 be inappropriate to the real circumstances of any human 
 soul : " Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, 0 Lord ; 
 for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified." 1 
 
 1 Ps. cxliii. 2. 
 
XVI.] Christ and Human Law. 
 
 327 
 
 NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE 
 FOREGOING SERMON (1869). 
 
 Professor Conington has done me the honour of noticing so 
 much of this Sermon as bears upon Dr. Dbliinger's interpretation 
 of our Lord's saying about Divorce. 1 Professor Conington's criticism 
 covers more ground than the argument or the notes of this Sermon ; 
 it is, in fact, almost a continuous commentary upon the Third 
 Appendix to Dr. Dbliinger's " First Age of the Church." Some 
 acknowledgment is due to a writer of such Christian earnestness 
 and academical eminence, although in the following remarks several 
 of the points which he has raised are unavoidably unnoticed. 
 
 Professor Conington admits that philologically Dr. Dollinger " has 
 the advantage of giving a sense to iropvda, which no one can 
 dispute." 
 
 On the other hand, to say the very least, the greatest uncertainty 
 must be allowed to attach to any interpretation of our Lord's words 
 which takes iropvda to mean adultery with a single paramour. 
 Dollinger proves with unanswerable force the carefully observed 
 distinction between -n-opveia and jU°'X et ' a iu the New Testament and 
 LXX. ; St. Matt. xvi. 19 ; St. Mark vii. 21 ; St. John viii. 3 ; a 
 distinction based upon an earlier and kindred one between the 
 corresponding Hebrew words. As against the view that vopvela is a 
 generic term including adultery, he observes that when more than 
 the natural sense of the word is meant, either p.0Lxda or dKadapala 
 are used with it : St. Mark vii. 21 ; 2 Cor. xii. 21 ; Gal. v. 19 ; Eph. 
 v. 3 ; Col. iii. 5 ; Heb. xiii. 4. Professor Conington insists upon the 
 iv iropvelq. ipoixevdr) of Ecclus. xxiii. 23, and rejects Dr. Dbliinger's 
 explanation that the two words are put together for emphasis, on the 
 score that this would hardly be the case if one of them was inapplic- 
 able. As Ecclesiasticus is beyond doubt an Alexandrian translation 
 from a Hebrew or Aramaean original, 2 is it not probable that this 
 phrase represents an emphatic construction very common in Hebrew, 
 in which the inf. abs. is placed before a finite verb of the same stem ; 
 and that it would have been rendered literally but harshly iv M°tX e 'P 
 
 1 Contemporary Review, May 1869, Art. i. 
 
 2 Reusch, Lehrbuch d. Einl. A. T. p. 140; Davidson, Old Test. iii. p. 418. 
 
3 28 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 cfioixevdy 1 If so, it may have been deliberately varied by the 
 translator, partly for the sake of euphony, and partly with the object 
 of hinting that an act, which in any woman would have been at 
 least iropveia, was in a wife something of a distinct and more serious 
 character, namely, /iot%eta. As to i Cor. v. i, it is at least probable 
 that Dollinger is right in understanding iropveia to mean incest with 
 a father's widow. The rod abiKwde'vTos of 2 Cor. vii. 12, as Neander 1 
 suggests, may very well stand for rod ddcKrifxaros ; and the Apostle 
 would then mean that he did not write of the sin, considered as an 
 act of social injustice, but considered as an offence against the purity 
 of the Christian life, for which he desired to show his zeal. At any 
 rate we cannot be sufficiently certain that adiKvdevTos is masculine 
 and refers to the father of the incestuous person, to ground thereupon 
 a single exception in 1 Cor. v. 1 — and it would be no more — to the 
 ordinary New Testament use of iropveia. 
 
 But even if it were clear that iropveia might, in one or two places, 
 include adultery, there would surely be some risk in insisting upon 
 this rare sense in the case of a practical passage of critical import- 
 ance. The natural course is to understand the word in that which 
 is confessedly its usual sense. If our Lord had said, "Whosoever 
 shall put away his wife, except for the cause of adultery, causeth her 
 to commit adultery," no question could have been raised as to His 
 meaning. If He meant pioixeia, why did He say iropveia ? To reply 
 with Professor Conington and others that He meant to include 
 " unchastity before marriage discovered afterwards " is hardly satis- 
 factory, since it assumes that unfaithfulness after marriage would 
 have been primarily understood to be the sense of the expression. 
 To refer to the preference which a modern writer, treating the 
 subject in a similar way, might feel for the generic word " unchastity " 
 as compared with the particular term " adultery," is, as it seems to 
 me, too hastily to attribute a modern sentiment to a sacred speaker 
 in a distant age. In nothing does Holy Scripture differ from writings 
 of our own day more strikingly than in the fearless unreserve and 
 explicitness with which it treats of subjects which cannot be dis- 
 cussed by ordinary persons without grave risk of doing harm to 
 themselves and other people. 
 
 Professor Conington would scarcely seem to have done sufficient 
 justice to the admitted and important consideration that St. Matthew 
 had Jewish converts especially in view in the selection of materials 
 for his Gospel. 2 "The solid fact," he says, 'that St. Paul, St. 
 
 1 Quoted by Alford in loc. 
 
 a Cf. Alford, vol. i., Prolegomena, p. 30. Meyer, Ev. Matthaus, Einl. p. 20. 
 
XVI.] 
 
 Christ and Human Law. 
 
 329 
 
 Mark, and St. Luke do not mention what St. Matthew does, is, I 
 conceive, to be accounted for simply by the consideration that they 
 were concerned rather with the rule, which, of course, was the thing 
 on which our Lord laid, most stress, than with the exception." 1 But 
 is not this language about the rule and the exception misleading ] 
 Is it not the case that if our Lord's words in St. Matthew are rightly 
 interpreted, as meaning that divorce a vinculo matrimonii may follow 
 upon or is effected by an act of adultery, we have before us in St. 
 Matthew an altogether distinct rule from that which is given by the 
 other sacred writers 1 "A rule which does not admit an exception 
 is a very different thing from one which does. A law which binds 
 all persons, under all circumstances, is not the same as one which 
 binds only particular classes, or which exempts under certain circum- 
 stances from its operation. The difference in such cases is one not 
 of form, but of substance ; it makes the rule or the law applicable or 
 inapplicable, according to particular circumstances, and variable in 
 its effects ; and upon this applicability or inapplicability depends the 
 responsibility or immunity, moral as well as legal, of those who are 
 within the sphere of its authority ; the difference being of course 
 more marked, as well as more important, if the consequences of any 
 violation of the rule or law are made severely penal." 2 
 
 In view of this consideration, the silence of all the other writers 
 of the New Testament on so vital a feature of the Christian Law of 
 Marriage is unintelligible, if our Lord really meant that the Marriage- 
 tie is dissoluble by adultery. It is not too much to say, that upon 
 this supposition, they present us in the Name and words of Christ 
 with a totally different Marriage Law from that given by St. Matthew. 
 There are of course rationalistic accounts of such like differences, but 
 they are generally fatal to the authority of the New Testament alto- 
 gether. If our Lord did permit divorce on the ground of adultery, 
 the Churches of Corinth and Ephesus would have needed and might 
 have expected to hear of it at least as soon and as fully as the Jewish 
 Churches for whom the first Evangelist especially wrote. Is it not 
 more reasonable as well as more reverent to believe that St. Matthew 
 alone has preserved these words of Christ, because they applied to the 
 case of the Jews alone, and in the sense suggested by Dr. Dollinger 7 
 
 It is impossible not to sympathize with Professor Conington's 
 unwillingness to recognise any temporary exceptions or references in 
 a discourse meant for all time, such as was the Sermon on the Mount. 
 But may we then admit the Christian and Eucharistic reference (as 
 
 1 Cont. Rev. p. 3. 
 
 2 Considerations on Divorce, by a Barrister, London, 1857, pp. 5, 6. 
 
330 
 
 Christ and Human Law. [Serm. 
 
 distinct from the merely Jewish sacrificial one) of St. Matt. v. 23, 
 24 1 I rejoice to think so : although Tholuck says, " The Redeemer 
 spoke not to Christians, but to Jews : no wonder, then, if His dis- 
 courses hear traces of being addressed to those among whom the 
 Jewish worship and ceremonial were still retained." 1 Tholuck's 
 remark may be pushed too far ; but its legitimate scope would not 
 appear to be exceeded if we apply it to the two clauses occurring in 
 a single Gospel written confessedly for Jews, which on any other 
 interpretation are inconsistent with the law elsewhere and always 
 stated absolutely of the indissolubility of marriage. 
 
 For it cannot be too earnestly repeated that the consistent teach- 
 ing of the New Testament is in favour of this principle. The Divine 
 precepts, given without any qualification by St. Mark and St. Luke ; 2 
 the Apostolical arguments, Rom. vii. 1-3 ; 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11 ; Eph. 
 v. 25-33, all point one way. To take the last: "What more 
 irreconcilable with divorce than the Apostolical precepts, Eph. v. 
 28-30 1 If a man can hate his own body, his own self, his own 
 flesh ; if the Lord Jesus can hate and forsake His Church ; then 
 there may be divorce from the marriage-bond among Christians. 
 Not else." 3 Professor Conington believes that the German Reformed 
 divines are right in saying that the reason why adultery destroys 
 marriage is that the original unitas carnis is destroyed, and a new 
 one formed. He appeals to 1 Cor. vi. [16 1] But the question is 
 whether the essence of marriage lies in the moral contract taken 
 before God, or in the mere unitas carnis. If the latter, then every act 
 of adultery or gross indulgence is equivalent to the making of a new 
 marriage-contract, — a conclusion which even Tholuck is apparently 
 driven to accept. 4 If the former, then human unfaithfulness cannot 
 destroy that which has a Divine sanction : man's sin cannot really 
 put asunder what God has joined. 
 
 The fatal concessions to which the German Protestant divines are 
 committed do not avail to bridge over the chasm which yawns 
 between the legislation of their country on the subject of marriage 
 and that which they still believe to be the teaching of our Divine 
 Lord. Tholuck remarks, that down to the middle of the eighteenth 
 century no grounds of divorce, save the two allowed by Luther and 
 Calvin, that is to say, adultery and malicious desertion, 5 were gener- 
 ally sanctioned by the statutes of the Protestant Church, the Con- 
 
 1 Bergpred. in vv. 23, 24. 2 St. Mark x. 2-12. St. Luke xvi. 18. 
 
 3 Keble, An Argument for not proceeding immediately, he, p. 42. 
 
 4 Bergpred. in St. Matt. v. 32. 
 
 s So limited in Luther's work, Von Ehesachen, 1530: he had specified four 
 grounds of divorce in his Von Ehelichen Leben, 1530. Thol., Bergpred. 
 
XVI. ] Christ and Human Law. 
 
 sistories, and the writers on Ecclesiastical law ; although there were 
 some exceptions at Zurich, at Basle, in Wurternberg and in Prussia. 
 With the period of "Illumination" there came a still laxer code. 
 The civil courts were generally invested with the control of marriage 
 affairs, as being purely civil affairs. New reasons for divorce were 
 insisted on, such as, " uncongeniality of disposition," " irreconcilable 
 enmity," and the like. " After the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 the influence of this laxity began to extend even to the law-books. 
 Not crime merely but even misfortune was considered a valid ground 
 for divorce. At last, the Prussian legislation, having arrived at the 
 highest pitch of 1 illumination,' sanctioned divorce by mutual consent 
 where the marriage was childless, thus changing it into a matter of 
 contract and private law." 1 
 
 It is instructive to read Olshausen's commentary on the passages 
 in St. Matthew, as exhibiting the struggle of a sincere conscience 
 vainly endeavouring to be loyal at one and the same moment to the 
 teaching of Christ and to the unchristian marriage-law of Protestant 
 Germany. Olshausen abandons the endeavour to observe even that 
 portion of our Lord's teaching upon marriage which he still upholds. 
 And to do this the better, he projects a distinction between an ex- 
 ternal and an internal Church, which, if it could be accepted, might 
 help us to set aside all Christ's moral precepts that are in any way 
 distasteful to corrupt human nature. " The external Church," he 
 argues, "as a visible institution cannot possibly be regarded as the 
 expressed ideal of the kingdom of God. It is rather the mere 
 covering, in which the communion of all the faithful is enswathed, 
 than the kernel in the shell. Hence the regulations of the external 
 Church cannot answer to the ideal requirements of the fiaaiXda • but 
 as the Church occupies the Old Testament standing-ground in the 
 majority of its members, it must also order its regulations in con- 
 formity to the Old Testament. As, then, in the Old Testament God 
 permitted not only divorces, but also the remarriage of the separated 
 persons, so the Church may admit modifications of our Lord's law, as 
 expressed in St. Matt. v. 31, 32. Indeed the Church must do so." 2 
 The " external " Church of Christ would, upon this supposition, be 
 defined as a body of professing Christians who cannot be expected 
 to keep the moral precepts of Christ. Is it not plain that some of 
 the best divines of Protestant Germany are fatally influenced by 
 civil laws and a public opinion which they should improve or 
 resist ; the power of a corrupt human tradition blinding them to the 
 requirements of the Word of God ] 
 
 May He grant that it be not so among ourselves ! 
 
 1 Bergpredigt, in St. Matt. v. 32. 2 Comm. in St. Matt. v. 31. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 THE CUKE OF LOW SPIRITS. 
 
 Psalm xliii . 5 . 
 
 Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within 
 me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of 
 my countenance, and my God. 
 
 THIS verse forms the thrice-repeated chorus of a psalm 
 which, in the judgment of Ewald — a very good 
 authority on a point of this kind — is in respect of imagery 
 and structure finer than any other in the Psalter. The 
 forty-second and forty-third psalms originally formed a 
 single poem, consisting of three strophes ; and each of these 
 strophes closed with the lines of the text, slightly varied. 
 The writer of the psalm, whether a king, or, more pro- 
 bably, a Levite, is in exile. He is dwelling on the 
 Hermons, the mountain ridge to the east of the Jordan, 
 and among men of fierce habits and alien faith. That 
 which is passing within his soul seems to him to be re- 
 flected in the natural scenes around him. He marks a 
 gazelle as it climbs, panting, up the rocky bed of some 
 ravine, in search of one of the pools which may have been 
 left by the winter torrents. He is at once reminded of his 
 own unappeased longing for that Being Who alone can 
 quench the thirst of the soul of man. 1 He is overtaken by 
 one of these violent storms which burst suddenly, travellers 
 1 Ps. xlii. 1. 
 
The Cure of Low Spirits. 333 
 
 say, on these mountain-sides. Presently the watercourses 
 resound as with the roar of a cataract ; and as the thunder 
 reverberates from hill to hill, and deep seems to call to 
 deep, and the Psalmist is exposed to the pitiless rain, it 
 is as though all the waves and billows of God had gone 
 over him. 1 For the thunder and the rain do but represent 
 the storm of secret sorrow which is beating on his soul; 
 and as his thought turns back to bygone years, he re- 
 members how at the great festivals thousands of pilgrims 
 would gather within the sacred city, and how he himself 
 went out with this multitude in solemn procession and 
 brought them into the house of God, with the voice of 
 praise and thanksgiving among such as keep holyday. 2 
 How can he resign himself to the unworthy fear that all 
 the spiritual joy of those festive days is gone for ever ? 
 How can he but pray that the Light and Truth of God 
 may be sent forth to lead him home, so that he may 
 spend the time that yet remains to him in thankful 
 praise ? 3 
 
 Each of the strophes, among which this train of thought 
 is distributed, ends with the words of the text, " Why art 
 thou so cast down, 0 my soul ? and w T hy art thou so dis- 
 quieted within me ? hope thou in God : for I shall yet 
 praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my 
 God." The Psalmist, you will have observed, is in col- 
 loquy with himself: he is at once physician and patient, 
 adviser and advised. By a strong effort of imagination he 
 detaches his life of feeling and experience, his depressed, 
 disheartened self, from the higher, judicial, inspired self 
 which presides at the centre of his being : he projects, as 
 it were, into the sunlight this second self, that it may be 
 inspected and set right. And thus as the viceroy and 
 delegate of God he judges himself; he observes, he cross- 
 questions, he rebukes, he counsels. " Why art thou so 
 1 Ps. xlii. 9. 2 Ps. xlii. 4, 5. 3 Ps. xliii. 2-4. 
 
334 The Cure of Low Spirits. [Serm. 
 
 cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou so disquieted 
 within me ? " A somewhat similar recognition of a higher 
 and a lower self is observable when the Apostle, at a par- 
 ticular stage of his own experience, while also conceiving 
 himself to represent the general experience of adult 
 converts to the Faith of Christ, " sees another law in his 
 members warring against the law of his mind," and so 
 •' with the mind he himself serves the law of God, but with 
 the flesh the law of sin." 1 
 
 Bern ark here that if Holy Scripture addresses itself to 
 the darker moods of the human soul, it is in order to help 
 us to master them or turn them to some good account. 
 There are modern poets who throw themselves into the 
 gloomy thoughts, or even into the sullen passions of men, 
 only to give them more exquisite and luxurious expression; 
 only to prolong by re lining that which they cannot chasten 
 or consecrate. Not so the Bible. If it turns the eye upon 
 the sadness and disquiet of the soul, it is to bid it " hope 
 in God," and so rise into an atmosphere of joy and peace. 
 There is indeed one book in the Bible in which this rule 
 might at first sight seem to be forgotten ; and perhaps, on 
 this account, the Book of Ecclesiastes is welcomed in some 
 quarters of the modern world not usually well disposed 
 towards any portion of the Sacred Writings. It had such 
 attractions for Voltaire that, as is well known, he rendered 
 it, with indifferent success, into French verse. Heine 
 meant to pay it a compliment when he quoted it as " The 
 Song of Scepticism." And the vigorous writer, who since 
 his master's death is understood to be the best representa- 
 tive of the Pessimist philosophy, describes this book as 
 " the Breviary of the most modern Materialism." 2 
 
 The truth is that Holy Scripture often exposes itself to 
 misunderstanding by its very condescension, just as did 
 our Lord when His critics complained that He ate and drank 
 
 1 Rom. vii. 23, 25. 1 Cf. Delitzsch's Ecclesiastes, Int. 
 
I 
 
 XVII.] The Cn re of Low Spirits. 335 
 
 with publicans and sinners. The Preacher makes a bold 
 venture, for he has in view a noble aim. He wishes to con- 
 vince us that God is the one Object worth living for ; that 
 when living in the fear of God man accomplishes his 
 highest duty and secures his true wellbeing. In order to 
 show this he sets out on a grand tour of the world ; and if 
 some of his observations could be justly isolated from the 
 general scheme of his work, they might almost find their 
 place in a philosophy of despair. Again and again he 
 utters the mournful cry, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 
 The uniformities of nature, the recurrence of sunrise anil 
 sunset, the perpetual running of the rivers towards the sea, 
 which yet they do not fill, seem to him to be a gentle mockery 
 of man's effort to reach an object beyond himself — an 
 object at once definite and lasting. 1 And the Preacher's 
 own experiences are in harmony with this presentiment. 
 He finds no solid satisfaction in his search after earthly 
 knowledge; 2 he finds no true pleasures in earthly joys. 3 
 The wise man does but end as the fool ; 4 one event happens, 
 apparently, to a man and to a beast : 5 better off than either 
 the living or the dead are those who are not yet born, and 
 who know nothing of a world which is everywhere the 
 scene of misery and failure. 6 So thorough is the writer's 
 sympathy with these aspects of life, that we may fancy 
 ourselves listening to a Hebrew Lucretius, until at last we 
 all at once find that our guide is only depreciating the 
 visible for the sake of the Unseen, and the present in the 
 interests of the Future, and the finite that he may the 
 better secure a home in the human soul for the Infinite. 
 Come what will, and do what we may, one thing, he in- 
 sists, is certain: we shall be judged. 7 Let others give 
 what advice they list, his concluding maxim is this, 
 
 1 Eccles. i. 3-8. 2 Eccles. i. 14-18. 3 Eccles. ii. 3-1 1. 
 
 4 Eccles. ii. 14. 6 Eccles. iii. 19. 8 Eccles. iv. 3. 
 
 7 Eccles. xi. 9; xii. 14. 
 
336 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. [Serm. 
 
 " Fear God, and keep His commandments : for this is the 
 whole duty of man." 1 
 
 Melancholy, we all know, is not, even from a purely 
 natural point of view, strictly in order. There is some- 
 thing in us which proclaims it to be an intruder on 
 the field of human nature, and which prompts us to 
 challenge it, and bid it give an account of itself. Nor is 
 it so unwonted a visitor in average lives that to do this 
 would be a loss of time. The conventional cheerfulness 
 which meets the eye is often the veil of a sternly repressed 
 sadness ; and young men who have not reached the noon- 
 day of life have been conscious of a depression which is 
 not charmed away by the boisterous merriment in which 
 it is for the moment forgotten. The Psalmist's question is 
 always a very practical one for a large number of human 
 beings : " Why art thou so full of heaviness, 0 my soul ? 
 and why art thou so disquieted within me ? " 
 
 How would this question be answered in our day ? 
 
 I. 
 
 One answer to it would be sought in physical tempera- 
 ment. " With me," many . a man will say, " low spirits 
 are constitutional ; I am no more responsible for them than 
 I am for the colour of my hair or the length of my arms 
 and legs. They may seem to be produced by outward 
 circumstances or by mental peculiarities ; they are really a 
 product of the bodily constitution. The outer world becomes 
 what it is to man in consequence of the ingredients of 
 man's animal nature ; these ingredients produce sensations 
 which our human logic, misled by self-love, attributes to such 
 fanciful abstractions as soul or mind ; and thus all around 
 us is coloured with bright or sombre hues as the case may 
 
 1 Eccles. xii. 13. 
 
XVII. 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 be." According to a foreign lecturer on anthropology, " the 
 melancholic temperament is due to a disproportion between 
 the force of the emotions and the force of the purely 
 voluntary movements of the body, whereby impressions, 
 at once vivid and numerous, come to be amassed or 
 capitalized in the nervous system, from not being distri- 
 buted as they arise in due order and proportion." 1 The 
 result, we are told, is depressed spirits ; but " what looks 
 like a condition of mind is, in reality, merely a condition 
 pf the nervous system." 
 
 Upon this representation it is obvious to remark that it 
 is not satisfactorily borne out by experience. As a matter 
 of fact we know — every one of us must know in varying 
 degrees — that what we call temperament is to a great 
 extent under the control of our wills. True indeed it is 
 that, for all of us, at times, " the corruptible body presseth 
 down the soul." 2 When we set out in life each of us is 
 endowed by our Creator with certain moral predispositions, 
 of which His unerring Justice will surely take account 
 when He comes to deal with each separate life as a 
 moral whole, whose day of growth and probation has at last 
 been closed. And these predispositions may well have 
 roots and sympathetic tendencies reaching into and 
 diffused over our bodily frames ; so that the lecturer just 
 now quoted may be perfectly accurate in his analysis 
 of the physical conditions which attach to melancholy. 
 But it is not true that what we are morally is wholly pre- 
 determined by the phenomena which reveal themselves to 
 scientific anatomy ; rather these phenomena are, in not a 
 few cases, moulded, if not produced, by our moral charac- 
 teristics. We may have a constitutional tendency to 
 depression ; but we can give way to it until it sways us 
 irresistibly, or we can check, thwart, and altogether over- 
 come it by cultivating an opposite habit of mind. The moods 
 
 1 So Henle quoted by Caro, Pessirnisme, p. 279. 2 Wisd. ix. 15. 
 
 Y 
 
338 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. [Serm. 
 
 of our souls are not really like our hair or the leaves of a 
 plant, — things which grow up and present themselves with- 
 out our having anything to say to them. We can give them 
 free course by indulgence ; we can train or we can quell 
 them by self-discipline. And to answer the Psalmist's 
 question by saying that the soul is cast down and dis- 
 quieted in consequence of an original temperament which 
 irresistibly depresses it, is to contradict everyday and 
 universal experience of the imperial power of the will. 
 Be sure that He Who made each one of us does not ask at 
 our hands that which He has Himself made it impossible 
 that we should give Him. For He has not left us to our- 
 selves : He is ready to help us to learn the secret of peace 
 and joy in the soul; and His gifts of supernatural grace 
 do their work, whatever be the physical temperament with 
 which He may have endowed us at the outset of our 
 journey. 
 
 II. 
 
 A second answer to the Psalmist's question is furnished 
 by a despairing philosophy of life. How, it has been said, 
 can a man think at all, and not take a gloomy view of 
 human existence ? 
 
 Pessimism is in part a recoil from those extravagant 
 pictures of a regenerated world in which theophilanthropy, 
 as it was called, and kindred forms of opinion towards the 
 close of the last century were wont to revel. But it is also 
 intimately connected with the materialistic denial of God 
 which has superseded the pantheism of a former genera- 
 tion. Pantheism, which identifies all that exists with God, 
 carries its optimism to the disregard even of what is due 
 to truth and righteousness; while atheism, in virtue of 
 the very arguments to which it mainly makes appeal, is 
 pessimist in its estimate of the world and of life. Besides 
 
XVII.] The Cure of Lou Spirits. 339 
 
 this, great ideas, which Christianity presupposes, and which 
 it authoritatively consecrates by making them practical 
 forces in human conduct, have been of late years assailed 
 as passionately as if they had been specifically Christian 
 doctrines, and with disastrous effect upon large classes of 
 minds. It is surely no light thing to be parting with con- 
 victions which, in more or less perfect forms, have braced 
 the noblest men for the battle of life ever since the dawn 
 of civilization. Belief in a future state, for which this 
 life is au education, to be achieved through resistance 
 to obstacles and by endurance of pain, is now treated as 
 the creation of man's enterprising vanity. Conscience is 
 pronounced to be a conglomerate of consecrated prejudices. 
 Duty is clung to, even earnestly, by writers who have 
 parted with immortality and with God, in the hope that 
 duty may furnish an object in life sufficiently ideal to 
 dignify it when it is deprived of any superhuman sanctions ; 
 and yet even duty is said to be a merely relative concep- 
 tion, or to be a formula devised with the object of inducing 
 the individual to make the efforts and sacrifices which the 
 good of the species requires at his hands. 
 
 When, so to speak, the ground has been thus cleared of 
 moral ideas previously in possession, it is natural for a 
 philosophy to arise which shall endeavour to make out a 
 case against the worth of life. In his work on " The World 
 as Will and Representation ' n Schopenhauer attempts this, 
 by a theory of the universe as the product of a blind 
 force which he calls Will. Will, he says, is always 
 endeavouring to assert itself in the shape of life. Will has 
 been doing this, we learn, from all eternity ; it has been 
 urging the possible to become real, and then constantly 
 giving a higher and higher form to the reality. After 
 expressing itself in inorganic nature, Will issues in the 
 vegetable and the animal kingdoms ; and when at last it 
 
 1 Die Welt als Willc und Vorstcllung, Leipzig. 
 
340 
 
 The Cicre of Low Spirits. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 succeeds in evolving man, it has attained the stage of con- 
 sciousness. Life is thus always and essentially Will ; life 
 is the effort or will to live. But, according to Schopenhauer, 
 Will is never dissociated from pain ; and thus life is an 
 evil, and its misery is proportionate to the degree of its 
 development. The highest life involves the greatest 
 suffering. In the animal the evil of life is felt, but not 
 recognised ; but it is man's prerogative misfortune to 
 know that the exercise of will is effort, and that all effort 
 is pain. Man understands that to live is to will, and that 
 to will is to suffer ; and thus individual human life is but 
 a prolonged and painful struggle to assert existence, with 
 the full perception of its intrinsic misery and the recog- 
 nised certainty of being conquered at last. 
 
 It will have already occurred to you that this identifica- 
 tion of will with pain is not in accord with experience. 
 Even if life may with a qualified propriety be described as 
 effort, it does not follow that effort is always pain. Not 
 seldom effort is its own satisfaction and joy — a joy which 
 is sometimes positively enhanced by the obstacles which 
 it encounters. Perhaps the very purest joys in human 
 life are inseparable from effort, pursued in spite of 
 obstacles and at length surmounting them : effort which 
 extracts truth from what is dark, or beauty and order 
 from what is hideous and confused; effort which is, 
 perchance, at first painful, but which, ere it has ended, is 
 in possession of a joy which more than obliterates the 
 sense of pain ; effort which does thus exhilarate, because 
 we feel that it purifies and ennobles us, that it saves 
 us from sinking down under the material weight of 
 nature, that it rescues us from the empire of sense 
 and the importunities of passion, that it enables us 
 to bear our burden, whatever it be, when time hangs 
 heavily and our hearts are low. If there was nothing 
 else to be said of the philosophy before us, this would 
 
XVII.] The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 341 
 
 have to be said about it; — that its central and most char- 
 acteristic position, which identifies effort unreservedly 
 with pain, is a libel upon human nature ; since man finds 
 an exquisite satisfaction in fashioning something beyond 
 himself, in mastering the difficulties which oppose him, in 
 gaining a more vivid sense of his personal existence in the 
 very energy of his struggle, and in conquering some little 
 corner of nature or thought, however precariously, "that 
 he may joy as with the joy of harvest, and as men rejoice 
 when they divide the spoil." 
 
 Life, then, is so miserable and worthless, according to 
 Schopenhauer, because life is will, and will is effort, and 
 effort is pain. But Schopenhauer is haunted by the idea of 
 Will as a malignant power which fills all living creatures, 
 and specially man, with mischievous illusions. Eveiy- 
 thing in human nature which aggrandizes, or protects, or 
 regulates life, from the lowest forms of instinct to the 
 highest affirmations of conscience, is regarded by this 
 singular philosopher as the product of a hostile influence, 
 which deceives that it may torture us, by ensuring or 
 extending our share in the weird misery of existence. 1 It 
 is strange, as has been well said, that Schopenhauer does 
 not suspect the value of his supposed discovery. If, 
 indeed, some subtle influence has succeeded in bewitching 
 man for these many thousands of years, why should it 
 allow itself to be at last thus detected by a solitary thinker 
 when it must have at its disposal so many means for 
 perpetuating an illusion which has lasted so long ? Is it 
 not reasonable, on the part of a brilliant critic, to regard 
 the discovery of the presumed illusion as more illusory 
 than the illusion itself? 
 
 Certainly it must be granted that the theory before us 
 does not shrink from conclusions which logically belong to 
 
 1 See the interesting article by M. Challemel Lacour, 1 ' Un Bouddhiste 
 conteruporain," Revue des Dcux-Afondcs, 15 Mars, 1S70. 
 
34 2 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 [Serm. 
 
 it. Even intellectual progress is deplored on the strictly 
 consistent ground that it involves an increased capacity 
 for pain. Stupidity has the advantage of genius, and 
 animal of human nature ; while the really happy moments 
 of existence are those which we pass in sleep, provided 
 only that sleep be deep enough to exclude dreams, in 
 which an approach to the exercise of will is possible. No 
 doubt it is true that a higher intelligence, enhancing the 
 range of life in all directions, does involve a higher capacity 
 for pain ; and this consideration may enable Christians dis- 
 tantly to understand what must have been the bodily, and 
 still more the mental Agony of our Divine Lord Jesus 
 Christ in His Passion. 1 But if pain goes hand in hand with 
 heightening intelligence, intelligence has at its command 
 pleasures which outweigh the augmentation of pain. 
 Thought, which is the source of so much suffering, is also 
 the source of the purest and -most exquisite enjoyment; 
 and, as a mere matter of calculation, the debt of suffering 
 which a highly sensitive mind like St. Augustine's or 
 Galileo's pays for its existence is more than cancelled by 
 the pure enthusiasm which is experienced in fresh mental 
 contact with previously unknown or uncontemplated truth. 
 Still Pessimism is simply consistent in teaching men to 
 regret that they are not animals; and it does not shrink 
 from going a step beyond. If life is on the whole neces- 
 sarily wretched, for the reasons which have been referred 
 to, it were surely better that life should cease. Accord- 
 ingly Schopenhauer praises celibacy, not on the ground 
 which St. Paul urges on the Corinthians, that it enables 
 men to "attend upon the Lord without distraction," 2 but 
 because each nnwedded life is, in his eyes, a step towards 
 
 1 " Ritorna a tua scienza, 
 Che vuol, quanto la cosa e piu perfetta 
 Piu senta '1 bene, e cosi la doglienza." 
 
 Inf. vi. 106. 
 
 2 1 Cor. vii. 35. 
 
XVII.] The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 343 
 
 an end which true philosophy must desire — the extinction 
 of the human race. 1 And other and far graver practical 
 inferences too naturally follow — inferences as to which 
 charity and reverence would alike suggest silence, at least 
 here and now. 
 
 Certainly, since the death of its projector, this singular 
 fabric of speculation, or parts of it, has been modified or 
 discredited, and indeed by some of its prominent adherents. 2 
 The wisdom of all philosophies which would dethrone or 
 supersede God is to keep rigidly to negative statements ; 
 when once they venture to advance a positive doctrine .as 
 to the origin or nature of the universe or of life, they are 
 in a fair way to get into difficulties, and, if experience may 
 be trusted, these difficulties will certainly be pointed out 
 without the intervention of Christian apologists. Indeed, 
 as we Christians look on, w T e are reminded of the boy on 
 the sea-sands in the Iliad : — 
 
 ws ore Tts ^\ra\xaQov Trai's o.y\ L Oakd(T(rrjs, 
 00V l—ei ovv —oiqcnj dOvpi-Lara vqrr tez/crtv, 
 a\fr avns ^vvkyeve Trcxriv koll xe/Dcrtv advptav. 
 
 And yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that 
 a theory which some few years since fascinated large 
 classes in educated Germany has as yet been forgotten, or 
 that it has had no influence on English thought. In its 
 original form, indeed, it is as little likely to command 
 wide sympathy in England as is the Indian doctrine 
 which it virtually recommends. But the educated world 
 of Europe is too much of a unity for any powerful influence 
 to be entirely localized ; the practical results of a theory 
 may be accepted in quarters where its specific form would 
 be exceedingly unwelcome. The heavy ground-swell tells 
 
 1 Revue des Dcuz-Jlondes, ubi supra. 
 
 2 Even Hartmann rejects Schopenhauer's doctrine of the purely nega- 
 tive character of pleasure. 
 
344 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. [Serm. 
 
 the voyager across the Atlantic of a distant hurricane, 
 whose violence indeed he has escaped, but which still costs 
 him a full measure of inconvenience. A sullen discontent 
 with the general conditions of existence is not the less 
 influential because the genius of a practical people does 
 not care to decorate it with the formal completeness of a 
 paradoxical theory ; rather among us it is like the under- 
 tone of sadness which lay in weird mockery beneath the 
 bright surface of the old Greek life, and its reappearance is 
 marked by the very symptoms which before accompanied 
 it at the date of the Eenaissance. Both in Germany and 
 England the increase of suicide in the educated classes has 
 of late years been unhappily notorious; and while this 
 deplorable fact may be partly explained by reference to 
 other causes, it can scarcely be doubted that dissatisfaction 
 with the conditions of an existence from which God is 
 presumed to have been banished by modern speculation, is 
 the most powerful agency. Yes, brethren, depend on it, 
 it is the thought of a Just and Merciful God, and all 
 that that thought implies, which makes life tolerable if 
 we allow ourselves to think what life is. If the souls 
 of men in our day are often cast down and their hearts 
 disquieted; if a nightmare such as I have referred to, 
 giving itself the airs of a philosophy, is not without 
 influence, subtle but strong, upon a practical and instructed 
 generation like our own, it is because He has been lost 
 sight of, or put out of sight, in Whom we live and move 
 and have our being ; He Who has indeed given us life, not 
 because He needed us, but out of His Own abounding 
 goodness ; He in Whose service alone we can hope to find 
 the secret of our happiness and peace ; He Whom Chris- 
 tians know and love as a Father through union with His 
 Son Jesus Christ. To live beneath the smile of our 
 Father in Heaven is to understand both the worth of life 
 and the worth of theories which disparage it. 
 
XVII.] The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 345 
 
 III. 
 
 But the answers to the Psalmist's question which 
 are more commonly and truly given are independent of 
 the peculiarities of temperament and of the eccentricities 
 of thought. 
 
 There is, first of all, temporal misfortune. The troubles 
 of life do weigh the soul down. The years as they pass 
 bring shocks and heartaches ; and these do not leave us 
 as we were. First this, then that object, which we had 
 hoped to compass, is seen to be beyond our reach. First 
 this and then that friend of our youth and manhood, or 
 it may be a wife or a son, disappears from view, and goes 
 on his way to the last account. There are warnings 
 too which we cannot mistake that for us who remain the 
 time is short, and that already we carry about in ourselves 
 the presentiment of what is coming. Young men do not 
 feel this, but they will not have long to wait before they do. 
 It were needless to speak of trials of exceptional severity, of 
 the misconduct of those who are nearest and dearest, of 
 the cruel injustice of trusted friends, of the mental anguish 
 which in sensitive natures may be worse, far worse, than 
 death. 
 
 Trouble is no new visitant ; it has waited on human life 
 throughout the centuries. That man is born to it, as the 
 sparks fly upwards, is not the judgment of yesterday. 
 And it does depress and disturb the soul. So it was with 
 the patriarch when he believed that a wild beast had rent 
 his son in pieces ; so it was with Eizpah, the daughter of 
 Aiah, when she kept watch by night and by day over the 
 mangled bodies of her children ; so it was with Hezekiah 
 in his sickness when death seemed near at hand, and he 
 turned his face to the wall and wept sore ; so it was with 
 the captives in Babylon when they sat down by the waters 
 
34^ 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. [Serm. 
 
 and remembered Sion. Sorrow is but a phrase until we 
 have known it as an experience ; and when it does come, 
 the mass of men give way to it and are for the time over- 
 come by it. 
 
 There have been philosophers, no doubt, who in this 
 and other matters have tried to reason Nature out of 
 Nature's ways, and have succeeded in violently dislodging 
 her for a while from the human soul, even though at last 
 she has come back with a bound to reassert her ancient 
 instincts. And treatises have been written on virtues 
 achieved by the practical extinction of feeling ; treatises 
 which the world still reads for the beauty of their 
 language, or from respect for the character of their authors. 
 Nor may we forget some great and noble men, appearing 
 from time to time in the old heathen ages, who have dis- 
 played the courage which does not shrink from sorrow, 
 and which yet is not overcome by it. 
 
 But the rule is that trouble does crush man, unless man 
 can lay strong hold on One Who altogether transcends 
 human life and its vicissitudes. Trouble is indeed His 
 messenger ; it is an invitation to make friends with Him ; 
 it robs life of its radiance and its vigour, while, stripping 
 it of its tinsel and unreality, it leaves man face to face with 
 the weakness, the nothingness of the unassisted soul. And 
 surely its work, being thus a proclamation of naked truth, 
 is also a work of true mercy ; so that " whom the Lord 
 loveth He chasteneth," and "if ye be without chastise- 
 ment, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and 
 not sons." 1 
 
 There was lately one among us, the bearer of a great 
 name, and who has been suddenly withdrawn, in whom 
 this law was conspicuously illustrated. 2 To him trouble 
 
 1 Heb. xii. 6, 8. 
 
 2 Philip Edward Tusey died at Christ Church, January 14, 1880, aged 
 forty-nine. 
 
XVII.] The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 347 
 
 came early, and in such fashion and such force that most 
 men would have sunk under it, or at any rate would have 
 persuaded themselves that it more than justified a life of 
 despairing apathy. He too was keenly alive to what he 
 might have been, to what he was, to what others were, who, 
 being his contemporaries and his inferiors, passed before 
 him in the race of life ; but he never was heard to wish 
 that God's will respecting him had not been what it really 
 was. If he could not hold much converse with living 
 men, he could and did converse much with God, and with 
 the great minds of other days in books. 'He has left behind 
 him work to which scholars only can do justice ; work 
 which will outlive much of which the world hears and talks 
 more ; work which was done, as from first to last his life 
 was lived, in the hope of no human reward, but as an 
 expression of that tranquil confidence in God which made 
 existence not merely tolerable, but bright and thankful. 
 As he passes from our sight and we follow him with our 
 prayers and hopes, we understand how life may be en- 
 riched by trouble ; how the house of mourning may be 
 better than the house of feasting; nay, why, when the 
 Immaculate Himself deigned to come anions: us. He was 
 yet made perfect through suffering, 1 though after a manner 
 and measure that sinners may not comprehend. The sun, 
 as he dips beneath the ocean in a cloudless sky, displays a 
 splendour with which nothing else in nature can compare; 
 and yet in our eyes his glory is fairer and more persuasive 
 when he sinks amid clouds which he bathes through and 
 through with rays of fire, — clouds which linger over his 
 resting-place, like the tragic memories of a human life, in 
 pathetic and fading beauty, to tell us what he was and is 
 whom we no longer see. 
 
 More depressing still is spiritual trouble, such as 
 some of the best Christians have known, when Gods 
 
 1 Heb. ii. 10; v. S, 9. 
 
34§ 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. [Serm. 
 
 face is hidden from the soul; when there seems to 
 be no light in the understanding, no warmth in the 
 heart, no vigour in the will; when the habit of prayer 
 is maintained, if it is still maintained, as a mechanical 
 effort; when religious language is still used, but as a 
 talisman which has lost its force; when everything seems 
 hollow, unreal, cold, and dead. " Thou didst turn Thy face 
 from me, and I was troubled." It may be penal, this over- 
 clouding of the heavens ; it may be that the service of God 
 in bygone times has been tainted by a subtle penetrating 
 selfishness, and that prayer and duty have been valued 
 more for the pleasure they yielded to the servant than for 
 the sake of that Lord Who is their rightful Object. To 
 teach men to serve Him for His Own Sake He may well 
 make His service for a while dreary and unattractive ; the 
 exile beyond the Jordan may be surer of his motives 
 than the Levite rejoicing in the temple courts. But such 
 a visitation may also have a very different meaning; 
 we remember Who it was that, as He hung dying upon 
 the Cross, made those ancient words His Own, " My 
 God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 1 The 
 temptations of a time of trouble are obvious. Many a man 
 will say to himself that his religion was but a passing 
 phase of feeling, and that it has worn itself out; that the 
 illusion has had its day, and that he now sees through it 
 in the light of experience. And yet what is this but to 
 mistake an act of Divine discipline for a collapse of truth? 
 " Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? 0 put thy trust 
 in God." Cling to Hi's Hand, though He lead thee 
 through the darkness. Say with an old servant of His, 
 " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 2 Give up 
 nothing that has bound thee to Him or that has done Him 
 service in former years, though for the time it be reft of 
 comfort, or even of meaning. Who would cut off the 
 
 1 Ps. xxii. i. 2 Job xiii. 15. 
 
XVII.] The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 349 
 
 limbs of a man because they are numbed by the frost ? 
 Depend on it, in His good time He will not fail thee ; the 
 longest night is followed by the dawn; He "will bring 
 thee forth to the light, and thine eyes shall behold His 
 Eighteousness." 1 
 
 Lastly, there is the sense of unforgiven sin. Much more 
 reasonably than temporal misfortune or spiritual dis- 
 couragement may this depress us. To know that we are 
 parted from the perfect Moral Being, in union with Whom 
 is peace and joy, by acts or states of mind which He must 
 condemn, is most assuredly to be cast down and disquieted 
 if we think at all. Sin is the true, the deepest secret of the 
 gloom of the soul. Most of us know something of the subtle 
 temptation to make moral disease respectable or interesting 
 by representing it to ourselves or to others as constitutional 
 temperament or as intellectual difficulty; some of us, 
 perhaps, can drown the plaintive murmur that is heard 
 within by such boisterous levities as may last while health 
 and strength permit, till at last a wail of agony, that sounds 
 in every recess of the soul, recalls to us our real condition. 
 In any case the words still hold good, that " while I held 
 my tongue my bones consumed away through my daily 
 complaining; for Thy hand is heavy upon me day and 
 night." 2 And only when we have learned to say, "Try me, 
 0 Lord, and seek the ground of my heart ; prove me, and 
 examine my thoughts ; look well if there be any way of 
 wickedness in me. and lead me in the way everlasting," 3 are 
 we entering on the course which will lift up and calm the 
 soul. If indeed it could be otherwise, so that sin were com- 
 patible with true and lasting joy and peace, the Maker of 
 this world would not be the Perfect Moral Being that He 
 is, but rather some evil workman, such as was conceived 
 of old by Manichsean or Gnostic fancy; and Religion, 
 instead of being the friend and patroness of morality, 
 
 1 Micah vii. 9. - Ps. xxxii. 3, 4. a Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. 
 
35o 
 
 The Cure of Low Spirits. 
 
 would be its worst foe. And yet when this is understood 
 "Hope in the Lord" is still the counsel of the truest 
 wisdom. If He is the Judge, He is also the Physician ; 
 if He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, yet He 
 is not willing that any should perish. " If we say that 
 we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not 
 in us ; but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to 
 forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
 ness." 1 For there is "a fountain opened for sin and for 
 uncleanness," 2 and "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son 
 cleanseth us from all sin." 3 
 
 There are many secrets that are worth knowing, but none 
 surely can better deserve our attention than the secret of the 
 peace and joy of the soul. And there are many solemn 
 words which reveal to us, in a sincere use of them, some 
 features of our real condition ; but nothing, perhaps, tells 
 us more truly what and where we are than our power or 
 our difficulty of saying, with perfect deliberation, these 
 words of the General Thanksgiving, " We bless Thee for 
 our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life ; 
 but above all for Thine inestimable love in the redemption 
 of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means 
 of grace, and for the hope of glory." 
 
 1 i St. John i. 8, 9. 2 Zech. xiii. 1. 3 1 St. John i. 7. 
 
Afril, 1880. 
 
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 Vol. II. — Epistles, Apocalypse, and Index. 37^ 
 
 Notes on the Greek Testament. The 
 
 Gospel according to S. Luke. By the Rev. Arthur Carr, 
 M.A., Assistant-Master at Wellington College, late Fellow of 
 Oriel College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 "It is a most useful and scholarly historical and archceological inform a- 
 
 ivork, well adapted to the higlier classes Hon is supplied plentifully when need- 
 
 of public schools and the students at ful to illustrate a passage ; the drift of 
 
 our colleges." — Standard. a narrative or discourse and t/te se- 
 
 " The notes are brief, scholarly, and quence of t/te t/wughts is traced out and 
 
 based on the best authorities. . . . carefully analysed ; in short, the 
 
 The introduction will be found to be of Gospel is treated as we treat a classical 
 
 especial value to the young student, in- author, and the student is here supplied 
 
 forming him, as it does, of the Greek with an apparatus criticus superior in 
 
 manuscripts whichform the basis of t/te kind a?id completeness to any we have 
 
 Greek text, and giving a most thorotigh ever seen afforded to him for the pur- 
 
 and comprehensive account of S. pose elsewhere. A very clever and tak- 
 
 Luke's life and the style of his writ- iug book." — Literary Churchman. 
 ing."— School Board Chronicle. "Admirably adapted for the use of 
 
 " Grammatical peculiarities are those who begin the study of the New 
 
 brought into the foreground, and co?i- Testament in the original after having 
 
 trasted with classical usages ; questions acquired a fair acquaintance with 
 
 of various reading are carefully noted; classical Greek." — Scotsman. 
 
 Waterloo piac*, Honooti 
 
The Holy Scriptures 
 
 9 
 
 The Annotated Bible, being a House- 
 hold Commentary upon the Holy Scriptures, comprehending 
 the Results of Modern Discovery and Criticism. By the Rev. 
 John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., Editor of 44 The Anno- 
 tated Book of Common Prayer,'' 44 The Dictionary of Theo- 
 logy," etc. etc. Three Vols. Demy 4to, with Maps, etc. 
 Vol. I. (66S pages.)— Containing the GENERAL INTRO- 
 DUCTION, with Text and Annotations on the Books 
 from GENESIS to ESTHER. 6 J. 
 
 Vol. n. (720 pages.)— Completing the OLD TESTAMENT 
 and APOCRYPHA. 31* 6d. 
 
 This Work has been written with the object of providing for educated readers 
 a compact intellectual exposition of the Holy Bible, in which they may find such 
 explanations and illustrations of the Sacred Books as will meet the necessities of 
 the ordinary, as distinguished from the laboriously learned, inquirer of the present 
 day. Great care has been taken to compress as much information as possible into 
 the Annotations by condensed language, by giving the results of inquiry without 
 adding the detailed reasonings by which those results have been arrived at. by 
 occupying scarcely any space with controversy, and by casting much matter into 
 a tabular form. 
 
 Every book has an Introduction prefixed to it, which gives some account of its 
 authorship, date, contents, object, and such other particulars as will put the 
 reader in possession of the best modern conclusions on these subjects. The 
 Annotations are also illustrated by text maps and other engravings when neces- 
 sary, and full-page coloured maps are added for the general illustration of Bibli- 
 cal Geography from the best authorities. 
 
 The Commentary is preceded by a General Introduction, which contains chap- 
 ters on the Literary History of the Bible (illustrated by engraved facsimiles, and 
 by specimens of English Bibles from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries), on 
 the trustworthiness of the Bible in its existing form, the revelation and inspiration 
 of Holy Scripture, the interpretation of Holy Scripture, and the liturgical use of 
 the Bible. There are also special Introductions to the New Testament and the 
 Apocrypha. 
 
 " We do not know any one publi- tion to each book, and in the notes , 
 cation in which the great mass of facts which are more extensive l/ian the 
 relating to the language, the trans- sacred text, the Bible is treated as a 
 cription, the versions, and the extant literary book o?i its human side, and 
 copies of the Bible is contained in a as a completely inspired autJiority on 
 form at once so comprehe?isive , so brief its Divine side. Criticism, exegetics, 
 and succinct, and so pleasant to peruse, and dogmatics, meet in a more Jiar- 
 . . . The annotation all through is monious unity than we /tave yet seen in 
 iust what it should be, brief, sug- the work of any one autlior on Scrip- 
 gestive, and clear"' — Church Qvar- ture." — Edinburgh Daily Review, 
 terly Review. " The work, to tokichdke Editor must 
 
 " Only those who have made a reg- have devoted immense zeal and labour, 
 ular study of the subject can even promises to be, wfen completed, a val- 
 guess wJiat a quantity of reading uable addition to Biblical literature." 
 has been necessary to put before tJie — Manchester Examiner. 
 reader the results here set down." — " We are sure this 1 Annotated Bible' 
 Church Times. will be rapidly recognised as a very 
 
 "Alike in the critical introduction important and valuable aid for Bible 
 of eighty pages, in tlie introduc- readers." — Church Review. 
 
 anrj at ©ifortj arrti Cambridge 
 
IO 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 An Introduction to the Devotional 
 
 Study of the Holy Scriptures : with a Prefatory Essay on their 
 Inspiration, and specimens of Meditations on various passages 
 of them. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., Dean of 
 Norwich. Tenth Edition, revised and enlarged. Small 8vo. 
 6s. 6d. 
 
 " The value of this work is too well 
 known to need any notice on our part. 
 The sale of nine large editions is suf- 
 ficient evidence of its appreciation, hi 
 this, the tenth edition, the author has 
 added an essay on the Inspiration of 
 Scripture, and appended some medita- 
 tions originally printed in a detached 
 form. By so doing he has added to the 
 completeness, and therefore to the value 
 of the volume. It is strictly of a de- 
 votional character, though in saying 
 this we would not imply that the intel- 
 lectual element was at all wanted. In 
 its present form it will be welcomed by 
 the devout members of the Church, 
 and will assist in the devotional study 
 of the Word of God" — John Bull. 
 
 " WJien a book has reached its te7ith 
 edition little can be said in favour of its 
 usefulness. It has proved its value by 
 its popularity. This is the case with this 
 volume of Dean Goulburn' s. Still there 
 will be many who have not yet made 
 personal use of it, and to such we can 
 heartily recommend this new edition. 
 Previous to this issue, the whole work 
 has been thoroughly reconsidered and 
 revised, the essay on Inspiration re- 
 written, and a series of Meditations 
 added. The whole forms a most 
 desirable companion for all who seek 
 to attain to a greater knowledge of the 
 inner and spiritual teaching of Holy 
 Writ."— National Church. 
 
 The Microscope of the "New Testament. 
 
 By the late Rev. William Sewell, D.D., formerly Fellow 
 of Exeter College, sometime Professor of Moral Philosophy in 
 the University of Oxford, and Whitehall Preacher. Edited by 
 the Rev. W. J. Crichton, M.A. 8vo. 14^. 
 
 " The style of the book, in which the 
 results of the most scholarly investiga- 
 tions are set Jorth in comparatively 
 popular language, ought to recommend 
 it not otily to the systematic Biblical 
 student, but to the general reader 
 whose mind is capable of being attracted 
 by an earnest treatment of the grandest 
 subject to which the human intellect 
 can lead itself." — Manchester 
 Courier. 
 
 " Will be a work of deep interest to 
 reverent investigators of the Greek of 
 the sacred caiion. . . . Much light is 
 thrown on various coiitroverted pas- 
 sages of the New Testament, many 
 
 difficulties are removed, and many 
 obscure passages fully elucidated. We 
 may instance as truly valuable addi- 
 tions to Biblical criticism the essays on 
 " The Accounts of the Resurrection," 
 and " The Last Scenes of our Lord's 
 Life." Indeed, all earnest Biblical 
 scholars will do well to procure this 
 volume, and make it for a time their 
 constant companion. We venture to 
 think that when it has been so used, it 
 will for the future be kept within easy 
 reach for constant reference. It takes 
 a laborious lifetime to produce such 
 results as these." — National Church. 
 
 Waterloo $la«, Honoon 
 
The Holy Scriptures n 
 
 Analytical K"otes on Obadiah and 
 
 Habakuk, for the use of Hebrew Students. By the Rev. 
 William Randolph, M.A., of St. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge. 8vo. 5^. 6</. 
 
 " Slunu a thoughtful study of the origifial, show him to be a laborious 
 
 original, without the advantage of and conscientious worker." — Irish Ec- 
 
 viany moder?i appliances." — Academy, clesiastical Gazette. 
 
 "Mr. Randolph is filling up a "This is intended for the use of 
 serious gap in exegetical literature, Hebrew students, who will find here 
 and has attempted to do for individual valuable help in mastering the subtle 
 parts of the Hebrew Testament what niceties of diction, the emphatic forms, 
 Ellicott, Lightfoot, and others are and the artificial arrangement of sen- 
 doing for portions of the Greek Testa- tences, so characteristic of the original, 
 meut. lVe are glad to see he promises, The accuracy of its Hebrew scholar- 
 if encouraged, to follow this volume up ship, a?id its clear insight into the most 
 ' by others of a similar character.' abstruse difficulties of t/ie language 
 Mr. Randolph's accurate distinctions made use of by this prophetical writer, 
 of Hebrew words, and the pains he is render the work invaluable even to the 
 at to convey the true meaning of the scholar." — National Church. 
 
 The Psalms. Translated from the Hebrew. 
 
 With Notes, chiefly Exegetical. By William Kay, D.D., 
 
 Rector of Great Leghs, late Principal of Bishop's College, 
 
 Calcutta. Third Edition. 8vo. \2s. 6d. 
 
 " Like a sound Churchman, he make use of it." — British Quarterly 
 
 reverences Scripture, upholding its Review. 
 
 authority against sceptics; and he "T/te execution of the work is careful 
 
 does not denounce such as differ from and sc/iolarly." — Union Review. 
 
 him in opinion with a dogmatism un- " To mention the name of Dr. Kay 
 
 happily too common at the present day. is enough to secure respectful attention 
 
 He?ice, readers will be disposed to con- to his ?iew translation of tJie Psalms, 
 
 sider his co?iclusions worthy of atten- It is enriched with exegetical notes 
 
 Hon ; or perhaps to adopt tliem wit/iout containing a wealth of sound learning, 
 
 inquiry. 1 't is superfluous to say that closely occasionally , perhaps too closely 
 
 tlie translation is better and more condensed. Good care is taken of the 
 
 accurate on the wlwle than our received student not learned in Hebrew; we 
 
 one, or that it often reproduces the sense Iwpe the Doctors example will prevent 
 
 of tJie original happily." — Athenaeum, any abuse of this consideration, and 
 
 " Dr. Kay has profowui reverence stimidate tltose w/io profit by it to 
 
 for Divine truth, and exhibits con- follcnu him into the very text of the 
 
 siderable readi7ig, with tlie pozver to ancient Revelation." — John Bull. 
 
 Ecclesiastes : the Authorized Version, with 
 
 a running Commentary and Paraphrase. By the Rev. Thos. 
 Pelham Dale, M.A., Rector of St. Vedast with St. Michael 
 City of London, and late Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, 
 Cambridge. 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 atrtj at ©itorti anto (Eamfctfose 
 
i2 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Kuling Ideas in Early Ages and their 
 
 Relation to Old Testament Faith. Lectures delivered to 
 Graduates of the University of Oxford. By J. B. Mozley, D.D. , 
 late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity 
 in the University of Oxford. Second Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 "Has all the same marks of a " One of the most remarkable books 
 powerful and original mind which in the department of theology that has 
 we observed in the volume of Univer- appeared in the present generation, 
 sity Sermons. Indeed, as a continuous Dr. Mozley has won a place i?i the 
 study of the rudimentary conditions of foremost rank of t eligious philosophers, 
 human thought, even as developed . . . ft is a bold but successful attempt 
 under the immediate guidance of a to explain the peculiar morality recog- 
 Divine Teacher, this volume has a nised in certain transactions of the 
 higher intellectual interest tha?i the Old Testament upon rational grounds, 
 last. " — Spectator. For the first time in our experience we 
 
 " Canon Mozley' s volume must have viet with a satisfactory solution 
 undeniably, we think, stand in the of what all students of the Bible have 
 very front rank for its combination felt to be a most difficult problem. . . . 
 of philosophic breadth and depth of We commend Dr. Mozley s work as 
 insight, with a thoroughly reverent one which will acconiplish in our day 
 treatment of its subject. . . . Treated what Bishop Butler's did in his. It is 
 with great ability, and with much one which should be read and studied 
 richness of illustration. . . . They are by everybody." — Churchman (New 
 e7itirely worthy of those on which we York). 
 have commented." — Guardian. 
 
 A Companion to the Old Testament; 
 
 being a Plain Commentary on Scripture History, down to the 
 Birth of our Lord. Small 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 " A very compact summary of the 
 Old Testament ?iarrative,put together 
 so as to explain the co?mection and 
 bearing of its contents, and written in 
 a very good tone ; with a final chapter 
 on the history of the Jews between the 
 Old and New Testaments. It will be 
 found very useful for its purpose. It 
 does not confjie itself to merely chrono- 
 logical difficulties, but comments briefly 
 upon the religious bearing of the text 
 also. " — Guardian. 
 
 "A most admirable Companion to 
 the Old Testament, being far the most 
 concise yet complete commentary on 
 
 This will be found a very valuable 
 aid to the right understanding of the 
 Bible. It throws the whole Scripture 
 narrative into one from the creation 
 downwards, the author thus condensing 
 Prideaux, Shuckford, and Russell, 
 and in the most reverential manner 
 bringing to his aid the writings of all 
 modern annotators and chronologists. 
 The book is one that should have a 
 wide circulation amongst teachers 
 and students of all denominations." — 
 Bookseller. 
 
 " The handbook before us is so full 
 and satisfactory, considering its corn- 
 
 Old Testament history with which we pass, and sets forth the history of the 
 have met. Here are combined ortho- old cove?iant with such conscientious 
 doxy and learfiing, an intelligent and minuteness, that it cannot fail to prove 
 
 at the same time interesting summary 
 of the leading facts of the sacred story. 
 It should be a text-book in every school, 
 and its value is immensely enhanced 
 by the copious and complete index." — 
 John Bull. 
 
 a godsend to candidates for examina- 
 tion in the Rudimenta Religionis as 
 well as in the corresponding school at 
 Cambridge." — English Churchman. 
 
 TOatetloo Place, ILonton 
 
The Holy Scriptures 
 
 *3 
 
 A Key to the Narrative of the Four 
 
 Gospels. By the Rev. John Pilkington Norris, B.D., 
 Canon of Bristol, Vicar of St. Mary Redcliffe, and Examining 
 Chaplain to the Bishop of ^k^nchester. New Edition. Small 
 8vo. 2s. 6d. Also a Cheap Edition, is. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Keys to Christian Knowledge." 
 
 " This is very much the best book of 
 its kind we liave seen. The only fault 
 is its shortness, which prez'ents its going 
 into the details which would support 
 and illustrate its statements. It is, 
 however, a great improvement upon 
 any book of its kind we know. It bears 
 all the marks of being the condensed 
 work of a real scholar, and of a divine 
 too. The bulk of the book is taken up 
 with a ' Life of Christ,' compiled from 
 the Four Gospels, so as to exhibit its 
 steps and stages and salient points." — 
 Literary Churchman. 
 
 ** This book is no ordinary compen- 
 dium, no mere '■cram-book;' still less 
 is it an ordinary reading-book for 
 schools; but the schoolmaster, the 
 Sunday-school teacher, and tlie seeker 
 after a cotnprehensive knowledge of 
 Divine truth will find it worthy of its 
 name. Canon Norris writes simply, 
 reverently, without great display of 
 learning, giving the result of much 
 careful study in a short compass, and 
 
 adorning the subject by the tenderness 
 and honesty with which he treats it. 
 We hope that this little book will have 
 a very wide circulation, and that it 
 will be studied ; and we ca?i promise 
 tJiat those who take it up will not 
 readily put it down again." — Record. 
 " This is a golden little volume. 
 . . Its design is exceedingly mo- 
 dest. Canon Norris writes primarily 
 to help ' younger students' in studytng 
 tJie Gospels. But this unpretetiding 
 volume is one which all students may 
 study with advantage. It is an ad- 
 mirable manual for those who take 
 Bible Classes through the Gospels. 
 Closely sifted in style, so that all is 
 clear and weighty ; full of unostenta- 
 tious learning, and pregnant with 
 suggestion; deeply reverent and al- 
 together Evangelical in spirit ; Canon 
 Norris' s book supplies a real want, and 
 ought to be welcomedby all earnest and 
 devout students of the Holy Gospels." 
 — London Quarterly Reyiew. 
 
 A Key to the Narrative of the Acts of 
 
 the Apostles. By the Rev. John Pilkington Norris, B.D., 
 Canon of Bristol, Vicar of St. Mary Redcliffe, and Examining 
 Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. New Edition. Small 
 8vo. 2s. 6d. Also a Cheap Edition, is. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Keys to Christian Knowledge." 
 
 " The book is one which we can become a general favourite. The 
 
 heartily recommend."— -Spectator. sketch of the Acts of the Apostles is 
 
 "Few books have ever given us done in the same style; there is the 
 
 more unmixed pleasure than this." — same reverent spirit and quiet en- 
 
 Literary Churchman. thusiasm running through it, and the 
 
 " This is a sequel to Canon Norris s same instinct for seizing the leading 
 
 * Key to the Gospels,' which was pub- points in the narrative."— Record. 
 lis he d two years ago, and which has 
 
 anfc at ©iforb anto Cambrfoge 
 
i4 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 A Devotional Commentary on the 
 
 Gospel Narrative. By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. New Edition. 
 8 Vols. Crown 8vo. $s. each. Sold separately. Or the 
 Eight Volumes may be had in a Box, 4.5s. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLY GOSPELS. 
 
 Characteristic Differences in the Four Gospels — Our Lord's Manifestations of 
 Himself— The Rule of Scriptural Interpretation furnished by our Lord — 
 Analogies of the Gospel — Mention of Angels in the Gospels — Places of our 
 Lord's Abode and Ministry — Our Lord's mode of dealing with His 
 Apostles —Conclusion. 
 
 A HARMONY OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS. 
 
 Our Lord's Nativity— Our Lord's Ministry (second year)— Our Lord's Ministry 
 (third year) — The Holy Week — Our Lord's Passion — Our Lord's Resur- 
 rection. 
 
 OUR LORD'S NATIVITY. 
 
 The Birth at Bethlehem— The Baptism in Jordan— The First Passover. 
 
 OUR LORD'S MINISTRY (Second Year). 
 
 The Second Passover— Christ with the Twelve— The Twelve sent forth. 
 
 OUR LORD'S MINIS TR Y (Third Year). 
 
 Teaching in Galilee — Teaching at Jerusalem — Last Journey from Galilee to 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 THE HOLY WEEK. 
 
 The Approach to Jerusalem — The Teaching In the Temple — The Discourse on 
 the Mount of Olives — The Last Supper. 
 
 OUR LORD'S PASSION. 
 
 The Hour of Darkness— The Agony— The Apprehension— The Condemnation— 
 The Day of Sorrows — The Hall of Judgment— The Crucifixion— The 
 Sepulture. 
 
 OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION. 
 
 The Day of Days — The Grave Visited — Christ appearing — The going to 
 Emmaus — The Forty Days — The Apostles assembled — The Lake of 
 Galilee — The Mountain in Galilee— The Return from Galilee. 
 
 " There is not a better companion to Scripture from the writings of the 
 be found for the season than the beau- early Fathers, it is only what every 
 tiful ' Devotional Commentary on the student knows must be true to say, that 
 Gospel Narrative,' by the Rev. Isaac it extracts a whole wealth of meaning 
 Williams. A rich mine for devotional from each sentence, each apparently 
 and theological study." — Guardian. faint allusion, each word in the text" 
 
 "So infinite are the deptJis and so — Church Review. 
 innumerable the beauties of Scripture, "Stands absolutely alone in our 
 and 7tiore particularly of the Gospels, English literature ; there is, we should 
 that there is some difficulty in de- say, no chance of its being superseded 
 scribing the manifold excellences of by any better book of its kind; and its 
 Williams' exquisite Commentary. De- merits are of the very highest order. " 
 riving its profound appreciation of —Literary Churchman. 
 
 OTatftl00 place, SLonoon 
 
The Holy Scriptures 
 
 «5 
 
 WILLIAMS' DEVOTIONAL COMMENTARY— Continued. 
 
 " This is. in the truest sense of the "It would be difficult to select a more 
 
 word, a * Devotional Commentary' on useful present, at a small cost, t/ian 
 
 the Gospel narrative, opening out every- this series would be to a young man on 
 
 where, as it does, the spiritual beauties his first entering into Holy Orders, and 
 
 and blessedness of the Divitie message ; many, no doubt, will avail themselves 
 
 but it is something more Uian this, it of the republication of these useful 
 
 meets difficulties almost by anticipa- volumes for l/iis purpose. T lure is an 
 
 tion, and throws the light of learning abundance of sermon material to be 
 
 over some of the very darkest passages drawn from a?iy one of t/iern." — 
 
 in the Xew Testament."— Rock. Church Times. 
 
 Female Characters of Holy Scripture. 
 
 A Series of Sermons. By the Rev. Isaac Williams, 
 B.D., formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. New 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 5-f. 
 
 COXTEXTS. 
 
 Eve — Sarah — Lot's Wife — Rebekah— Leah and Rachel— Miriam— Rahab — De- 
 borah — Ruth— Hannah — The Witch of Endor — Eathsheba — Rizpah — The 
 Queen of Sheba — The Widow of Zarephath — Jezebel — The Shunammite 
 — Esther — Elizabeth — Anna — The Woman of" Samaria — Joanna — The 
 Woman with the Issue of Blood — The Woman of Canaan — Martha — Mary 
 —Salome— The Wife of Pilate— Dorcas— The Blessed Virgin. 
 
 The Characters of the Old Testament. 
 
 A Series of Sermons. By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. New Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 Adam — Abel and Cain — Noah — Abraham — Lot — Jacob and Esau — Joseph — 
 Moses — Aaron — Pharaoh — Korah, Dathan, and Abiram — Balaam- 
 Joshua — Samson — Samuel — Saul — David — Solomon — Elijah — Ahab — 
 Elisha — Hezekiah — Josiah — Jeremiah — Ezekiel — Daniel — Joel — Job — 
 Isaiah — The Antichrist. 
 
 The Apocalypse. With Notes and Re- 
 flections. By the Rev Isaac Williams, B.D., formerly 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. New Edition. Crown 
 8vo. 5.-. 
 
 Begimiing of the Book of Genesis, 
 
 with Notes and Reflections. By the Rev. Isaac Williams, 
 B.D., formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Small 
 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 anti at ©xfortj anti Cambridge 
 
1 6 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Short Notes on the Greek Text of 
 
 the Acts of the Apostles. By J. Hamblin Smith, M.A., of 
 Gonville and Caius College, late Lecturer in Classics at S. 
 Peter's College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 " This reprint of ttoies drawn up by the most successful commentators, 
 
 the editor for the use of his own pupils The classical and non-classical idioms 
 
 twelve years ago, will be found most are carefully explained, the histo- 
 
 useful by all young- students of the rical allusions fully illustrated, and 
 
 original text of the Book of the Acts, especial attention is given to deriva- 
 
 Believing that its author, in connection tion and technical scholarship, espe- 
 
 with his visit to Syracuse, studied the cially respecting the Greek synonyms, 
 
 accouyit of the Sicilian Expedition, tenses, and particles. The geography 
 
 Mr. Smith makes many refererices and Church history of the Acts have 
 
 to Thucydides, whose sixth book has a considerable attention given to them, 
 
 large manber of words and phrases in and in no other work on the subject 
 
 common with the Acts of the Apostles." intended for the young is this depart- 
 
 — Edinburgh Daily Review. merit of annotation wrought out so 
 
 " These notes are the product of a fully arid serviceably for the young." 
 
 careful study of t/ie most recent arid —School Board Chronicle. 
 
 Ecclesiastes for English Headers. The 
 
 Book called by the Jews Koheleth. Newly translated, with 
 Introduction, Analysis, and Notes. By the Rev. W. H. B. 
 PR03Y, M.A., formerly Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar in the 
 University of Cambridge. 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 The Ten Canticles of the Old Testa- 
 
 ment Canon, namely, the Songs of Moses (First and Second), 
 Deborah, Hannah, Isaiah (First, Second, and Third), Hezekiah, 
 Jonah, and Habakkuk. Newly translated, with Notes and 
 Remarks on their Drift and Use. By the Rev. W. H. B. 
 Proby, M.A., formerly Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar in the 
 University of Cambridge. 8vo. $s. 
 
 Genesis. With Notes. [The Hebrew Text, 
 
 with Literal Translation.] By the Rev. G. V. Garland, 
 M.A., late Vicar of Aslacton, Norfolk. 8vo. 21 j. 
 
 The Acts of the Deacons; being a 
 
 Commentary, Critical and Practical, upon the Notices of St. 
 Stephen and St. Philip the Evangelist, contained in the Acts 
 of the Apostles. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 Dean of Norwich. Second Edition. Small 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Waterloo $Iace, Hcnoon 
 
The Holy Scriptures 
 
 17 
 
 A Key to the Knowledge and Use of 
 
 the Holy Bible. By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., 
 F.S.A., Editor of the "Dictionary of Theology," &c. fee. New 
 Edition. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. Also a Cheap Edition, is. 6d. 
 Forming a Volume of " Keys to Christian Knowledge." 
 
 " Another of Mr. Blunt' s useful and New Testament. Lastly, there is a 
 
 workmanlike compilations, which will serviceable appendix of peculiar Bible 
 
 be most acceptable as a houseJiold book, words and their meanings." — Liter- 
 
 or in schools and colleges. It is a capi- aky Churchman. 
 
 talbook too for schoolmasters and pupil " We have much pleasure in recom- 
 
 teachers. Its subject is arranged mending a capital handbook by the 
 
 under the heads of— I. The Literary learned Editor of ' The Annotated 
 
 History of the Bible. II. Old Testa- Book of Common Prayer.'"— Church 
 
 ment Writers and Writings. III. Times. 
 
 New Testament ditto. IV. Revela- " Merits commendation, for tlte lucid 
 
 tion and Inspiration. V. Objects of and orderly arrangement in which it 
 
 t lie Bible. VI. Interpretation of ditto, presents a considerable amount of valu- 
 
 VII. The Bible a guide to Faith, able and interesting tnatter." — Re- 
 
 VIII. Tlie Apocrypha. IX. The cord. 
 Apocryphal Books associated with the 
 
 Daniel the Prophet: Nine Lectures 
 
 delivered in the Divinity School of the University of Oxford. 
 With copious Notes. By the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., Regius 
 Professor of Hebrew, Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Third 
 Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Commentary on the Minor Prophets ; 
 
 with Introductions to the several Books. By the Rev. E. B. 
 Pusey, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, Canon of Christ 
 Church, Oxford. 4to. 3 1 J-. 6d. 
 
 Parts I., II., III., IV., V, 5 s. each. Part VI., 6s. 
 
 The Mystery of Christ : being an Exa- 
 mination of the Doctrine contained in the First Three Chapters 
 of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. By 
 George Staunton Barrow, M.A., Vicar of Stowmarket. 
 Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 anb at ©iftirb anb Cambribcje 
 
iS 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Bible Eeadings for Family Prayer. 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. Ridley, M.A., Rector of Hambleden. 
 Crown 8vo. 
 
 Old Testament — Genesis and Exodus. 2s. 
 The Four Gospels, 3^. 6d. 
 
 St. Matthew and St. Mark. 2s. 
 St. Luke and St. John. is. 
 The Acts of the Apostles, 2s. 
 
 A Complete Concordance to the Old 
 
 and the New Testament ; or, a Dictionaiy, and Alphabetical 
 Index to the Bible, in two Parts. To which is added, a Con- 
 cordance to the Apocrypha. By Alexander Cruden, 
 M. A. With a Life of the Author, by Alexander Chalmers, 
 F.S. A., and a Portrait. Sixteenth Edition. 4to. 21s. 
 
 The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, its 
 
 Nature and Proof. Eight Discourses preached before the 
 University of Dublin. By William Lee, D.D., Archdeacon 
 of Dublin. Fourth Edition. 8vo. 15J. 
 
 On the Inspiration of the Bible. Five 
 
 Lectures delivered at Westminster Abbey. By Chr. Words- 
 worth, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln. Eighth Edition. Small 
 8vo. is. 6d., or in paper cover, If. 
 
 Syntax and Synonyms of the Greek 
 
 Testament. By the Rev. William Webster, M.A., late 
 Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. 8vo. 9-y. 
 
 Waterloo pace, Hottoon 
 
3. Detiotionai Ifflorfes 
 
 Library of Spiritual Works for English 
 
 Catholics. 
 
 Elegantly printed with red borders, on extra superfine toned 
 paper. Small 8vo. $s. each. 
 
 OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. In 4 Books. By 
 Thomas a Kempis. A New Translation. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR : Thoughts in Verse for the 
 Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year. 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT ; together with the Supple- 
 ment and the Path of Paradise. By Laurence Scu- 
 poli. A New Translation. 
 
 THE DEVOUT LIFE. By S. Francis de Sales, 
 Bishop and Prince of Geneva. A New Translation. 
 
 THE LOVE OF GOD. By S. Francis de Sales, 
 Bishop and Prince of Geneva. A New Translation. 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF S. AUGUSTINE. In 10 
 Books. A New Translation. 
 
 The Volumes can also be had in Morocco and other extra bindings. 
 
 Cheap Editions, yimo, cloth limp, 6d. each, or cloth extra, red 
 edges, is. each. 
 
 Of the Imitation of Christ. I The Hidden Life of the Soul. 
 
 The Spiritual Combat. Spiritual Letters of S. Francis de 
 
 The Christian Year. | Sales. 
 
 These Five Volumes, cloth extra, may be had in a Box, price ~s. 
 
 [Other Volumes are in preparation.] 
 
 anli at ©iforfc anti (Eambrttige 
 
20 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Child Samuel. A Practical and 
 
 Devotional Commentary on the Birth and Childhood of the 
 Prophet Samuel, as recorded in I Sam. i., ii. 1-27, iii. De- 
 signed as a Help to Meditation on the Holy Scriptures for 
 Children and Young Persons. By Edward Meyrick Goul- 
 burn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. Small 8vo. $s. 
 
 The Gospel of the Childhood : a Practi- 
 cal and Devotional Commentary on the Single Incident of our 
 Blessed Lord's Childhood (St. Luke ii. 41 to the end) ; designed 
 as a Help to Meditation on the Holy Scriptures, for Children 
 and Young Persons. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, 
 D.D., Dean of Norwich. Second Edition. Square crown 8 vo. 
 
 Thoughts on Personal Eeligion ; being 
 
 a Treatise on the Christian Life in its Two Chief Elements, 
 Devotion and Practice. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, 
 D.D., Dean of Norwich. New Edition. Small 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 Also a Cheap Edition, 3*. 6d. Presentation Edition, elegantly 
 printed on Toned Paper. Two vols. Small 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 The Pursuit of Holiness : a Sequel to 
 
 "Thoughts on Personal Religion," intended to carry the 
 Reader somewhat farther onward in the Spiritual Life. By 
 Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D. Sixth Edition. 
 Small 8vo. $s. Also a Cheap Edition, y. 6d. 
 
 Short Devotional Forms, for Morn- 
 ing, Night, and Midnight, and for the Third, Sixth, Ninth 
 Hours and Eventide of each Day of the Week. Arranged to 
 meet the Exigencies of a Busy Life. By Edward Meyrick 
 Goulburn, D.D. Fourth Edition. 32mo. u. 6d. 
 
 Waterloo $Iace, Honoon 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 21 
 
 The Star of Childhood : a First Book of 
 
 Prayers and Instruction for Children. Compiled by a Priest. 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., Rector of Clewer. 
 With Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Square i6mo. is. 6d. 
 
 The Way of Life : a Book of Prayers and 
 
 Instruction for the Young at School, with a Preparation for 
 Confirmation. Compiled by a Priest. Edited by the Rev. 
 T. T. Carter, M.A. Second Edition. i8mo. is. 6d. 
 
 The Path of Holiness : a First Book of 
 
 Prayers, with the Service of the Holy Communion, for the 
 Young. Compiled by a Priest. Edited by the Rev. T. T. 
 Carter, M.A. With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 
 i6mo. ij-. 6d.; cloth limp, is. 
 
 The Treasury of Devotion : a Manual of 
 
 Prayer for General and Daily Use. Compiled by a Priest. 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A. New Edition, in 
 Large Type. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 Smaller Edition. i8mo. is. 6d. ; cloth limp, is. , or 
 bound with the Book of Common Prayer, ^s. 6d. 
 
 The Guide to Heaven: a Book of Prayers 
 
 for every Want. (For the Working Classes.) Compiled by 
 a Priest. Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A. Seventh 
 Edition. i8mo. is. 6d. ; cloth limp, is. 
 
 Large -Type Edition. Crown 8vo. is. 6d. ; cloth limp, is. 
 
 Meditations on the Life and Mysteries 
 
 of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. From the French. 
 By the Compiler of " The Treasury of Devotion." Edited by 
 the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A. Crown 8vo. 
 
 Vol. I.— The Hidden Life of Our Lord. 3* 6d. 
 
 Vol. II.— The Public Life of Our Lord. 2 Parts. $s. each. 
 
 Vol. III.— The Suffering Life and the Glorified Life of Our 
 Lord. 3-r. 6d. 
 
 anti at ©xfrrtj anti ©amfctfoo;* 
 
22 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Prayers and Meditations for the Holy 
 
 Communion. By Josephine Fletcher. With a Preface by 
 C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 With red rubrics and borders. New Edition. Royal 32mo. 2s. 6d. 
 An Edition without the red rubrics. 32mo. Cloth limp. is. 
 
 " Devout beauty is the special char- 
 acter of this new manual, and it ought 
 to be a favourite. Rarely has it hap- 
 pened to us to meet with so remarkable 
 a combination of thorough practical- 
 ness with that almost poetic warmth 
 which is the highest flower of genuine 
 devotion."— Literary Churchman. 
 
 "The Bishop recommends it to the 
 newly confirmed, to the tender-hearted 
 and the devout, as having been com- 
 piled by a youthful person, and as 
 being marked by a peculiar ' fresh- 
 ness.' We have pleasure in second- 
 big the recommendations of the good 
 Bishop. We know of no more suitable 
 manual for the newly confirmed, and 
 nothing more likely to engage the 
 sympathies of youthful hearts. There 
 is a union of the deepest spirit of devo- 
 tion, a rich expression of experimental 
 life, with a due recognition of the 
 
 objects of faith, such as is not always 
 to be found, bitt which characterises 
 this manual in an eminent degree.'" — 
 Church Review. 
 
 " Among the supply of Eucharistic 
 Manuals, one deserves special atten- 
 tion and commendation. ' Prayers and 
 Meditations ' merits the Bishop of 
 Gloucester' s epithets of ' warm, devout, 
 and fresh. ' A nd it is thoroughly Eng- 
 lish Church besides." — Guardian. 
 
 " We are by no means surprised that 
 Bishop Ellicott should have been so 
 much struck with this little work, on 
 accidetitally seeing it in manuscript, 
 ixs to urge its publication, and to pre- 
 face it with his commendation. The 
 devotion which it breathes is truly fer- 
 vent, and the language attractive, and 
 as proceeding from a young person the 
 work is altogether not a little strik- 
 ing. " — Record. 
 
 Words to Take with Us. A Manual of 
 
 Daily and Occasional Prayers, for Private and Common Use. 
 With Plain Instructions and Counsels on Prayer. By W. E. 
 Scudamore, M.A., Rector of Ditchingham, and formerly 
 Fellow of S. John's College, Cambridge. Fifth Edition, 
 revised. Small 8vo. is. 63. 
 
 Sunday Evenings in the Family. 
 
 Being Expositions of the Gospels and Articles of the Church 
 of England. Small 8vo. y. 
 
 Private Devotions for School-boys ; 
 
 with Rules of Conduct. By William Henry, Third Lord 
 Lyttelton. New Edition. 32mo. 63. 
 
 Waterloo place, ILonoon 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 23 
 
 For Days and Years. A Book contain- 
 ing a Text, Short Reading, and Hymn for every Day in the 
 Church's Year. Selected by H. L. Sidney Lear. i6mo. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 "Here are no platitudes, no mere tents. The readings have been care- 
 ' e~oody' talk; there is in each day's fnlly selected 'from the writings of some 
 
 portion sound and healthful food for 
 the mind and soul, and also for the 
 imagination, whose need of support 
 and guidance is too often forgotten. 
 Text and comment and hymn are 
 chosen with a pure and cultured taste, 
 and by the rel/giotts earnestness whidi 
 they show, tend to develop it in the 
 reader. The book is, in fact, the best 
 of its kind we have ever seen, and for 
 the use of church people ought to super- 
 sede all others." — Literary Church- 
 man. 
 
 " Will be found exceedingly useful 
 to those w/10 thoughtfully read its con- 
 
 of the most eminent divines of ancient 
 and modern times with whose names 
 the majority of our readers will be 
 familiar. The compiler has displayed 
 considerable tact and judgment in 
 making judicious selections, and in the 
 general arrangeme7it of the contents. 
 This volume commends itself to the 
 consideration of all devoted members 
 of the Church." — Court Circular. 
 
 " We heartily commend both the plan 
 and the execution. . . . The author 
 has proved that good may be got from 
 me7i of the most diverse mijids." — 
 English Churchman. 
 
 A Selection from Pascal's Thoughts. 
 
 Translated by H. L. Sidney 
 on Dutch hand-made paper. 
 
 " We should think highly of the 
 spirituality and intellectual tastes of 
 the man or woman who turned to this 
 little book whenever the soul was 
 weary, or the mind dull, or the heart 
 careworn, or the spirit was aspiring? 
 — Edinburgh Daily Review. 
 
 " Makes a charming little volume. 
 Pascal is always of interest. . . . The 
 Selection has been made with taste." 
 — Examiner. 
 
 " Will be welcome as a gift-book, 
 and will e?irich and picrify the mind 
 of its readers, and suggests thoughts 
 especially valuable in time of per- 
 plexity and doubt, as indeed all times 
 
 Lear. Square i6mo. Printed 
 y. 6d. 
 
 are cu this troublous earth. The 
 simple-hearted, the learned, the witty, 
 and the devout, all may learn some- 
 thing from these thoughts, and will 
 certainly be the better for the learn- 
 ing." — John Bull. 
 
 "An unusually excellent specimen 
 of translation. [ The translator} has a 
 delicate sense for style, both French 
 and English; and has the still rarer 
 gift of perceiviiig and preserving in 
 the latter the literary equivalents of 
 the former language .... These 
 selections really put Pascal's thought 
 before us. " — Nation (New York). 
 
 Faith and Life : Readings for the greater 
 
 Holy Days, and the Sundays from Advent to Trinity. Com- 
 piled from Ancient Writers. By William Bright, D.D., 
 Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical 
 History in the University of Oxford. Second Edition. Small 
 8vo. 5 s. 
 
 anto at ©xtarti anto Cambridge 
 
24 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Daily Gleanings of the Saintly Life. 
 
 Compiled by C. M. S., with an Introduction by the Rev. M. 
 F. Sadler, M.A., Prebendary of Wells, and Rector of 
 Honiton, Devon. Small 8vo. %s. 6d. 
 
 "The meditations are entirely taken will bear comparison with the best of 
 
 from the works of "'the leading divines the manuals compiled from ancient 
 
 of the Great Catholic Revival in the sources. There is a wholesome Chztrch 
 
 Church of England in our own day.' of England tone about this volume not 
 
 The passages chosen are full of chas- always to be found in manuals of this 
 
 tened beauty and wise instruction, and description." — National Church. 
 
 Self-Renunciation. From the French. 
 
 With an Introduction by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 Rector of Clewer, Berks. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Also a Cheap Edition. Small 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 " It is excessively difficult to review portion of which is nozv, for the first 
 
 or criticise, in detail, a book of this 
 kind, and yet its abounding merits, its 
 practicalness, its searching good sense 
 and thoroughness, and its frequent 
 beauty, too, make us wish to do some- 
 thing more than announce its publica- 
 tion The style is eminently 
 
 clear, free from redundance and pro- 
 lixity.'" — Literary Churchman. 
 
 " Few save Religious and those 
 brought into immediate contact with 
 
 time we believe, done into English. 
 . . . . Hence the suitableness of 
 such a book as this for those who, in 
 the midst of their families, are endea- 
 vouring to advance in the spiritual 
 life. Hundreds of devoid souls living 
 in the world have been encouraged and 
 helped by such books as Dr. Neale's 
 'Sermons preached in a Religious 
 House. ' For such the present work 
 will be found appropriate, while for 
 
 them are, in all probability , acquainted Religious themselves it will be invalu- 
 with the French treatise ofGuillorS, a able."— Church Times 
 
 Spiritual Guidance. With an Introduc- 
 tion by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., Rector of Clewer, 
 Berks. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Extract from Preface. 
 
 [" The special object of the volume is to supply practical advice in matters of 
 conscience, such as may be generally applicable. While it offers, as it is hoped, 
 much valuable help to Directors, it is full of suggestions, which may be useful to 
 any one in private. It thus fulfils a double purpose, which is not, as far as I am 
 aware, otherwise provided for, at least, not in so full and direct a manner."] 
 
 " As a work intended for general be found more or less applicable to all 
 
 use, it will be found to contain much persons amid the ordinary difficulties 
 
 valuable help, and may be profitably and trials of life, and a help to the 
 
 studied by any one who is desiring to training of the mind in habits of 
 
 make progress in spiritual life. Much self discipline." — Church Times. 
 of the contents of this little book will 
 
 Waterloo place, Honton 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 2 5 
 
 Voices of Comfort. Edited by the Rev. 
 
 Thomas Vincent Fosbery, M.A., sometime Vicar of St. 
 Giles's, Reading. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. 
 
 [This Volume, of prose and poetry, original and selected, aims at revealing the 
 fountains of hope and joy which underlie the griefs and sorrows of life. 
 
 It is so divided as to afford readings for a month. The key-note of each day 
 is given by the title prefixed to it, such as : 'The Power of the Cross of Christ, 
 Day 6. Conflicts of the Soul, Day 17. The Communion of Saints, Day 20. 
 The Comforter, Day 22. The Light of Hope, Day 25. The Coming of Christ, 
 Day 28.' Each day begins with passages of Holy Scripture. These are fol- 
 lowed by articles in prose, which are succeeded by one or more short prayers. 
 After these are Poems or passages of poetry, and then very brief extracts in 
 prose or verse close the section. The book is meant to meet, not merely cases of 
 bereavement or physical suffering, but 'to minister specially to the hidden 
 troubles of the heart, as they are silently weaving their dark threads into the web 
 of the seemingly brightest life.'] 
 
 Hymns and Poems for the Sick and 
 
 Suffering. In connexion with the Service for the Visitation of 
 
 the Sick. Selected from various Authors. Edited by the 
 
 Rev. Thomas Vincent Fosbery, M.A., sometime Vicar of 
 
 St. Giles's, Reading. New Edition. Small 8vo. 31. 6d. 
 
 [This Volume contains 233 separate pieces ; of which about 90 are by writers 
 who lived prior to the eighteenth century' ; the rest are modern, and some of 
 these original. Amongst the names of the writers (between 70 and 80 in number) 
 occur those of Sir J. Beaumont ; Sir T. Brown ; F. Davison ; Elizabeth of 
 Bohemia ; P. Fletcher ; G. Herbert ; Dean Hickes ; Bishop Ken ; Norris ; 
 Quarles ; Sandys; Bishop J. Taylor; Henry Vaughan ; and Sir H. Wotton. 
 And of modern writers : — Mrs. Barrett Browning ; Bishop Wilberforce ; S. T. 
 Coleridge ; Sir R. Grant ; Miss E. Taylor ; W. Wordsworth ; Archbishop Trench ; 
 Rev. Messrs. Chandler, Keble, Lyte, Monsell, and Moultrie.] 
 
 The Christian Tear : Thoughts in Verse 
 
 for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year. New 
 Edition, printed in large type. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 Elegantly printed with red borders. i6mo. 2s. 6d. Cheap 
 Edition, without the red borders, cloth limp, is. ; or in paper 
 cover, 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series." 
 
 Also New Editions, forming Volumes of the "Library of 
 Spiritual Works for English Catholics." Small 8vo. 5^. 
 32mo, cloth limp, 6d. ; cloth extra, is. [See page 19.] 
 
 antJ at ©iforti anto Cambritigs 
 
26 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Spiritual Letters to Men. By Arch- 
 
 bishop Fenelon. By the Author of 1 ' Life of Fenelon, ' 
 of S. Francis de Sales," &c. &c. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Life 
 
 "Clergy and laity alike will wel- 
 come this volume. Fettelon's religious 
 counsels have always seemed to us to 
 present the most remarkable combina- 
 tion of high principle and practical 
 common-sense, and nmu in this English 
 dress it is really wonderful how little 
 of the aroma of their original expres- 
 sion has evaporated. Elder clergy will 
 delight in comparing their own experi- 
 ences with Fenelon' s ways of trea ting 
 the several classes of cases here taken 
 in hand. To yoioiger clergy it will be 
 quite a series of specimen examples 
 how to deal with that which is daily 
 becoming a larger and larger depart- 
 ment of the practical work of any 
 really efficie?it clergyman, and laymen 
 will find it so straightforward and 
 intelligible, so utterly free from tech- 
 nicality, and jo entirely sympathetic 
 with a layman's position, that we hope 
 it will be largely bought and read 
 among them. A more useful work has 
 
 rarely been done than giving these 
 letters to English readers." — Church 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 " This volume should take a place 
 amongst the most precious of the 
 Christian classics." — Noncon form ist. 
 
 ' ' One of those renderings which by 
 faithfulness to their original, and the 
 idiomatic beauty of their style, are real 
 works of art in their way. It is not 
 too much to say that these Letters read 
 as if they had been first written in 
 English, and that by some master- 
 hand. . . . Of the whole book it would 
 be difficult to speak too highly." — 
 Literary Churchman. 
 
 ' ' Those who have the ' L ife of Fene- 
 lon ' by this author will not omit to 
 add his ' Spiritual Letters.' They are 
 U7iiq7ie for their delicacy and tender- 
 ness of sentiment, their subtle ana- 
 lysis of character, and deep insight 
 i?ito the human heart." — Church Ec- 
 lectic (New York). 
 
 Spiritual Letters to Women. By Arch- 
 bishop Fenelon. By the Author of ' ' Life of Fenelon, " ' ' Life 
 of S. Francis de Sales," &c. &c. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 "As for the ' Spiritual Letters' they 
 cannot be read too often, and each 
 time we take them up we see new 
 beauties in them. The tune to read, 
 them is in the early morning, wfieii 
 they seem to breathe the very atmos- 
 phere of heavefi, and have all the 
 fragrance of fresh spiritual thought 
 about them, as the flowers carry on 
 their bosom the early dew. A stillness 
 of devotion and wrapt contemplation 
 of God and of heaven ly things charac- 
 terizes every page." — Irish Ecclesias- 
 tical Gazette. 
 
 " Writing such as this will do more 
 to commend religion than all the vain 
 dogmatic thunder in which so many 
 of its professors i7idulge ; whilst the 
 sweet and tender piety which runs 
 
 through every page will impress the 
 reader with the highest conceivable re- 
 spect for the charade? of the aiithor." 
 —Morning Advertiser. 
 
 " This is an exceedingly well-got-up 
 edition, admirably translated, of Feu- 
 elon's celebrated 1 Spiritual Letters' 
 The translation is by the author of the 
 valuable Lives of Fenelon and Bossuet, 
 and forms a very suitable companion 
 to the previous work. Of the Letters 
 themselves, there is no need to speak. 
 The judgment to be formed of them 
 depends so much on the point of view 
 fro?n which they are regarded ; but 
 any one will be ready to admit the 
 beauty of their thoughts, the grace of 
 their tone, and the nobility of their 
 sen timen ts." — Examiner. 
 
 OTaterl00 place, ILorxocn 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 27 
 
 A Selection from the Spiritual Letters 
 
 of S. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. Trans- 
 lated by the Author of "Life of S. Francis de Sales," "A 
 Dominican Artist," &c. &c. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 "It is a collection of epistolary cor- 
 respondence of rare interest and excel- 
 lence. With those who have read the 
 Life, tfiere cannot but Iiave been a 
 strong desire to know more of so beauti- 
 ful a character." — Church Herald. 
 
 "A few months back we had the 
 pleasure of welcoming the Life of S. 
 Francis de Sales. Here is the pro- 
 mised sequel: — the 'Selection from his 
 Spiritual Letters' then announced: — 
 
 and a great boon it will be to many. 
 The Letters are addressed to people oj 
 all sorts: — to men and to women: — 
 to laity and to ecclesiastics, to people 
 living in the world, or at court, and 
 to the inmates of Religious Houses. 
 We hope that with our readers it 
 may be totally needless to urge such a 
 volume on their notice." — Literary 
 Churchman. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, forming a Volume of the " Library 
 of Spiritual Works for English Catholics." 32mo, cloth limp, 
 6d. ; cloth extra, is. [See page 19.] 
 
 A Manual for the Sick; with other 
 
 Devotions. By Lancelot Andrewes, D.D., sometime 
 Lord Bishop of Winchester. Edited with a Preface by H. P. 
 Liddon, D.D., Canon of St. Paul's. With Portrait. 
 Third Edition. Large type. 24mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Our Work for Christ among His 
 
 Suffering People. A Book for Hospital Nurses. By M. A. 
 
 Morrell. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 " The thoroughly sensible advice 
 contained in this book cannot fail to be 
 of the highest possible t(se ; indeed, the 
 whole work is so eminently practical , 
 and deserves such hearty recognition, 
 that we cordially recommend it, with 
 the hope that it may fi,7id its way into 
 the hands of all who minister to the 
 sick within our hospital wards. The 
 prayers at the end of the book seem ex- 
 actly suited to their pzirpose, dealing 
 as they do with the trials and neces- 
 sities of a nurse's daily life." — John 
 Bull. 
 
 " It should be in the hands of every 
 sick-nurse who desires to fulfil her 
 
 duties from the highest and holiest 
 motives." — Church Bells. 
 
 "Contains excellent advice on the 
 subject of nursing, with the aim oj 
 raising its lowliest duties to a standard 
 of high and holy motives." — Graphic. 
 
 " This excellent little book is in- 
 tended for a limited class of readers, 
 but the practical lessons it teaches on 
 how to sanctify the labour of nursing, 
 and how to overcome its difficulties, 
 may be read with profit by those who 
 are called oti to nurse as amateurs in 
 private homes, as well as by those who 
 have adopted the occupation as a pro- 
 fession." — Aunt Judy's Magazine. 
 
 anto at ©ifarti anto (Eamfcrftge 
 
28 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The English Poems of George Herbert, 
 
 together with his Collection of Proverbs, entitled Jacula 
 Prudentum. With red borders. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series. 
 
 " This beautiful little volume will 
 be found specially convenient as a 
 pocket manual. The ' Jacula Pru- 
 dentum? or proverbs, deserve to be 
 more widely known than they are at 
 present. In many copies oj George 
 Herberts writings these quaint say- 
 ings have been unfortunately omitted. n 
 — Rock. 
 
 " George Herbert is too much a house- 
 hold name to require any introduction. 
 It will be sufficient to say that Messrs. 
 Rivington have published a most com- 
 pact and convenient edition of the 
 poems and proverbs of this illustrious 
 English divine."— English Church- 
 man. 
 
 "An exceedingly pretty edition, the 
 most attractive form we have yet seen 
 from this delightful author, as a gift- 
 book."— -Union Review. 
 
 ' ' A very beautiful edition of the 
 quaint old English bard. All lovers 
 of the ' Holy ' Herbert will be grate- 
 ful to Messrs. Rivington for the care 
 and pains they have bestowed in supply- 
 ing them with this and withal con- 
 venient copy of poems so well known 
 and so deservedly prized." — London 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 "A very tasteful little book, and 
 will doubtless be acceptable to many. " 
 — Record. 
 
 " We commend this little book hear- 
 tily to our readers. It contains Her- 
 bert's English poems and the ' Jacula 
 Prudentum in a very neat volume, 
 which does much credit to the pub- 
 lishers; it will, we hope, meet with 
 extensive circulation as a choice gift- 
 book at a moderate price." — Christian 
 Observer. 
 
 A Short and Plain Instruction for the 
 
 better Understanding of the Lord's Supper ; to which is annexed 
 the Office of the Holy Communion, with proper Helps and 
 Directions. By the Right Rev. Thomas Wilson, D.D., 
 sometime Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man. Complete Edition, 
 in large type, with rubrics and borders in red. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, without the red borders, is, ; or in 
 paper cover, 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series." 
 
 " The Messrs. Rivington have pub- elegance in which this work is got up. 
 
 lisheda new a?id unabridged edition of — Press and St. James' Chronicle. 
 
 that deservedly popular work, Bishop "A departed Author being dead yet 
 
 Wilson on the Lord's Supper. . The speaketh in a way which will never be 
 
 edition is here presented in three forms, out of date; Bishop Wilson on the 
 
 suited to the various members of the Lord's Supper, published by Messrs. 
 
 household." — Public Opinion. Rivington, in bindings to suit all 
 
 " We cannot withhold the expression tastes and pockets." — Church Re- 
 
 of our admiration of the style and view. 
 
 Waterloo $Ia«, Eoncon 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 29 
 
 Of the Imitation of Christ. By 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. With Red borders. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, without the red borders, is.; or in 
 paper cover, 6d. ■ 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series." 
 
 Also a New Translation, forming a Volume of the "Library 
 of Spiritual Works for English Catholics." Small 8vo. $s. 
 32mo, cloth limp, 6d. ; cloth extra, is. [See page 19.] 
 
 Introduction to the Devout Life. 
 
 From the French of S. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince 
 of Geneva. A New Translation. With red borders. i6mo. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of * Rivington's Devotional Series." 
 
 Also a New Translation, forming a Volume of the "Library 
 of Spiritual Works for English Catholics." Small 8vo. $s. 
 [See page 19.] 
 
 The Love of God. By S. Francis de 
 
 Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. Small 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Forming a Volume of the "Library of Spiritual Works for 
 English Catholics." [See page 19.] 
 
 The Eule and Exercises of Holy Liv- 
 ing. By the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., sometime 
 Bishop of Down and Connor, and Dromore. With red borders. 
 i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, without the red borders, is. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series." 
 
 The Confessions of S. Augustine. In 
 
 10 Books. A New Translation. Small 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Forming a Volume of the " Library of Spiritual Works for 
 English Catholics. [See page 19.] 
 
 anti at ©ifort antJ Cambridge 
 
$o Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Spirit of S. Francis de Sales, Bishop 
 
 and Prince of Geneva. Translated from the French by the 
 Author of "The Life of S. Francis de Sales," "A Dominican 
 Artist," &c. &c. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 " S. Francis de Sales, as shown to hundred books — one only however still 
 us by the Bishop oj Belley, was clearly known to fame, the Spirit of S. Francis 
 as bright and lively a companion as de Sales, which has fairly eartted him 
 many a sinner of witty reputation. tJie title of the ecclesiastical Boswell." 
 He was a studetit of human nature on — Saturday Review. 
 the highest grounds, but he used his "An admirable translation of 
 knowledge for amusement as well as BisJwp Camus' well-known collection of 
 edification. Naturally we learn this sayings and opinions. As a whole, we 
 from one of his male friends rather can imagine no more delightful com- 
 than from his female adorers. This panion than ' The Spirit of S. Francis 
 friend is Jean-Pierre Camus, Bishop de Sales,' nor, we may add, a more 
 of Belley, author, we are told, of two useful one." — People's Magazine. 
 
 The Hidden Life of the Soul. By the 
 
 Author of "A Dominican Artist," "Life of Bossuet," &c. &c. 
 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, forming a Volume of the ' ' Library 
 
 of Spiritual Works for English Catholics. " 32mo. Cloth limp, 
 
 6d. ; cloth extra, is. [See page 19.] 
 " It well deserves the character in God as to make recovery easy and 
 given it of being ' earnest and sober,' sure." — Public Opinion.; 
 and 7iot ' sensational.' " — Guardian. " There is a wonderful charm about 
 " From the French of Jean Nicolas tltese readings — so calm, so true, so 
 Grou, a pious Priest, whose works tJwroughly Christian. We do not 
 teach resignation to the Divine will, know where they would come amiss. 
 He loved, we are told, to inculcate As materials for a consecutive series 
 simplicity, freedom from all af/ecta- of meditations for the faithful at a 
 tion and unreality, the patience and series of early celebrations they would 
 humility which are too surely grounded be excellent, or for jrrivate reading 
 in self-knowledge to be surprised at a during Advent or Lent." — Literary 
 fall, but withal so allied to confidence Churchman. 
 
 A Practical Treatise concerning Evil 
 
 Thoughts : wherein their Nature, Origin, and Effect are 
 distinctly considered and explained, with many Useful Rules 
 for restraining and suppressing such Thoughts ; suited to the 
 various conditions of Life, and the several tempers of Mankind, 
 more especially of melancholy Persons. By William Chil- 
 COT, M.A. New Edition. With red borders. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 Forming a Volume of 1 ' Rivington's Devotional Series. " 
 
 ESEaterkuj Pace, Hontion 
 
Devotional Works 31 
 
 The Devotional Birthday Book. [In- 
 tended to record the Birth of Relations and Friends. The 
 Birthdays of celebrated people are printed in the Diary, with 
 Devotional Extracts in Verse and Prose suitable to the season 
 of the year.] With red borders. i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series. 
 
 The Eule and Exercises of Holy 
 
 Dying. By the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., sometime 
 Bishop of Down and Connor, and Dromore. With red borders. 
 i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, without the red borders, is. 
 
 The ' Holy Living ' and the ' Holy Dying ' may be had 
 bound together in one Volume, 5*. ; or without the red 
 borders, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Rivington's Devotional Series." 
 
 Ancient Hymns. From the Roman 
 
 Breviary. For Domestic Use every Morning and Evening of 
 the Week, and on the Holy Days of the Church. To which 
 are added, Original Hymns, principally of Commemoration and 
 Thanksgiving for Christ's Holy Ordinances. By Richard 
 Mant, D.D., sometime Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. 5-r. 
 
 " Real poetry wedded to words that some of these translations with the 
 
 breathe the purest and the sweetest more modern ones of our own day. 
 
 spirit of Christian devotion. The While we have no hesitation in 
 
 translations from the old Latin Hym- awarding the palm to the latter, the 
 
 nal are close and faithful refiderings." former are an evidence of the earliest 
 
 — Standard. germs of that yearning of tlie devout 
 
 " As a Hymn writer Bishop Mailt mind for something better than Tate 
 
 deservedly occupies a prominent place and Brady, and which is now so richly 
 
 in the esteem of Churchmen, and we supplied" — Church Times. 
 doubt not that many will be the readers ''The translations are graceful, 
 
 who will welcome this new edition of clear, and forcible, and the original 
 
 his translations and original composi- hymns deserz>e the higJiest praise, 
 
 cions." — English Churchman. Bishop Mant has caught the very 
 
 " A new edition of Bishop Mant's spirit of true psalmody, and there is 
 
 'Ancient Hymns from the Roman a tufieful ring in his verses which 
 
 Breviary' forms a handsome little especially adapts them for congrega- 
 
 volume, and it is interesting to compare tional singing." — Rock . 
 
 anto at ©ifort anfc &amforii)ge 
 
32 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Consoling Thoughts in Sickness. 
 
 Edited by Henry Bailey, B.D. 
 paper cover, is. 
 
 Small 8vo. is. 6d.: or in 
 
 Consolatio; or, Comfort for the 
 
 Afflicted. Edited by the Rev. C. E. Kennaway. With a 
 Preface by Samuel Wilberforce, D.D., late Lord Bishop 
 of Winchester. New Edition. Small 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 The Armoury of Prayer. A Book of 
 
 Devotion. Compiled by Berdmore Compton, Vicar of All 
 Saints', Margaret Street. i8mo. 3.5-. 6d. 
 
 " It has a marked individuality of 
 its own, and will no doubt meet with 
 a certain number of persons — chiefly 
 men, it is probable — to whose spiritual 
 wants it is fitted above others. Those 
 — and their number is far larger than 
 is generally borne in mind — will find 
 here a manual rich and abundant in 
 its material for devotion, but remark- 
 ably modern in its tone— fitted to ex- 
 press the feelings and to interpret the 
 aspirations of a cultured dweller in 
 towns ; and it is emphatically a book 
 of and for the times." — Literary 
 Churchman. 
 
 " The great characteristic of the 
 book is its thorough reality. It puts 
 into the mouth of the worshipper words 
 which express, withoiit exaggeration, 
 what an earnest English Christian 
 would feel and desire. The language 
 is neither a reproduction of foreign or 
 mediceval sentiment nor an affected 
 reproduction of archaic forms, hit good 
 English of the Bible and Prayer Book 
 type. . . . IVe could not wish the book 
 to be different, and on the whole we 
 heartily recommend it as one of the 
 best we know." — Church Bells. 
 
 The Light ot the Conscience. By 
 
 the Author of "The Hidden Life of the Soul," &c. With an 
 Introduction by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., Rector of 
 Clewer, Berks. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 " // is a book of counsels for those "It consists of four-and-thirty short 
 
 who wish to lead a pious and godly life, chapters or readings, everyone of them 
 
 and may fill up a gap that has been full of quiet, sensible, practical advice, 
 
 felt since the external devotional habits and directiofis upon some one point of 
 
 of the advanced portion of the present Christian living or Christian feeling, 
 
 generation have so much altered from It is a very beautiful little book, and it 
 
 thoseof the last, that the books of counsel is a most thoroughly Christian little 
 
 previotisly in use are not deemed appli- book, and it is, moreover, what many 
 
 cable to those who follow the full teach- good books fall short of being, namely, 
 
 ings of the extreme ritualistic party, a very wise little book. Its calm, 
 
 for this book deals with the most 1 ad- gentle sagacity is most striking.' '— 
 
 vanced' customs."— Guardian. Literary Churchman. 
 
 Waterloo piacr, Honoon 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 55 
 
 A Manual of Devotion, chiefly for the 
 
 use of Schoolboys. By the Rev. William Baker, D.D., 
 Head Master of Merchant Taylors' School. With Preface by 
 J. R. Woodford, D.D., Lord Bishop of Ely. Crown i6mo. 
 Cloth limp. is. 6d. 
 
 Family Prayers. Compiled from various 
 
 Sources (chiefly from Bishop Hamilton's Manual), and arranged 
 on the Liturgical Principle. By Edward Meyrick Goul- 
 burn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. New Edition. Large type. 
 Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. Cheap Edition. i6mo. is. 
 
 Morning Xotes of Praise. A Series of 
 
 Meditations upon the Morning Tsalms. Dedicated to the 
 Countess of Cottenham. By Lady Charlotte-Maria 
 Pepys. New Edition. Small Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Quiet Moments ; a Four Weeks' Course 
 
 of Thoughts and Meditations before Evening Prayer and at 
 Sunset By Lady Charlotte-Maria Pepys. New Edi- 
 tion. Small Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 A Book of Family Prayer. Compiled 
 
 by Walter Farquhar Hook, D.D., F.R.S., late Dean of 
 Chichester. Eighth Edition, with Rubrics in Red. i8mo. 2s. 
 
 Aids to Prayer ; or, Thoughts on the 
 
 Practice of Devotion. With Forms of Prayer for Private Use. 
 By Daniel Moore, M. A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 
 and Vicar of Holy Trinity, Paddington. Second Edition. 
 Square 32mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 arrtt at ©xtrjrtJ antJ (Sarnkftofc 
 
34 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Words of the Son of God, taken 
 
 from the Four Gospels, and arranged for Daily Meditation 
 throughout the Year. By Eleanor Plumptre. Crown 8vo. 
 p. 6d. 
 
 " The quotations have been made 
 judiciously, arid contain much that is 
 valuable and practically useful. . . . 
 We sincerely unite with the compiler 
 i?i her desire that the plan adopted in 
 this volume may prove uscftil to its 
 readers." — Record. 
 
 " The authoress oj this volume has 
 woven together with loving care and 
 reverent hand the sayings of the Son 
 of God, and it will perhaps surprise 
 some of those who have not viewed our 
 
 Lord's words from this aspect to find 
 how complete a manual they make of 
 doctrine and practice. . . . We can 
 most cordially recommend this volume 
 to our readers, not only for personal 
 use, but for reading at morning and 
 eveniug prayer; while to tlie clergy it 
 will, we believe, be found to be a the- 
 saurus of golden sayings which will 
 be both suggestive and useful."- 
 Churchman's Shilling Magazine. 
 
 The Good Shepherd ; or, Meditations 
 
 for the Clergy upon the Example and Teaching of Christ. 
 By the Rev. W. E. Heygate, M.A., Rector of Brighstone. 
 Second Edition, revised. Small 8vo. $s, 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Thoughts on Meditation — Devotions Preparatory to Ordination — Early Life — 
 Temptation — Fasting — Prayer — Divine Scripture — Retirement — Frequent 
 Communion — Faith — Hope — Love — Preaching — Catechizing — Private 
 Explanation — Intercession — Bringing Christians to Holy Communion — 
 Preparation of those about to Communicate — Jesus absolving Sinners — 
 Jesus celebrating the Eucharist — Care of Children — Care of the Sick and 
 Afflicted — The Healing of Schism — Treatment of the Worldly — Treatment 
 of Penitents — Care of God's House — Fear and Fearlessness of Offence — 
 Bearing Reproach — Bearing Praise — Seeking out Sinners — Sorrow over 
 Sinners — Consoling the Sorrowful — Rebuke — Silence — Disappointment — 
 Compassion — Refusing those who suppose Godliness to be Gain — Peace- 
 giving — Poverty— Opportunities of Speech — With Christ or Without — 
 Watchfulness — In what to Glory — The Salt which has lost its Savour 
 — Hard Cases — Weariness — * Falling Back — Consideration for Others — 
 Love of Pre-eminence — The Cross my Strength — The Will of God — The 
 Fruit of Humiliation — The Praise of the World the Condemnation of God 
 — Jesus rejoicing — Work while it is Day — Meeting again — The Reward. 
 Further Prayers suitable to the Clergy — Prayer for the Flock — A General 
 Prayer — Celebration of the Holy Eucharist — Preaching — Visitation. 
 
 The Virgin's Lamp : Prayers and Devout 
 
 Exercises for English Sisters. By the Rev. J. M. Neale, 
 D.D., late Warden of Sackville College, East Grinsted. 
 Small 8vo. 6d. 
 
 Waterloo Place, ILontion 
 
Devotional Works 
 
 35 
 
 The Guide of Life : a Manual of 
 
 Prayers for Women ; with the Office of the Holy Communion, 
 and Devotions. By C. E. SKINNER. Edited by the Rev. John 
 Hewett, M. A., Vicar of Babbacombe, Devon. Crown i6mo. 
 2s. 6a. 
 
 " Clergymen will be glad to know of tended." —Church Quarterly Re- 
 this little manual as one which they view. 
 
 may most safely put into t/ie hands of ** A very excellent manual for single 
 intelligent women of the better class of young women. Tike prayers are 
 those who have to work for their marked with a strong common-sense 
 living. It is very complete in its tone which is especially commendable.' 
 scope, and it is not only a manual of — Church Times. 
 
 devotions, but is really what it is en- " Well-selected prayers and hymns 
 titled, 'a Guide of Life? and is evidently for all estates and conditions of woman- 
 the work of one wlio tlwroughly under- kind. It is earnest, devout, and 
 stands the needs and the trials of the withal, sober and loyal in its tone." — 
 important class for which it is in- John Bull. 
 
 Sickness; its Trials and Blessings. 
 
 Fine Edition. Small 8vo. $s. 6d. Cheap Edition, is. 6d. ; 
 or in paper cover, is. 
 
 Help and Comfort for the Sick Poor. 
 
 By the same Author. New Edition. Small Svo. is. 
 
 Prayers for the Sick and Dying. By 
 
 the same Author. Fourth Edition. Small 8vo. is. 6d. 
 
 From Morning to Evening : a Book for 
 
 Invalids. From the French of M. l'Abbe Henri Perreyve. 
 Translated and adapted by an Associate of the Sisterhood of 
 S. John Baptist, Clewer. New Edition. Crown Svo. $s. 
 
 Vita et Doctrina Jesu Christi; or, 
 
 Meditations on the Life of our Lord. By AVANCINI. In the 
 Original Latin. Adapted to the use of the Church of England 
 by a Clergyman. i8mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 auti at (Diforli anfc (Eamfcrftcje 
 
36 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Mysteries of Mount Calvary. 
 
 Translated from the Latin of Antonio de Guevara. Edited by 
 the Rev. Orby Shipley, M. A. Square crown 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 Counsels on Holiness of Life. Trans- 
 lated from the Spanish of "The Sinner's Guide" by Luis de 
 Granada. Edited by the Rev. Orby Shipley, M. A. Square 
 crown 8vo. 5^. 
 
 Preparation for Death. Translated from 
 
 the Italian of Alfonso, Bishop of S. Agatha. Edited by the 
 Rev. Orby Shipley, M.A. Square crown 8vo. jjj. 
 
 Examination of Conscience upon Special 
 
 Subjects. Translated and abridged from the French of Tron- 
 son. Edited by the Rev. Orby Shipley, M.A. Square 
 crown 8vo. 5^. 
 
 Christian Watchfulness, in the Pros- 
 pect of Sickness, Mourning, and Death. By John James, 
 D.D., sometime Canon of Peterborough. New Edition. 
 i2mo. 2 s ' 
 
4. Iparisfc moth. 
 
 The Book of Church Law. Being an 
 
 Exposition of the Legal Rights and Duties of the Clergy and 
 Laity of the Church of England. By the Rev. John Henry 
 Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. Revised by Walter G. F. Philli- 
 more, D.C.L., Barrister-at-Law, and Chancellor of the Diocese 
 of Lincoln. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I.— The Church and its Laws. — The Constitutional Status of the 
 Church of England — The Law of the Church of England — The Administra- 
 tion of Church Law. 
 
 BOOK II.— The Ministrations of the Church.— Holy Baptism— Confirma- 
 tion — The Holy Communion — Divine Service in General — Holy Matrimony 
 — The Churching of Women — The Visitation of the Sick — The Practice of 
 Confession — The Burial of the Dead. 
 
 BOOK III.— The Parochial Clergy.— Holy Orders— Licensed Curates— The 
 Cure of Souls. 
 
 BOOK IV.— Parochial Lay Officers.— Churchwardens— Church Trustees- 
 Parish Clerks, Sextons and Beadles — Vestries. 
 
 BOOK V.— Churches and Churchyards.— The Acquisition of Churches and 
 Churchyards as Ecclesiastical Property — Churches and Ecclesiastical Persons 
 — Churches and Secular Persons. 
 
 BOOK VI.— The Endowments of the Parochial Clergy.— Incomes- 
 Parsonage Houses — The Sequestration of Benefices. 
 
 APPENDIX.— The Canons of 1603 and 1865— The Church Discipline Act of 1840 
 — The Benefices Resignation Act of 1871 — The Ecclesiastical Dilapidations 
 Act of 1871 — The Sequestration Act of 1871— The Public Worship Regula- 
 tion Act of 1874 — Index. 
 
 " We Jiave tested this work on various stand on every clergyman's slielves 
 
 points of a crucial character, and Jiave ready for use what any legal matter 
 
 found it very accurate a?id fidl in its arises about which its possessor is in 
 
 information. It embodies tJie results doubt. . . . It is to be hoped that 
 
 of the most recent Acts of tJie Legis- tJie autJwrities at our Theological 
 
 lature on the clerical profession ana Colleges sufficiently recognize tJie value 
 
 tJie rights of tJie laity." — Standard. of a little legal ktunuledge on tJie part 
 
 "Already in our leading columns of the clergy to recommend this book to 
 
 we Jiave directed attention to Messrs. tJieir students. It would serve admir- 
 
 Blunt and Phillimore's' Book of Church ably as the text-book for a set of lee 
 
 Lazu,' as an excellent manual for tures." — Church Times. 
 ordinary use. It is a book which should 
 
 antJ at ©iforti anti (Eamfcritifle 
 
38 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Flowers and Festivals; or, Directions 
 
 for the Floral Decoration of Churches. By W. A Barrett, 
 Mus. Bac, Oxon., of St. Paul's Cathedral. With Coloured 
 Illustrations. Second Edition. Square crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 The Chorister's Guide. By W. A. Bar- 
 
 rett, Mus. Bac, Oxon., of St. Paul's Cathedral. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 " . . . One of the most useful books admirable coticiseness, and an equally 
 of instructions for choristers — and, we observable completeness, all that is 
 may add, choral singers generally — necessary a chorister should be taught 
 tJtat has ever emanated from the out of a book, and a great deal calcu- 
 musical press. . . . Mr. Barrett's lated to have a value as bearing in- 
 teaching is not o?ily conz'eyed to his directly upon his actual practice in 
 readers with the conscioiisfiess of being singing." — Musical Standard. 
 master of his subject, but he employs "We can highly recommend the 
 words terse and clear, so that his present able manual."— Educational 
 meaning may be promptly caught by Times. 
 
 the neophyte. . . ." — Athen/EU.m. " A very useful manual, not only for 
 
 "A nicely graduated, clear, and choristers, or rather those who may 
 
 excellent introduction to the duties of aim at becoming choristers, but for 
 
 a chorister.'' — Standard. others, who wish to enter upon the 
 
 "It seems clear and precise enough study of music."— Rock. 
 
 to serve its end. " — Examiner. " The work will be found of singular 
 
 " A useful manual for giving boys utility by those who have to instruct 
 
 such a practical and technical know- choirs." — Church Times. 
 
 ledge of music as shall enable them to "A most grateful contribution to 
 
 sing both with confidence and preci- the agencies for improving our Ser- 
 
 sion." — Church Herald. vices. It is characterised by all that 
 
 "In this little volume we have a clearness in combination with concise- 
 manual long called for by the require- ness of style which has made ' Flowers 
 ments of church music. In a series of and Festivals ' so universally ad- 
 thirty-two lessons it gives, with an mired." — Toronto Herald. 
 
 Priest and Parish. By the Rev. Harry 
 
 Jones, M.A., Rector of St. George's-in-the-East, London. 
 Square crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Wotes on Church Organs : their Position 
 
 and the Materials used in their Construction. By C. K. K. 
 Bishop. With Illustrations. Small 4to. 6s. 
 
Parish Work 
 
 39 
 
 Stones of the Temple; or, Lessons 
 
 from the Fabric and Furniture of the Church. By Walter 
 Field, M.A., F.S.A., late Vicar of Godmersham. With 
 numerous Illustrations. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 "Any one who wishes for simple in- 
 formation on the subjects of Church 
 architecture and furniture, cannot do 
 better tha?i consult ' Stones of the 
 Temple.' Mr. Field modestly dis- 
 claims any intention of supplanting 
 the existing regular treatises, but his 
 book shows an amount of research, and 
 a knowledge of what he is talking 
 about, which make it practically use- 
 ful as well as pleasant. TJie woodcuts 
 are numerous, and some of them very 
 pretty." — Graphic. 
 
 "A very charming book, by the Rev. 
 Walter Field, who was for years 
 Secretary of one of the leading Church 
 Societies. M r. Field has a loving re- 
 verence for the beauty of the domus 
 mansionalis Dei, as tfi£ old law books 
 
 called the Parish Church 
 
 Thoroughly sound in Church feelitig, 
 M r. Field has chosen the medium of a 
 tale to embody real incidents illustra- 
 tive of 'the various portions of his sub- 
 feet. T/iere is no attempt at elabora- 
 tion of tJie narrative, which, indeed, 
 is ratJier a string of anecdotes than a 
 story, but each chapter brings liome to 
 the mind its own lesson, and each is 
 illustrated with some very interesting 
 engravings. . . . The work will 
 properly command a hearty reception 
 from Churchmen. The footfiotes are 
 occasionally most valuable, and are 
 always pertinent, and the text is sure 
 to be popular with young folks for 
 Sunday reading." — Standard. 
 
 " Mr. Field's chapters on brasses, 
 chancel screens, crosses, encaustic tiles, 
 mural paintings, porches and pave- 
 ments, are agreeably written, and 
 people with a turn for Ritualism will 
 no doubt fitid them edifying. The 
 illustrations of Church architecture 
 and Church ornaments are very at- 
 tractive."— Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " 'Stones of t/te Temple' is a grave 
 book, t/ie result of autiguarian, or 
 rather ecclesiological, tastes and of 
 devotional feelings. We can recom- 
 mend it to young people of both sexes, 
 and it will not disappoint the most 
 learned among them. . . . Mr. 
 Field has brought together, from well- 
 known autfwrities, a considerable mass 
 of archaeological inforjuation, which 
 will interest the readers he especially 
 addresses. " — Athen^um. 
 
 " Very appropriate as a Christmas 
 present, is an elegant and instructive 
 book. . . . A full and clear account of 
 the meaning and history of the several 
 parts of the fabric and of tJie furniture 
 of the Church. It is illustrated with 
 a number of carefidly drawn pictures, 
 sometimes of entire churches, sometimes 
 of remarkable monuments, windows, or 
 wall paintings. We may add tJuit the 
 style of the commentary, which is cast in 
 the form of a dialogue between a parson 
 and some of his parishioners, and hangs 
 together by a slight thread of story, is 
 quiet and sensible, and free from exag- 
 geration or intolerance." — Guardian. 
 
 A Handy Book on the Ecclesiastical 
 
 Dilapidations Act, 187 1. With the Amendment Act, 1872. 
 By Edward G. Bruton, F.R.I.B.A., Diocesan Surveyor, 
 Oxford. With Analytical Index and Precedent Forms. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 anto at ©ifcirtJ anti (Eamfrritige 
 
40 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Bishopric of Souls. By Robert 
 
 Wilson Evans, B.D., late Vicar of Heversham and Arch- 
 deacon of Westmoreland. With an Introductory Memoir by 
 Edward Bickersteth, D.D., Dean of Lichfield. With 
 Portrait. Fifth Edition. Small 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 
 Twenty-One Years in S. George's 
 
 Mission. An account of its Origin, Progress, and Work of 
 Charity. With an Appendix. By C. F. Lowder, M.A., 
 Vicar of S. Peter's, London Docks. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Directorium Pastorale. The Principles 
 
 and Practice of Pastoral Work in the Church of England. By 
 the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., Editor of " The 
 Annotated Book of Common Prayer," &c. &c. New Edition, 
 revised. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 ' ' This is the third edition of a work chial clergy is proved by the acceptance 
 
 which has become deservedly popular it has already received at their hands, 
 
 as the best extant exposition of the and no faithful parish priest, who is 
 
 principles and practice of the pastoral working in real earnest for the exten- 
 
 work in the Church of England. Its sion of spiritual instruction amongst 
 
 hints and suggestions are based on all classes of his flock, will rise from 
 
 practical experience, and it is further the perusal of its pages without having 
 
 recommended by the majority of our obtained some valuable hints as to the 
 
 Bishops at the ordination of priests and best mode of bringing home our Church's 
 
 deacons." — Standard. system to the hearts of his people." — 
 
 "Its practical usefulness to the paro- National Church. 
 
 Ars Pastoria. By Frank Parnell, M.A., 
 
 Rector of Oxtead, near Godstone. Second Edition. Small 
 8vo. 2s. 
 
 Instructions for the Use of Candidates 
 
 for Holy Orders, and of the Parochial Clergy ; with Acts of 
 Parliament relating to the same, and Forms proposed to be 
 used. By Christopher Hodgson, M.A., Secretary to the 
 Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty. Ninth Edition. 8vo. 
 16s. 
 
 Waterloo place, ILonoort 
 
Parish Work 
 
 41 
 
 The Church Builder : a Quarterly Journal 
 
 of Church Extension in England and Wales. Published in 
 connexion with "The Incorporated Church Building Society." 
 14 Annual Volumes. With Illustrations. Crown Svo. is. 6d. 
 New Series. Enlarged. Volumes for 1876, 1S77, and 
 1879. $s. each. 
 
 List of Charities, General and Diocesan, 
 
 for the Relief of the Clergy, their Widows and Families. New 
 Edition. Small 8vo. 3->. 
 
 auto at ©iftirtj anfc Camfcritigf 
 
5. Cfce Cbutcft ana Doctrine- 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church ; its Divine 
 
 Ideal, Ministry, and Institutions. A short Treatise. With a 
 Catechism on each Chapter, forming a Course of Methodical 
 Instruction on the subject. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, 
 D.D., Dean of Norwich. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 
 6s. 6d. 
 
 COXTENTS. 
 
 What the Church is, and when and how it was founded— Duty of the Church 
 towards those who hold to the Apostles' doctrine, in separation from the 
 Apostles' fellowship — The Unity of the Church, and its Disruption— The 
 Survey of Zion's towers, bulwarks, and palaces — The Institution of the 
 Ministry, and its relation to the Church— The Holy Eucharist at its suc- 
 cessive stages — On the powers of the Church in Council — The Church 
 presenting, exhibiting, and defending the Truth — The Church guiding into 
 and illustrating the Truth— On the Prayer- Book as a Commentary on the 
 Bible— Index. 
 
 "Dr. Goulburn has conferred a great "Must Prove highly useful, not 
 boon on the Church of Engla?id by the only to young persons, but to the 
 treatise before us, which vindicates her very large class, both Churchmen and 
 claim as a branch of the Catholic Dissenters, who are painfully ignorant 
 Church on the allegiance of her chil- of what the Catholic Church really is, 
 dren, setting forth as he does, with and of the peculiar and fixed character 
 singular precision and power, the of her institutions." — Rock. 
 grounds of her title-deeds, and t/ie " The catechetical questions and 
 Christian character of her doctrine and answers at the end of each chapter will 
 discipline. " — Standard. be useful both for teachers and learners, 
 
 "His present book would have been and the side-notes at t/te head of the 
 used for an educational book even if lie paragraphs are very handy." — Church 
 had 7iot inzited men to make that use Times. 
 
 of it by appending a catechism to each "It contains a great deal of instruc- 
 particular chapter, and thus founding live matter, especially in the catechisms 
 a course of methodical instruction upon — or, as they might be called, dialogues 
 his text. We Jiave not yet come across — and is instinct with a spirit at once 
 any better book for giving to Dissenters temperate and uncompromising. It is 
 or to such inquirers as hold fast to Holy a good book for all who wish to under - 
 Scripture. It is, we need scarcely say, stand, neither blindly asserting it nor 
 steeped in Scripturahiess, and full of being half ashamed of it, the position 
 bright and suggestive interpretations of of a loyal member of the English 
 particular texts."— English Church- Church." — Guardian. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 OEatrrloa Place, ILonUrjn 
 
Church and Doctrine 
 
 4:, 
 
 Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesias- 
 tical Parties and Schools of Religious Thought. By Various 
 Writers. Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., 
 F.S.A., Editor of the "Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical 
 Theology," the "Annotated Book of Common Prayer," &c. 
 See. Imperial 8vo. 36^. ; or in half-morocco, 48^. 
 
 " We doubt not that the Dictionary 
 will prove a useful work of refer- 
 ence ; and it ?nay claim to give in 
 reasofiable compass a mass of infor- 
 mation respecting many religious 
 sc/wols kuoTvledge of which could pre- 
 viously only be acquired from amid a 
 host of literature. The articles are 
 written with great fair?iess, and in 
 many cases display careful scJwlarly 
 work. " — At h enve r M . 
 
 "A very comprehensive and bold 
 undertakitig, and is certainly executed 
 with a sufficient amount of ability 
 and knowledge to entitle the book to 
 rank very high in point of utility." — 
 Guardian. 
 
 " That this is a work of some learn- 
 ing and research is a fact which 
 soon becomes obvious to the reader. " — 
 Spectator. 
 
 "A whole library is condensed into 
 this admirable volume. A 11 authorities 
 are named, and an i?iz>aluable index 
 is supplied." — Notes and Queries. 
 
 " We have tested it rigidly, and in 
 almost every instance we have been 
 satisfied with tJie account given under 
 the name of sects, heresy, or ecclesi- 
 astical party." — John Bull. 
 
 " It is the fullest a?id most trust 
 worthy book of the kind that we 
 possess. The quantity of information 
 it presents in a convenient and access- 
 ible form is e?iormous, and Jiaving 
 once appeared, it becomes indispensable 
 to the theological student." — Church 
 Times. 
 
 "It has considerable value as a 
 copious work of reference, more espe- 
 cially since a list of authorities is in 
 most cases supplied" — Examiner. 
 
 The Doctrine of the Church of England, 
 
 as stated in Ecclesiastical Documents set forth by Authority 
 of Church and State, in the Reformation Period between 1536 
 and 1662. Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., 
 F.S.A., Editor of the " Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical 
 Theology," the "Annotated Book of Common Prayer," Sec. 
 Sec. 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 The Orthodox Doctrine of the Church 
 
 of England explained in a Commentary on the Thirty-Nine 
 Articles. By the Rev. T. I. Ball. With an Introduc- 
 tion by the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, M.A., Vicar of Frome- 
 Selwood. Crown 8vo. fs. 6d. 
 
 anti at ©xiaxb ant! Cambridge 
 
44 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical 
 
 Theology. By Various Writers. Edited by the Rev. John 
 Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., Editor of the "Annotated 
 
 Book of Common Prayer," &c. &c. Second Edition, Im- 
 perial 8vo. 42s. ; or in half-morocco, $2s. 6d. 
 
 " We know no book of its size and it is not meant that all these remarks 
 
 bulk which supplies the information apply in their full extent to every 
 
 here given at all; far less which article. In a great Dictionary there 
 
 supplies it in an arrangement so ac- are compositions, as in a great house 
 
 cessible, with a completeness of infor- there are vessels, of various kinds, 
 
 mation so thorough, and with an ability Home of these at a future day may be 
 
 in the treatment of profound subjects replaced by others more substantial in 
 
 so great. Dr. Hook's most useful vol- their build, more proportionate in their 
 
 ume is a work of high calibre, but it is outline, and more elaborate in their 
 
 the work of a single mind. We have detail. But admitting all this, the 
 
 here a wider range of thought from a whole remains a home to which the 
 
 greater variety of sides. We have student will constantly recur, sure to 
 
 here also the work of men who evidently find spacious chambers, substantial 
 
 know what they write about, and are furniture, and {which is most impor- 
 
 somewhat more profound (to say the t ant) no stinted light." — Church Re- 
 
 least) than the writers of the current view. 
 
 Dictionaries of Sects and Heresies."— " Within the sphere it has marked 
 
 Guardian. out for itself, ?io equally useful book 
 
 " Th?is it will be obvious that it of reference exists in English for the 
 takes a very much wider range than elucidation of theological problems, 
 any undertaking of the same kind in . . . Entries which display much 
 our language ; and that to those of our care, research, and judgment in com- 
 clergy who ' have not the fort?me to filiation, and which will make the task 
 spend in books, and would not have of the parish priest who is brought face 
 the leisure to use them if they possessed to face with any of the practical ques- 
 them, it will be the most serviceable tions which they involve far easier than 
 and reliable substitute for a large lib- has been hitherto. The very fact that 
 rary we can think of. A nd in many the utterances are here and there some- 
 cases, while keeping strictly within its what more guarded and hesitating 
 province as a Dictionary, it contrives titan quite accords with our judgment, 
 to be marvellously suggestive of thought is a gain in so far as it protects the 
 and reflections, which a serious-minded work from the charge of inculcating 
 man will take with him and ponder extreme views, and will thus secure 
 over for his own elaboration aridftcture its admission in many places where 
 use. We trust most sincerely that the moderation is accounted the crowning 
 book may be largely used. For a pre- grace.'" — Church Times. 
 senttoaClergymanonhisordination,or " It will be found of admirable ser- 
 fromaparishionertohispastorjtwotdd vice to all students of theology, as 
 be most appropriate. It may indeed advancing and maintaining the 
 be called ' a box of tools for a work- Church's views on all subjects as 
 ing clergyman."' — Literary Church- fall within the range of fair argument 
 MAN. and inquiry. It is not often that a 
 
 "Seldom has an English work of work of so comprehensive and so pro- 
 equal magnitude been so permeated found a nature is marked to the very 
 with Catholic instincts, and at the end by so many signs of wide and care- 
 same time seldom has a work on theo- ful research, sound criticism, and well- 
 logy been kept so free from the drift founded and well-expressed belief." — 
 of rhetorical incrustation. Of course, Standard. 
 
45 
 
 Ail Eirenicon of the Eighteenth. Cen- 
 tury. Proposal for Catholic Communion. By a Minister of 
 the Church of England. Edited by Henry Nutcombe Oxen- 
 ham, M.A. New Edition. With Introduction, Appendices, 
 and Notes. Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 ''His especial /Merit is that of put- which have been made fro?n time to 
 
 ting it in a Jorm sufficiently simple and time to re-establish communion between 
 
 telling to come Iwme to the understand- the Churches." — Literary Church- 
 
 ings of all fairly educated persons, man. 
 
 however unversed in the technicalities "All interested in Reunion will 
 
 of contrcrjersial divinity." — Church welcome the reprint of an important 
 
 Quarterly Review. book on this great subject. . . . It 
 
 "Mr. Oxenliam has disinterred, certainly \s the most important contri- 
 
 and liere presents to the public, an bution to tlie Reunion movement since 
 
 historical curiosity. . . . To this the celebrated ' Essays,' and desenes 
 
 treatise lie lias prefixed a highly-in- to be *ead a?id presented by all peace- 
 
 teresting sketch of the various attempts makers'' — Reunion* Magazine. 
 
 Apostolical Succession hi the Church 
 
 of England. By the Rev. Arthur W. Haddan, B.D., late 
 Rector of Barton-on-the-Heath. New Edition. 8vo. \2s. 
 
 " Thoroughly ruell written, clear the minds of Church people. . . . 
 
 and forcible in style, and fair in tone. We hope that our extracts will lead 
 
 It cannot but render valuable sen-ice our readers to study Mr. Haddan for 
 
 in placing the claims of the Church in themselves." — Literary Churchman. 
 
 their true light before tlie English " This is not only a very able and 
 
 public." — Guardian. carefully written treatise upon thedoc- 
 
 " Among tlie many standard tJieo- trine of Apostolical Succession, but it 
 
 logical works devoted to this important is also a calm yet noble vindication of 
 
 subject Mr. Haddan s will hold a high the validity of the Anglican Orders: 
 
 place. " — Standard. it well sustains tlie brilliant reputation 
 
 " We sliouldbe glad to see the volume which Mr. Haddan left behind him at 
 
 widely circulated and generally read." Oxford, and it supplements his other 
 
 — John Bull. profound historical researches in ecciesi- 
 
 "A weighty and valuable treatise, astical matters. This book will remain 
 
 and we Iwpe that tlie study of its sound for a long time tlie classic work upon 
 
 and well-reasoned pages will do much English Orders." — Church Review. 
 
 to fix tlie importance, a?id the full "A very temperate and well-rea- 
 
 meaning of the doctrine in question, in soned book." — Westminster Review. 
 
 The Civil Power in its Eelations to the 
 
 Church ; considered with Special Reference to the Court of 
 Final Ecclesiastical Appeal in England. By the Rev. James 
 Wayland Joyce, M.A., Prebendary of Hereford, and 
 Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Hereford. Svo. \os. 6f. 
 
 sno at ©ifotfo anfc Cambridge 
 
46 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Theory of Development. A Criti- 
 cism of Dr. Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian 
 Doctrine, reprinted from "The Christian Remembrancer," 
 January 1847. By J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ 
 Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of 
 Oxford. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 Miscellanies, Literary and Keligious. 
 
 By Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln. 3 Vols. 
 8vo. 36s. 
 
 The Holy Angels : Their Nature and 
 
 Employments, as recorded in the Word of God. Small 8vo. 
 6s. 
 
 The Principal Ecclesiastical Judg- 
 ments delivered in the Court of Arches, 1867-1875. By the 
 Right Hon. Sir Robert Phillimore, D.C.L. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 Our Mother Church : being Simple Talk 
 
 on High Topics. By Anne Mercier. New Edition. 
 Small 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 " We have rarely come across a as we could do in a longer notice 
 
 book dealing -with an old subject in a than we can spare the volume. No 
 
 healthier and, as far as may be, more one can fail to comprehend the beauti- 
 
 original manner, while yet thoroughly fully simple, devout, and appropriate 
 
 practical. It is intended for and language in which Mrs. Mercier em- 
 
 admirably adapted to the use of bodies what she has to say; attd for 
 
 girls. Thoroughly reverent in its the facts with which she deals she has 
 
 tone, and bearing in every page taken good care to have their accuracy 
 
 marks of learned research, it is yet assured." — Standard. 
 easy of comprehension, and explains' " The plan of this pleasant-looking 
 
 ecclesiastical terms with the accuracy book is excellent. It is a kind of Mrs. 
 
 of a lexicon without the accompanying Markham on the Church of England, 
 
 d?dness. It is to be hoped that the written especially for girls, and we 
 
 book will attain to the large circula- shall not be surprised to find it become 
 
 tion it justly merits." — John Bull. a favourite in schools. It is really a 
 
 " We have never seen a book for conversational hand-book to the English 
 
 girls of its class which commends Church's history, doctrine, and ritual, 
 
 itself to us more particularly. The compiled by a very diligent reader from 
 
 author calls her work 'simple talk on some of the best modem Anglican 
 
 great subjects,' and calls it by a name sources."— English Churchman. 
 that describes it almost as completely 
 
 Waterloo Place, fLonoon 
 
Church and Doctrine 
 
 47 
 
 After Death. An Examination of Primi- 
 tive Times respecting the State of the Faithful Dead, and their 
 Relationship to the Living. In Two Parts. By Herbert 
 Mortimer Luckock, D.D., Canon of Ely, Principal of the 
 Theological College, Examining Chaplain to the Bishop, and 
 sometime Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Part I. — TJie State of the Faithful Dead ami the Good Offices of the Living 
 in their Behalf: Vincentian Canon — Value of the Testimony of the 
 Primitive Fathers — The Intermediate State — Change in the Intermediate 
 State — Prayers for the Dead : Reasons for our Lord's Silence on the 
 Subject — Testimony of Holy Scripture — Testimony of the Catacombs — 
 Testimony of the Early Fathers — Testimony of the Primitive Liturgies — 
 Prayers for the Pardon of Sins of Infirmity and the Effacement of Sinful 
 Stains — Inefficacy of Prayer for those who died in wilful unrepented Sin. 
 
 Part 11.— The Good Offices of the Faithful Dead in Behalf of the Living : 
 Primitive Testimony to the Intercession of the Saint — Primitive Testi- 
 mony to the Invocation of the Saints — Trustworthiness of the Patristic 
 Evidence for Invocation tested — The Primitive Liturgies and the Roman 
 Catacombs — Patristic Opinion on the extent of the Knowledge possessed 
 by the Saints — Testimony of Holy Scripture upon the same Subject — 
 Beatific Vision not yet attained by any of" the Saints — Conclusions drawn 
 from the foregoing Testimony. 
 
 Out of the Body. A Scriptural Inquiry. 
 
 By the Rev. James S. Pollock, M.A., Incumbent of S. 
 Alban's, Birmingham. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 Introduction— Scope of the Inquiry— The Presentiment— The Anticipation— The 
 Departure— The Life of the Body— The Life of the Spirit— Dream-Life- - 
 The Spirit-World — Spirit-Groups— Helping one another — Limits of Com- 
 munication — Spiritual Manifestations. 
 
 Prophecies and the Prophetic Spirit 
 
 in the Christian Era : an Historical Essay. By John J. 
 IGN. Von Dollinger, D.D., D.C.L. Translated, with 
 Introduction, Notes, and Appendices, by the Rev. Alfred 
 Plummer, M.A., Master of University College, Durham, 
 late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Lectures on the Reunion of the 
 
 Churches. By John J. Ign. Von Dollinger, D.D., D.C.L. 
 Authorized Translation, with Preface by Henry Nutcombe 
 Oxenham, M.A., late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford. 
 Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 antJ at ©iforU anti Cambrftse 
 
48 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Eight Lectures on the Miracles ; being 
 
 the Bampton Lectures for 1865. By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity 
 Oxford. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 "There is great brightness and beauty are an example, and a very fine one, 
 in many of the images in which the of a mode of tJieological writing which 
 author condenses the issues of his is characteristic of the Church of Eng- 
 arguments. A nd many passages are land, and almost peculiar to it. The 
 marked by that peculiar kind of elo- distinguishing features, a combination 
 quence which comes with the force of of intense seriousness with a self-re- 
 close and vigorotis thinking ; passages strained, severe calmness, and of very 
 which slime-like steal through their vigorous and wide-ranging reasoning 
 
 very temper, and which are instinct on the realities of the case 
 
 with a controlled efiergy, that melts Mr. Mozley" s book belongs to that class 
 
 away all rugged7iess of language, of writings of which Butler may be 
 
 There can be no question that, in the taken as the type. It is strong, genuine 
 
 deeper qtialities of a scientific theology, argument abotit difficult matters \fairly 
 
 the book is thoroughly worthy of the facing what is difficult, fairly trying 
 
 highest refutation which had been to grapple, not with what appears the 
 
 gained by Mr. Mozley 's previous writ- gist and strong point of a question, but 
 
 ings." — Contemporary Review. with what really atid at bottom is the 
 
 "Mr. Mozley s Bampton Lectures knot of it." — Times. 
 
 The Happiness of the Blessed con- 
 sidered as to the Particulars of their State : their Recognition 
 of each other in that State : and its Differences of Degrees. 
 To which are added Musings on the Church and her Services. 
 By Richard Mant, D.D., sometime Lord Bishop of Down 
 and Connor. New Edition. Small 8vo. 2 s - 6d. 
 
 "A welcome republication of a trea- "All recognise the authority of the 
 Use once highly valued, and which can command to set the affections on things 
 never lose its value. Many of our above, and such works as the one now 
 readers already know the fulness and before us will be found helpful towards 
 discrimination with which the author this good end. We are, therefore, sin- 
 treats his stibject, which must be one of cerely glad that Messrs. Rivington 
 the most delightful topics of meditation have brought out a new edition of 
 to all whose hearts are where the ofily Bishop M ant's valuable treatise." — 
 true treasure is, a?id particularly to Record. 
 those who are entering upon the even- 
 ing of life. " — Church Review. 
 
 St. John Ohrysostom's Liturgy. Trans- 
 lated by H. C. Romanoff, Author of "Sketches of the Rites 
 and Customs of the Greco-Russian Church," &c. With Illus- 
 t trations. Square crown 8vo. 4J. 6d. 
 
 TOaterlco place, Hontion 
 
Church and Doctrine 
 
 49 
 
 Dogmatic Faith : an Inquiry into the 
 
 Relation subsisting between Revelation and Dogma. Being 
 the Bampton Lectures for 1867. By Edward Garbett, 
 M.A., Incumbent of Christ Church, Surbiton. New Edition. 
 Crown Svo. 5j-. 
 
 Thirty-two Years of the Church of 
 
 England, 1S42-1S75 : The Charges of Archdeacon Sinclair. 
 Edited by William Sinclair, M. A. , Prebendary of Chichester, 
 Rector of Pulborough, late Vicar of S . George's, Leeds. With 
 a Preface by Archibald Campbell Tait, D.D., Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and a Historical Introduction by Robert 
 Charles Jenkins, M. A. , Hon. Canon of Canterbury, Rector 
 and Vicar of Lyminge. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 The Thirty-nine Articles of the Ch Lirch 
 
 of England explained in a Series of Lectures. By the Rev. 
 R. W. Jelf, D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and 
 sometime Principal of King's College, London. Edited by 
 the Rev. J. R. King, M.A., Vicar of St. Peter's-in-the-East, 
 Oxford, and formerly Fellow and Tutor of Merton College. 
 8vo. 15*. 
 
 Letters from Eome on the Council. 
 
 By Quirinus. Reprinted from the "Allgemeine Zeitung." 
 Authorized Translation. Crown Svo. 12s. 
 
 The Pope and the Council. By Janus. 
 
 Authorized Translation from the German. Fourth Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 antj at £x£mft Brito Camfontig* 
 
6. Sermons. 
 
 Sermons Preached before the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. (Second Series, 1 868- 1879.) By Henry Parry 
 Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Canon of St. Paul's, and Ireland 
 Professor of Exegesis in the University of Oxford. Crown 
 8vo. 5s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Prejudice and Experience— Humility and Truth— Import of Faith in a Creator 
 — Worth of Faith in a Life to Come— Influences of the Holy Spirit — 
 Growth _ in the Apprehension of Truth— The Life of Faith and the 
 Athanasian Creed — Christ's Service and Public Opinion— Christ in the 
 Storm — Sacerdotalism— The Prophecy of the Magnificat— The Fall of 
 Jericho— The Courage of Faith — The Curse on Meroz — The Gospel and 
 the Poor— Christ and Human Law. 
 
 Sermons Preached before the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. (First Series, 1859- 1868.) By Henry Parry 
 Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Canon of St. Paul's, and Ireland 
 Professor of Exegesis in the University of Oxford. Sixth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 God and the Soul— The Law of Progress— The Honour of Humanity— The 
 Freedom of the Spirit — Immortality — Humility and Action — The Conflict 
 of Faith with undue Exaltation of Intellect — Lessons of the Holy Manger 
 — The Divine Victim — The Risen Life — Our Lord's Ascension, the 
 Church's Gain — Faith in a Holy Ghost — The Divine Indwelling a motive 
 to Holiness. 
 
 Some Elements of Religion. Lent 
 
 Lectures. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Canon 
 of St. Paul's, and Ireland Professor of Exegesis in the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Idea of Religion— God, the Object of Religion— The Subject of Religion, 
 the Soul — The Obstacle to Religion, Sin— Prayer, the Characteristic 
 action of Religion — The Mediator, the Guarantee of Religious Life. 
 
 Waterloo Place, Honoon 
 
Sermons 
 
 5i 
 
 The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour 
 
 Jesus Christ. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1866. 
 By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Canon of St. 
 Paul's, and Ireland Professor of Exegesis in the University of 
 Oxford. Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 Church Doctrine and Spiritual Life. 
 
 Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn. By F. C. 
 Cook, M.A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, Canon of 
 Exeter, Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. 
 Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Law given by Moses— Grace and Truth in Jesus Christ — Baptismal Fire — 
 Baptism in One Body — Hidden Life — The Manifested Life — Sabbatic 
 Rest — The Dignity of Prayer — The Efficacy of Prayer — Unity of the 
 Church — Christ Draweth all Men — Spiritual Resurrection — The Past 
 Required — The Intermediate State — Ministering Spirits — The Holy Spirit 
 as Reprover — The Holy Trinity — Testimony of the Church in the 
 Athanasian Creed — First Meeting of St. Peter and St. Paul at Jerusalem 
 — Clement of Rome, Witness to the Faith of the Early Church — Justin 
 Martyr, Witness to the Power of Life in the Early Church — Justin Martyr, 
 Witness to the Gospels and to Eucharistic Worship — Justin Martyr, Witness 
 to Eucharistic Doctrine — St. Athanasius, Witness to the Permanency of 
 Eucharistic Doctrine — Hilary of Poictiers, Witness to the Unity of Doc- 
 trine and of Spiritual Life in the Early Church. 
 
 Pleadings for Christ. Being Sermons, 
 
 Doctrinal and Practical, preached in St. Andrew's Church, 
 Liverpool. By William Lefroy, M. A. , Incumbent. Crown 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Warnings of the Holy Week, &c. Being 
 
 a Course of Parochial Lectures for the Week before Easter 
 and the Easter Festivals. By the Rev. W. Adams, M.A., 
 Author of " Sacred Allegories," &c. Seventh Edition. 
 Small 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Warning given at Bethany— The Warning of the Day of Excitement— The 
 Warning of the Day of Chastisement— The Warning of the Fig Tree— The 
 Warning of Judas— The Warning of Pilate— The Warning of the Day of 
 Rest— The Signs of Our Lord's Presence— The Remedy for Anxious 
 Thoughts— Comfort under Despondency. 
 
 atrti at ©xforb anb Gramfctttrge 
 
5* 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels 
 
 for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. By the 
 Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., Author of a " Devotional Com- 
 mentary on the Gospel Narrative." New Edition. 2 Vols. 
 Crown 8vo. $s. each. Sold separately. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 The King of Salem — The Scriptures bearing Witness — The Church bearing 
 Witness — The Spirit bearing Witness — The Adoption of Sons — Love 
 strong as Death — The Love which passeth Knowledge — Of such is the 
 Kingdom of Heaven — The Spirit of Adoption — The Old and the New 
 Man — The Day Star in the Heart — Obedience the best Sacrifice — The 
 Meekness and Gentleness of Christ — The Faith that overcometh the 
 World — Our Refuge in Public Troubles — Light and Safety in Love — 
 The Great Manifestation — Perseverance found in Humility — Bringing 
 forth Fruit with Patience — The most excellent Gift — The Call to Re- 
 pentance — The accepted Time — Perseverance in Prayer — The Unclean 
 Spirit returning — The Penitent refreshed— Our Life in the Knowledge 
 of God— The Mind of Christ— The Triumph of the Cross— The Man of 
 Sorrows — The Great Sacrifice — The Memorial of the Great Sacrifice — 
 The Fulfilment— Buried with Christ— The Power of Christ risen— Walk- 
 ing in Newness of Life — Belief in the Resurrection of Christ — The Faith 
 that overcometh the World — Following the Lamb of God — A little while 
 — The Giver of all Good — Requisites of effectual Prayer — Ascending 
 with Christ — The Days of Expectation — They shall walk with Me in 
 White — The Holy Spirit and Baptism — Let all Things be done in order. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 The Door opened in Heaven— Love the mark of God's Children— The Gospel a 
 Feast of Love — The Lost Sheep — Mercy the best preparation for Judg- 
 ment — The peaceable ordering of the World — Brotherly Love and the Life 
 in Christ— The Bread which God giveth— By their Fruits ye shall know 
 them — Looking forward, or Divine Covetousness— The Day of Visitation— 
 The Prayer of the Penitent — Weakness of Faith— Love the fulfilling of the 
 Law— Thankfulness the Life of the Regenerate— My Beloved is Mine and 
 I am His — The Knowledge which is Life Eternal— The Sabbath of Christ 
 found in Meekness— Christ is on the Right Hand of God— The Forgive- 
 ness of Sins— Love and Joy in the Spirit — The Warfare and the Armour of 
 Saints— The Love of Christians— The Earthly and Heavenly Citizenship- 
 Mutual Intercessions— Gleanings after Harvest — Bringing unto Christ — 
 Slowness in believing— Grace not given in Vain— The Refiner's Fire— The 
 Lost Crown— Faith in the Incarnation— Value of an Inspired Gospel— The 
 severe and social Virtues— Go and do thou likewise— Joy at hearing the 
 Bridegroom's Voice— The Strength of God in Man's Weakness— Hidden 
 with Christ in God— Do good, hoping for nothing again— The good ex- 
 change—War in Heaven— Healing and Peace— The Sacrament of Union— 
 They which shall be accounted Worthy. 
 
 Waterloo Place, Hotitum 
 
Sermons 
 
 53 
 
 Selection, adapted to the Seasons of 
 
 the Ecclesiastical Year, from the "Parochial and Plain Ser- 
 mons" of John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Vicar of 
 St. Mary's, Oxford. Edited by the Rev. VST. J. Copeland, 
 B.D., Rector of Farnham, Essex. CrouTi 8vo. 55. 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Advent: — Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness — Divine Calls — The 
 Ventures of Faith — Watching. Christmas Day: — Religious Joy. New 
 Year's Sunday: — The Lapse of Time. Epiphany : — Remembrance of 
 Past Mercies — Equanimity — The Immortality of the Soul — Christian 
 Manhood — Sincerity and Hypocrisy — Christian Sympathy. Septua- 
 gesima: — Present Blessings. Sexagesima: — Endurance the Christian's 
 Portion. Quinquagesirna : — Love the One Thing Needful. Lent: — The 
 Individuality of the Soul — Life the Season of Repentance — Bodily Suffer- 
 ing — Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus — Christ's Privations a 
 Meditation for Christians— The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World. 
 Good Friday : — The Crucifixion. Easter Day : — Keeping Fast and 
 Festival. Easter-Tide : — Witnesses of the Resurrection — A Particular 
 Providence as Revealed in the Gospel — Christ Manifested in Remembrance 
 — The Invisible World — Waiting for Christ. A scension .-—Warfare the 
 Condition of Victory. Sunday after Ascension: — Rising with Christ. 
 Whitsunday : — The Weapons of Saints. Trinity] Sunday : — The 
 Mysteriousness of our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity : — Holiness 
 Necessary for Future Blessedness — The Religious Use of Excited Feel- 
 ings—The Self-wise Inquirer — Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow — 
 The Danger of Riches — Obedience without Love, as instanced in the 
 Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins — The Greatness 
 and Littleness of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion with God — 
 The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul— The Power of the Will— The 
 Gospel Palaces — Religion a Weariness to the Natural Man — The World 
 our Enemy — The Praise of Man — Religion Pleasant to the Religious — 
 Mental Prayer — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy for 
 Unbelief — Jeremiah : a Lesson for the Disappointed — The Shepherd of 
 our Souls — Doing Glory of God in Pursuits of the World. 
 ' ' TJie selection has been made with ous ; and tJiese sermons, composed in the 
 great judgment, and the volume, vigour of his years, are marked -with 
 •which is daintily printed, has thus a the rarest grandeur and breadth of 
 very special value." — Church Times. thought, and can be read with profit 
 " The publishers of the present vol- and pleasure by all, the religious for 
 ume have gathered together in a cheap their profound piety , and by the student 
 and convenient forin a series of Dr. oj English for their purity of diction. 
 Newman's earliest sermons, preaclied — Morning Post. 
 
 before he entered the Latin Church. " Those who, like ourselves, have 
 These sermons are, of course, masterly, long used and valued tJie eight volumes 
 and, as they are net doctrinal, can be of Dr. N<rzcmau's Parochial Sermons, 
 read with profit and pleasure by those will be first to rejoice that a' Selection ' 
 wlio belong to the past as well as to of about fifty sermons has been made, 
 the present creed of the learned doctor, and issued in a handsome volume'' 
 The selection consists, with few ex- — Literary Churchman. 
 ceptions, of sermons for the most im- '''Most of the subjects treated of are 
 portant Church Festivals of tJie Year, practical, and it is not necessary to say 
 and will be found admirably adapted how tliey are treated by such a master 
 for reading in tJie various seasons as as John Henry Newman. It is but 
 tliey pass. To praise the noble lan- fair to add that the selection seems to 
 guage of Dr.Ne?uman, an acknowledged keep steadily clear of matter suggestive 
 master of English, would be superflu- of polemics." — Freeman's Journal. 
 
 anti at ©ifortJ atrti Cambrfoge 
 
54 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Parochial and Plain Sermons. By John 
 
 Henry Newman, B.D., formerly Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. 
 Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., Rector of 
 Farnham, Essex. New Edition. 8 Vols. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 each. Sold separately. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 Holiness necessary for Future Blessedness- The Immortality of the Soul- 
 Knowledge of God's Will without Obedience — Secret Truths — Self-denial 
 the Test of Religious Earnestness — The Spiritual Mind— Sins of Ignorance 
 and Weakness — God's Commandments not grievous — The Religious use 
 of exalted Feelings — Profession without Practice — Profession without 
 Hypocrisy — Profession without Ostentation — Promising without Doing — 
 Religious Emotion — Religious Faith Rational — The Christian Mysteries — 
 The Self-wise Inquirer — Obedience the Remedy for Religious Perplexity 
 — Times of Private Prayer — Forms of Private Prayer — The Resurrection 
 of the Body — Witnesses of the Resurrection — Christian Reverence — The 
 Religion of the Day — Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow — Christian 
 Manhood. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 The World's Benefactors— Faith without Sight— The Incarnation— Martyrdom 
 — Love of Relations and Friends — The Mind of Little Children — Cere- 
 monies of the Church— The Glory of the Christian Church — His Conver- 
 sion viewed in Reference to His Office — Secrecy and Suddenness of Divine 
 Visitations — Divine Decrees — The Reverence due to Her — Christ, a 
 Quickening Spirit — Saving Knowledge — Self-contemplation — Religious 
 Cowardice — The Gospel Witnesses— Mysteries in Religion — The Indwell- 
 ing Spirit — The Kingdom of the Saints — The Gospel, a Trust committed 
 to us — Tolerance of Religious Error — Rebuking Sin — The Christian 
 Ministry — Human Responsibility — Guilelessness — The Danger of Riches — 
 The Powers of Nature — The Danger of Accomplishments — Christian Zeal 
 — Use of Saints' Days. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. III. 
 
 Abraham and Lot — Wilfulness of Israel in rejecting Samuel — Saul — Early years 
 of David— Jeroboam— Faith and Obedience— Christian Repentance- 
 Contracted Views in Religion — A particular Providence as revealed in 
 the Gospel— Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus — Bodily Suffering— 
 The Humiliation of the Eternal Son — Jewish Zeal a Pattern to Christians 
 — Submission to Church Authority— Contest between Truth and False- 
 hood in the Church — The Church Visible and Invisible — The Visible 
 Church an Encouragement to Faith — The Gift of the Spirit — Regenerating 
 Baptism— Infant Baptism — The Daily Service— The Good Part of Mary- 
 Religious Worship a Remedy for Excitements — Intercession — The Inter- 
 mediate State. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. 
 
 The Strictness of the Law of Christ— Obedience without Love, as instanced in 
 the Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins — Accept- 
 ance of Religious Privileges compulsory— Reliance on Religious Observ- 
 ances — The Individuality of the Soul — Chastisement amid Mercy — Peace 
 and Joy amid Chastisement— The State of Grace— The Visible Church 
 for the sake of the Elect — The Communion of Saints — The Church a 
 
 WLuUtloo Place, SLontwn 
 
Sermons 
 
 55 
 
 NEWMAN'S PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS— 
 Continued. 
 
 Home for the Lonely — The Iiwisible World — The Greatness and Little- 
 ness of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion with God — Christ 
 Hidden from the World — Christ Manifested in Remembrance — The Gain- 
 saying of Korah — The Mysteriousness of our Present Being — The Ventures 
 of Faith — Faith and Love — Watching — Keeping Fast and Festival. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. V. 
 
 Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming— Reverence, a Belief in God's 
 Presence — Unreal Words — Shrinking from Christ's Coming — Equanimity — 
 Remembrance of past Mercies— The Mystery of Godliness— The State of 
 Innocence — Christian Sympathy — Righteousness not of us, but in us — The 
 Law of the Spirit— The New Works of the Gospel— The State of Salva- 
 tion — Transgressions and Infirmities— Sins of Infirmity — Sincerity and 
 Hypocrisy — The Testimony of Conscience — Many called, few chosen — 
 Present Blessings — Endurance, the Christian's portion — Affliction a School 
 of Comfort — The thought of God, the stay of the Soul — Love the one thing 
 needful— The Power of the Will. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. VI. 
 
 Fasting, a Source of Trial — Life, the Season of Repentance — Apostolic Absti- 
 nence, a Pattern for Christians — Christ's Privations, a Meditation for 
 Christians — Christ the Son of God made Man — The Incarnate Son, a 
 Sufferer and Sacrifice — The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World — 
 Difficulty of realizing Sacred Privileges — The Gospel Sign addressed to 
 Faith— The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church — The Eucharistic 
 Presence — Faith the Title for Justification — Judaism of the present day — 
 The Fellowship of the Apostles— Rising with Christ— Warfare the Condi- 
 tion of Victory — Waiting for Christ — Subjection of the Reason and Feel- 
 ings to the Revealed Word— The Gospel Palaces— The Visible Temple- 
 Offerings for the Sanctuary — The Weapons of Saints — Faith without 
 Demonstration — The Mystery of the Holy Trinity — Peace in Believing. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. VII. 
 
 The Lapse of Time — Religion, a Weariness to the Natural Man— The World 
 our Enemy — The Praise of Men — Temporal Advantages — The Season of 
 Epiphany— The Duty of Self-denial— The Yoke of Christ— Moses the 
 Type of Christ— The Crucifixion — Attendance on Holy Communion— 
 The Gospel Feast — Love of Religion, a new Nature— Religion pleasant 
 to the Religious — Mental Prayer— Infant Baptism— The Unity of the 
 Church — Steadfastness in the Old Paths. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. VIII. 
 
 Reverence in Worship— Divine Calls— The Trial of Saul— The Call of David- 
 Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no remedy for Unbelief— Josiah, 
 a Pattern for the Ignorant— Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel- 
 Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — Endurance of the World's Cen- 
 sure—Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the World— Vanity of Human 
 Glory— Truth hidden when not sought after— Obedience to God the Way 
 to Faith in Christ — Sudden Conversions— The Shepherd of our Souls — 
 Religious Joy — Ignorance of Evil. 
 
 anto at ©ifoxti anti (EambritJse 
 
56 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Lectures on the Doctrine of Justifica- 
 tion. By John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Fellow 
 of Oriel College, Oxford. New Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Faith considered as the Instrument of Justification— Love considered as the 
 Formal Cause of Justification — Primary Sense of the term Justification — 
 Secondary Senses of the term Justification— Misuse of the term Just or 
 Righteous— On the Gift of Righteousness — The Characteristics of the 
 Gift of Righteousness — Righteousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality — 
 Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's Resurrection — The Office of Justify- 
 ing Faith — The Nature of Justifying Faith — Faith viewed relatively to 
 Rites and Works— On preaching the Gospel— Appendix. 
 
 Sermons Bearing upon Subjects of the 
 
 Day. By John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Fellow 
 of Oriel College, Oxford. Edited by the Rev. W. J. 
 Copeland, B.D., Rector of Farnham, Essex. New Edition, 
 Crown 8vo. 5.r. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Work of the Christian — Saintliness not forfeited by the Penitent — Our 
 Lord's Last Supper and His First — Dangers to the Penitent — The Three 
 Offices of Christ — Faith and Experience — Faith and the World — The 
 Church and the World — Indulgence in Religious Privileges — Connection 
 between Personal and Public Improvement — Christian Nobleness — Joshua, 
 a Type of Christ and His Followers — Elisha, a Type of Christ and His 
 Followers — The Christian Church a continuation of the Jewish — The 
 Principle of continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches — The 
 Christian Church an Imperial Power — Sanctity the Token of the Christian 
 Empire — Condition of the Members of the Christian Empire — The Apos- 
 tolical Christian — Wisdom and Innocence — Invisible Presence of Christ — 
 Outward and Inward Notes of the Church — Grounds for Steadfastness in 
 our Religious Profession — Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days — Feast- 
 ing in Captivity— The Parting of Friends. 
 
 Fifteen Sermons preached before the 
 
 University of Oxford, between a.d. 1826 and 1843. By John 
 Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Fellow of Oriel College, 
 Oxford. New Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Philosophical Temper first enjoined by the Gospel — The Influence of Natura 
 and Revealed Religion respectively — Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection 
 of Natural Virtue — The Usurpations of Reason — Personal Influence, the 
 means of Propagating the Truth — Our Justice, as a Principle of Divine 
 Governance — Contest between Faith and Light — Human Responsibility, 
 as Independent of Circumstances — Wilfulness the Sin of Saul — Faith and 
 Reason, contrasted as Habits of Mind — The Nature of Faith in Relation 
 to Reason — Love the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition — Implicit 
 and Explicit Reason — Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry 
 — The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine. 
 
 OEat£tlo0 Place, Hcrttum 
 
Sermons 
 
 57 
 
 The Catholic Sacrifice. Sermons Preached 
 
 at All Saints, Margaret Street. By the Rev. Berdmore 
 Compton, M. A., Vicar of All Saints, Margaret Street. Crown 
 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Eucharistic Life— The Sacrifice of Sweet Savour— The Pure Offering— 
 The Catholic Oblation— The Sacrificial Feast— The Preparation for the 
 Eucharist — The Introductory Office — The Canon — Degrees of Apprehen- 
 sion—The Fascination of Christ Crucified — The Shewbread — Consecra- 
 tion of Worship and Work — Water, Elood, Wine — The Blood of Sprinkling 
 — The Mystery of Sacraments— The Oblation of Gethsemane — Offertory 
 and Tribute Money. 
 
 The Sayings of the Great Forty Days, 
 
 between the Resurrection and Ascension, regarded as the 
 Outlines of the Kingdom of God. In Five Discourses. With 
 an Examination of Dr. Newman's Theory of Development. 
 By George Moberly, D.C.L., Bishop of Salisbury. Fifth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 Plain Sermons, preached at Brighstone. 
 
 By George Moberly, D.C.L., Bishop of Salisbury. Third 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Except a Man be Born again— The Lord with the Doctors— The Draw-Net— 
 will lay me down in Peace — Ye have not so learned Christ — Trinity 
 Sunday — My Flesh is Meat indeed — The Corn of Wheat dying and multi- 
 plied— The Seed Corn springing to new Life— I am the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life — The Ruler of the Sea — Stewards of the Mysteries of God — 
 Ephphatha— The Widow of Nain— Josiah's Discovery of the Law— The 
 Invisible World : Angels — Prayers, especially Daily Prayers — They all with 
 one consent began to make excuse — Ascension Day— The Comforter — The 
 Tokens of the Spirit — Elijah's Warning, Fathers and Children — Thou 
 shalt see them no more for ever — Baskets full of Fragments — Harvest — The 
 Marriage Supper of the Lamb — The Last Judgment. 
 
 Sermons preached at Winchester Col- 
 lege. By George Moberly, D.C.L., Bishop of Salisbury. 
 2 Vols. Small 8vo. 6s. 6d. each. Sold separately. 
 
 anto at ©xiottJ anti &amfjrfage 
 
58 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Sermons, Parochial and Occasional. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, and 
 Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford. 
 Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Right Eye and the Right Hand — Temptation treated as Opportunity — The 
 Influences of Habit on Devotion — Thought for the Morrow — The Relief of 
 Utterance — Seeking a Sign — David Numbering the People — The Heroism 
 of Faith — Proverbs — The Teaching of Events — Growing Worse — Our 
 Lord the Sacrifice for Sin — -The Parable of the Sower — The Religious En- 
 joyment of Nature — The Threefold Office of the Holy Spirit — Wisdom 
 and Folly Tested by Experience— Moses, a Leader — The Unjust Steward 
 — Sowing to the Spirit — True Religion a Manifestation — St. Paul's Exal- 
 tation of Labour — Jeremiah's Witness against Idolatry — Isaiah's Estimate 
 of Worldly Greatness — The Shortness]of Life — The Endless State of Being 
 — The Witness of the Apostles — Life a Probation — Christian Mysteries 
 the Common Heritage — Our Lord's Hour— Fear — The Educating Power 
 of Strong Impressions— The Secret Justice of Temporal Providence — . 
 Jacob as a Prince Prevailing with God. 
 " His sermons are the solemn and by all such this further instalment of 
 piercing reflections of a man who Dr. Mozley s sermons will be wel- 
 inteutly scrutinizes the world and corned. They will be of great use to 
 God's dealings with it for the spiritual the clergy in the preparation of their 
 benefit of himself and others. The own discourses ; they will be of still 
 poetry of his sermons is unsought for, greater use to them if read and studied 
 and results, where it exists, from a privately by way of mental discipline." 1 
 desire to give adequate expression to — Literary Churchman. 
 an intense appreciation of what is in "We may say at once, ani after 
 itself elevated and astonishing; and reading nearly every page of it, that 
 if he is thus lifted into simile or meta- there is not one sermon here devoid of 
 phor, it is because he is at a loss to interest, and there is not one which 
 convey in any other way the height or does not bear the same stamp which 
 det>th or breadth of what he sees." — was impressed upon the great Univer- 
 
 Guardian. sity Series No man can read 
 
 " All who have read the 1 University these sermons without feeling his con- 
 Sermons,' or the volume entitled the science stirred and cleared, and if he 
 " Ruli?ig Ideas as in the Eaily Ages,' has any good in hitn, without feeling 
 of the late Dr. Mozley , are aware with his will braced for fresh efforts," — 
 what unusual profundity and origin- Church Bells. 
 ality of thought they are marked ; and 
 
 Seven Addresses delivered at S. 
 
 Paul's Cathedral at the Mid-Day Service, Good Friday, 1879. 
 By V. S. S. Coles, M.A., Rector of Shepton Beauchamp. 
 Small 8vo. is. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Forgiveness of Sin, the First Great Need — True Prayer, the Means of Forgive- 
 ness — Privilege of Forgiven Souls— Suffering of the Human Soul — Suffer- 
 ing of the Human Body — Perseverance in Effort — Trust in God. 
 
 Waterloo $la«, ILontwn 
 
Sermons 
 
 59 
 
 Sermons preached before the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford, and on various occasions. By J. B. Mozley, 
 D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor 
 of Divinity, Oxford. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Roman Council— The Pharisees— Eternal Life — The Reversal of Human 
 Judgment— War— Nature— The Work of the Spirit on the Natural Man 
 — The Atonement — Our Duty to Equals — The Peaceful Temper — The 
 Strength of Wishes — The unspoken Judgment of Mankind — The true test 
 of Spiritual Birth — Ascension Day — Gratitude — The Principle of Emula- 
 tion — Religion the First Choice — The Influence of Dogmatic Teaching on 
 Education. 
 
 " There are sermons in it which, for " A new gleam of religious genius, 
 penetrating insight into the mysteries . . . Keen simplicity atid reality in 
 and anomalies of human c/iaracter, t/ie way of putting things is character- 
 its power of holding together strange istic of these sermons of Dr. Mozley 's, 
 opposites, its capacity for combination, but not less characteristic of them — 
 for disguise, and unconscious transfor- and this is what sJiows that the Chris- 
 mation, are as wonderful, it may tian faith has in him appealed to a 
 almost be said as terrible, in their certain, original faculty of the kind 
 revelations and suggestions as are to which we call ' genius' — is the iustiuc- 
 be fou?id anywhere. TJiere are four tive sympathy which he seems to have 
 sermons, one on the ' Pharisees,' one on with the subtler shades of Christ's 
 'Eternal Life,' one on the 'Reversal teaching, so as to make it suddenly 
 of Human Judgment' the fourth on seem new to us, as well as more won- 
 the 'Unspoken Judgment of Man- derful than e?-er." — Spectator. 
 kind,' which must almost make an " The volume possesses intrinsic 
 epoch in t)ie thoitght and history of merits so remarkable as to be almost 
 any one w/io reads tliem and really unique. . . . There is scarcely a ser- 
 takes in what they say. TJiere is in mon in it which does not possess elo- 
 them a kind of Shakspeariau mixture qtcence, in a very true sense, of a high 
 of subtlety of remark with boldness and order. But it is the eloquence not so 
 directness of phrase, and with a grave, much of language as of thought. It 
 pathetic irony, which is not often cha- is tJie eloquence of concentration, of 
 racteristic of such compositions." — vigorous grasp, of delicate irony, of 
 Times. deep but subdued pathos, of subtle deli- 
 
 " T/iese are unusually remarkable cacy of touch, of broad strong sense; 
 sermons. They are addressed to edu- it impresses t/ie mind ratlier than 
 cated, reflective, and, in some cases, strikes the ear. We cannot help feel- 
 philosophical readers, and they exhibit, ing, as we read, not only t/iat the 
 by turns or in combination, high philo- preacher means what he says, but that 
 sophical power, a piercing appreciation he has taken pains to think out his 
 of human motives, vivid conceptions, meaning, and has applied to the pro- 
 and a great power of clothing those cess the whole energy and resources of 
 conceptions in the language of tren- no common i?itellect." — Saturday 
 chant aphorism, or lofty, earnest Review. 
 poetry." — Guardian. 
 
 atrti at ©xfottf anti Camfctftge 
 
6o Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Sermons. By Henry Melvill, B.D., late 
 
 Canon of St. Paul's, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. 
 New Edition. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo. $s. each. Sold separately. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 The First Prophecy— Christ the Minister of the Church — The Impossibility of 
 Creature-Merit — The Humiliation of the Man Christ Jesus — The Doctrine 
 of the Resurrection viewed in connection with that of the Soul's Im- 
 mortality — The Power of Wickedness and Righteousness to reproduce 
 themselves — The Power of Religion to strengthen the Human Intellect — 
 The Provision made by God for the Poor — St. Paul, a Tent-Maker — The 
 Advantages of a state of Expectation — Truth as it is in Jesus — The Dif- 
 ficulties of Scripture. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 Jacob's Vision and Vow — The continued Agency of the Father and the Son — The 
 Resurrection of Dry Bones — Protestantism and Popery — Christianity a 
 Sword — The Death of Moses — The Ascension of Christ — The Spirit upon 
 the Waters — The Proportion of Grace to Trial — Pleading before the Moun- 
 tains—Heaven—God's Way in the Sanctuary. 
 
 " Every one who can remember the well-weighed words, calm and keen 
 
 days when Canon Melvill was the logic, and solemn devoutness, mark 
 
 preacher of the day, will be glad to see the whole series of masterly discourses, 
 
 these four-and-twenty of "his sermons so which embrace some of the chief doc- 
 
 mcely reproduced. His Sermons were trines of the Church, and set them forth 
 
 all the result of real study and genuine in clear and Scriptural strength." — 
 
 reading, with far more theology in them Standard. 
 
 than those of many who make much " The Sermons abound in tliought, 
 
 more profession of theology. Tliere are and the thoughts are coucheddn English 
 
 sermons here which we can personally which is at once elegant in construc- 
 
 remember ; it has been a pleasure to us Hon and easy to read." — Church 
 
 to be reminded of them, and we are Times. 
 
 glad to see them brought before the Pre- ' ' Henry Melvill 's intellect was large, 
 
 sent generation. We hope that they his imagination brilliant, his ardour 
 
 may be studied, for they deserve it intense, and his style strong, fervid, 
 
 thoroughly" — Literary Churchman, and picturesque. Often he seemed to 
 
 "The Sermons of Canon Melvill, glow with tlie inspiration of a prophet." 
 
 now republished in two handy volumes, — American Quarterly Church Re- 
 
 need only to be mentioned to be sure of view. 
 a hearty welcome. Sound learning, 
 
 Lectures delivered at St. Margaret's, 
 
 Lothbury. By Henry Melvill, B.D., late Canon of St. 
 Paul's, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. New Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 5^. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Return of the Dispossessed Spirit — Honey from the Rock — Easter— The 
 Witness in Oneself— The. Apocrypha— A Man a Hiding-place— The 
 
 Waterloo Place, Hontion 
 
Sermons 
 
 61 
 
 MELVILL'S LOTHBURY LECTURES — Contimied. 
 
 Hundredfold Recompense— The Life more than Meat— Isaiah's Vision — 
 St. John the Baptist — Building the Tombs of the Prophets — Manifestation 
 of the Sons of God — St. Paul's Determination — The Song of Moses and 
 the Lamb — The Divine Longsuffering — Sowing the Seed — The Great 
 Multitude — The Kinsman Redeemer — St. Barnabas — Spiritual Decline. 
 
 Sermons on Certain of the Less 
 
 Prominent Facts and References in Sacred Story. By Henry 
 Melvill, B.D., late Canon of St. Paul's, and Chaplain in 
 Ordinary to the Queen . New Edition. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo. 
 5*. each. Sold separately. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 The Faith of Joseph on his Death-bed — Angels as Remembrancers — The Burning 
 of the Magical Books— The Parting Hymn— Caesar's Household — The 
 Sleepless Night— The Well of Bethlehem— The Thirst of Christ— The 
 second Delivery of the Lord's Prayer — Peculiarities in the Miracle in the 
 Coasts of Decapolis— The Latter Rain — The Lowly Errand— Nehemiah 
 before Artaxerxes — Jabez. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 The Young Man in the Linen Cloth — The Fire on the Shore — The Finding the 
 Guest-Chamber— The Spectre's Sermon a truism — Various Opinions — The 
 Misrepresentations of Eve— Seeking, after Finding — The Bird's Nest — 
 Angels our Guardians in trifles — The appearance of failure — Simon the 
 Cyrenian — The power of the Eye — Pilate's Wife — Examination of Cain. 
 
 " We are glad to see this new edition two oftJiem occupied entirely with his 
 
 of what we have always considered to ser~mons on subjects of this class — are 
 
 be Melvill's best sermons, because in before us. His preaching was unique, 
 
 them we have his best thoughts. . . . He selected for the most part texts that 
 
 Many of these sermons are the strong- are not frequently treated, and when 
 
 est arguments yet adduced for internal he chose those of a more ordi?iary cfiar- 
 
 evidence of the veracity of the Scrip- acter, he generally presented them in a 
 
 tural narratives ." — Standard. new light, and elicited from them some 
 
 " Unusually interesting. .... truth which would not have suggested 
 No one can read these sermons without itself to any other preacher. He was 
 deriving instruction from them, with- singularly ingenious in some of his 
 out being compelled to acknowledge conceptions, and wonderfully forcible 
 that new light has been cast for him and impressive in his mode of develop- 
 on numerous passages of Scripture, ing and applying them." — Noncon- 
 which he must henceforth read with formist. 
 
 greater intelligence and greater in- " TJie publishers of these well-known, 
 
 terest tJian before.'" — Edinburgh almost classic sermons, have conferred 
 
 Courant. a boon on all lovers of our pulpit liter- 
 
 " For skill in developing the ature by this beautiful, portable eaition 
 
 significance of Vie less prominent of some of the most brilliant u/id origi- 
 
 facts of Holy Scripture ' no one could nal discourses that have been delivered 
 
 compete with the late Canon Melvill, to this generation."— British Quar- 
 
 four volumes of whose discourses — terly Review. 
 
 anti at (©xforfc anfc (£ambtttJfle 
 
62 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Selection from the Sermons preached 
 
 during the Latter Years of his Life, in the Parish Church of 
 Barnes, and in the Cathedral of St. Paul's. By Henry 
 Melvill, B.D., late Canon of St. Paul's, and Chaplain in 
 Ordinary to the Queen. New Edition. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo. 
 5s. each. Sold separately. ; 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 The Parity of the consequences of Adam's Transgression and Christ's Death— 
 The Song of Simeon— The Days of Old— Omissions of Scripture— The 
 Madman in Sport — Peace, Peace, when there is no Peace — A very lovely 
 Song— This is that King Ahaz— Ariel— New Wine and Old Bottles— 
 Demas— Michael and the Devil— The Folly of Excessive Labour— St. 
 Paul at Philippi— Believing a Lie— The Prodigal Son— The Foolishness 
 of Preaching— Knowledge and Sorrow— The Unjust Steward— The Man 
 born blind. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 Rejoicing as in ' Spoil — Satan a Copyist — The binding the Tares into 
 Bundles — Two walking together — Agreeing with the Adversary — God 
 speaking to Moses — Hoping in Mercy— Faith as a Grain of Mustard 
 Seed— Mary's Recompense— War in Heaven— Glory into Shame— The 
 Last Judgment— Man like to Vanity— God so Loved the World— Saul— 
 And what shall this Man do?— The Sickness and Death of Elisha— Abiding 
 in our.Callings — Trinity Sunday. 
 
 " The main characteristics of Canon Melvill 's sermons contain forty 
 
 Canon Melvill s sermons are these— discourses preached by him in his later 
 
 they are not polemical ; the odium theo- years, and they are prefaced by a short 
 
 logicum is nowhere to be found in them, memoir of one of the worthiest and 
 
 and nowhere is the spirit of true Chrts- most impressive preachers of recent 
 
 tian charity and love absent from them, times. " — Examiner. 
 
 This will widen their usefulness, for " Many years have now elapsed since 
 
 they will on this account make a ready we first heard Henry Melvill. But 
 
 way amongst all sects and creeds of we can still recall the text, the sermon, 
 
 professing Christians. Again, these the deep impression made upon us by 
 
 sermons are eminently practical and the impassioned eloquence of the great 
 
 devotional in their tone and aim. The preacher. It was our first, and very 
 
 truths here proclaimed pierce the Iteart profitable experience of what influence 
 
 to its very core, so true is the preacher's there resides in tJie faithful preaching 
 
 aim, so vigorous is the force with which of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 he shoots the convictions of his own For while it was impossible to be in- 
 
 heart into the hearts of his hearers." different to the messenger, yet the 
 
 — Standard. message was brought home by him to 
 
 " There are in the sermons before the heart and to the conscience. It is 
 
 us all MelvilFs wonted grace of die- pleasant in these, the latest sermons 
 
 Hon, strength of reasoning, and aptness delivered by Mr. Melvill, to find the 
 
 of illustration. " — Weekly Review. same faithful utterance. "—Christian 
 
 " Two other volumes of the late Observer. 
 
 Waterloo place, Honoon 
 
Sermons 
 
 63 
 
 The Life of Justification. A Series of 
 
 Lectures delivered in Substance at All Saints', Margaret Street. 
 By the Rev. George Body, B.A., Rector of Kirkby Misper- 
 ton. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. \s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Justification the Want of Humility — Christ our Justification — Cnion with Christ 
 the Condition of Justification — Conversion and Justification — The Life of 
 Justification — The Progress and End of Justification. 
 
 "On the whole we liave rarely met into tlie current language of to-day." 
 
 with a more clear, intelligible and per- — Union Review. 
 
 suasive statement of the truth as re- " There is real power in tliese ser- 
 gards the important topics on which mons: — power, real power, and plenty 
 the volume treats. Sermon 11 '. in par- of it. . . . There is such a moral 
 ticular, will strike every one by its veraciousness about him, such a pro- 
 eloquence and beauty, but we scarcely foutid and oz'er-mastering belief that 
 like to specify it. lest in praising it we Christ has proved a bond-fide cure for 
 should seem to disparage the other por- unJwliness, and such an intensity of 
 tions of this admirable little work." — eagerness to lead others to seek and 
 Church Times. profit by that means of attaining the 
 " These discourses show that their true sanctity which alone can enter 
 author's position is due to something Heaven — that we wonder not at the 
 more and higher t/ian mere fluency, crowds which hang upon his preaching, 
 gesticulation, and flexibility of voice, nor at the success of his fervid appeals 
 He appears as having drunk deeply to the human conscience. If any one 
 at the fountain of St. Augustine, and doubts our verdict, let him buy this 
 as understanding how to translate the volume. No one will regret its per- 
 burning words of that mighty genius usal." — Literarv Churchman. 
 
 The Life of Temptation. A Course of 
 
 Lectures delivered in Substance at St. Peter's, Eaton Square ; 
 also at All Saints', Margaret Street. By the Rev. George 
 Body, B.A., Rector of Kirkby Misperton. Fourth Edition. 
 Crown Svo. $s. td. 
 
 COXTENTS. 
 
 The Leading into Temptation — The Rationale of Temptation — Why we are 
 Tempted— Safety in Temptation— With Jesus in Temptation— The End of 
 Temptation. 
 
 " Regeneration and conversion seem earliest, soul-stirring words, dealing 
 here to occupy tJieir proper places in tlie with tlie mysteries of Christian ex- 
 Christian economy, and the general perience." — London Quarterly Re- 
 subject of temptation is worked out view. 
 
 with considerable ability." — Church " A collection of sermons, pious, 
 Times. earnest, and eloquent." — English 
 
 *' This is another volume of simple. Churchman. 
 
 artto at ©iforb anti Cambtftjgc 
 
64 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Sermons on Special Occasions. By 
 
 Daniel Moore, M.A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 
 and Vicar of Holy Trinity, Paddington. Crown 8vo. "js. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Words of Christ imperishable — The Gospel Welcome — The Conversion of 
 St. Paul — The Christian's Mission — Business and Godliness — Soberness 
 and Watchfulness — The Joy of the Disciples at the Resurrection — The 
 Saviour's Ascension— Jesus in the Midst— The Moral Attractions of the 
 Cross— The Gospel Workmen— The Work of the Holy Spirit— The Doc- 
 trine of the Holy Trinity — The Law of Moral Recompenses— The Goodness 
 of King Joash — The Tenderness of Christ— Christ our Example in Youth 
 — Jacob in Life and in Death — The Spiritual Mind — Britain's Obligations 
 to the Gospel— The Throne in Mourning— Prayer and Providence— The 
 Unsearchableness of God. 
 
 The . Age and the Gospel ; Four Ser- 
 mons preached before the University of Cambridge, at the 
 Hulsean Lecture, 1864. With a Discourse on Final Retribu- 
 tion. By Daniel Moore, M. A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the 
 Queen, and Vicar of Holy Trinity, Paddington. Crown 8vo. 
 
 The Mystery of the Temptation: a 
 
 Course of Lectures. By the Rev. W. H. Hutchings, M.A., 
 Sub-Warden of the House of Mercy, Clewer. Crown 8vo. 
 4s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Entrance into the Temptation— The Fast— The Personality of Satan— 
 The First Temptation— The Second Temptation— The Third Temptation 
 — The End of the Temptation. 
 " We can mention with unmixed has always been a characteristically 
 
 praise a series of 'lectures on 1 The Mys- Anglican virtue has not failed in a 
 
 teryofthe Temptation' by Mr. Hutch- preacher like Mr. Hutchings."— Aca- 
 
 ings of Clewer. They are deeply demy. 
 
 thoughtful, full, and well written, in a ' ' Students of Scripture will find i n 
 style which, from its calmness and * The Mystery of the Temptation ' 
 dignity befits the subject."— Guar- sound reasoning, trie evidences of close 
 D1 \ N study, and tlte spirit of reverence and 
 
 " This book is one of the refreshing fervent faith."— Morning Post. 
 Proofs still occasionally met with that " This is a volume of lectures which 
 the ' traditional culture and refinement will repay serious study. They are 
 of the A nglican clergy is not quite ex- earnest to tlie last degree"— Literary 
 hausted, nor its exhaustion implied, Churchman .,,„_. v 
 by the endless and vulgar controversies "Very good indeed. —New York 
 that fill the columns of religwus news- Church Journal. 
 papers. The sober earnestness thai 
 
 OTaterlao place, Hortuort 
 
Sermons 
 
 65 
 
 The Eeligion of the Christ: its His- 
 toric and Literary Development considered as an Evidence of 
 its Origin. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1874. By the 
 Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A., Minister of St. Philip's, 
 Regent Street, and Professor of Hebrew, King's College, 
 London. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 The Witness of the Old Testament to 
 
 Christ. Being the Boyle Lectures for the year 1868. By the 
 Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A., Minister of St. Philip's, 
 Regent Street, and Professor of Hebrew, King's College, 
 London. 8vo. gs. 
 
 The Witness of St. Paul to Christ. 
 
 Being the Boyle Lectures for 1869. With an Appendix on 
 the Credibility of the Acts, in Reply to the Recent Strictures 
 of Dr. Davidson. By the Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A., 
 Minister of St. Philip's, Regent Street, and Professor of 
 Hebrew, King's College, London. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 The Witness of St. John to Christ. 
 
 Being the Boyle Lectures for 1870. With an Appendix on 
 the Authorship and Integrity of St. John's Gospel, and the 
 Unity of the Johannine Writings. By the Rev. Stanley 
 Leathes, M.A., Minister of St. Philip's, Regent Street, and 
 Professor of Hebrew, King's College, London. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Short Sermons on the Psalms in their 
 
 Order. Preached in a Village Church. By W. J. Stracey, 
 M.A., Rector of Oxnead, and Vicar of Buxton, Norfolk, for- 
 merly Fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 
 
 Vol. I.— Psalms I— XXV. 5*. 
 Vol. II.— Psalms XXVI— LI. $s. 
 
 artti at ©ifort antJ (Eambutige 
 
66 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Sermons Preached in the Temporary 
 
 Chapel of Keble College, Oxford, 1870— 1876. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Service of God the Principle of Daily Life — The Costliness of Acceptable 
 Offerings — The Hearing of Sermons— The Missionary Character of all 
 Christian Lives — The Revelation of the Son as well in Nature as in the 
 Incarnation — The New Chapel — The Secret of Spiritual Strength — The 
 Preparation of Lent — The Spirit of the Daily Services : I. The Spiritual 
 Sacrifice of the Universal Priesthood. II. Offering to God of His Own — 
 The Life of Love — The Resurrection — Redeeming the Time — The Devo- 
 tional Study of Holy Scripture — Conversion — Conversation — Enthusiasm 
 —Growth in the Knowledge of God— The Imitation of Christ— Manliness 
 —Truth — Saints' Days— Eternity— Life. 
 
 Farewell Counsels of a Pastor to his 
 
 Flock, on Topics of the Day. By Edward Meyrick Goul- 
 burn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. Third Edition. Small 8vo. 4J. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Absolution — Ritualism — The Doctrine of the Eucharist — The Atonement — The 
 Stability of an Orthodox Faith— The Stability of Personal Religion— 
 On Preaching Christ Crucified — The Responsibility of Hearers. 
 
 The Doctrine of the Cross : specially 
 
 in its relation to the Troubles of Life. Sermons preached 
 during Lent in the Parish Church of New Windsor by Henry 
 J. Ellison, M.A. (sometime Vicar of Windsor), Honorary 
 Chaplain to the Queen, Honorary Canon of Christ Church, and 
 Rector of Haseley, Oxon. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Troubles of Life — The Doctrine of the Cross — The Christian Crucified with 
 Christ — The Cross of Chastisement — The Cross of Trial — Voluntary 
 Crosses — The Crown. 
 
 The Way of Holiness in Married Life. 
 
 A Course of Sermons preached in Lent. By the Rev. Henry 
 J. Ellison, M.A., Hon. Canon of Christ Church, and Vicar 
 of New Windsor, Berks. Second Edition. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
Sermons 67 
 
 Sermons Preached in the Parish 
 
 Church of Barnes, 1871 to 1876. By Peter Goldsmith 
 Medd, M.A., Rector of North Cerney, Hon. Canon of St. 
 Albans, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop ; late Senior 
 Fellow of University College, Oxford, and Rector of Barnes. 
 Crown 8vo. 7^. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Thankfulness for God's Mercies— Subjection to the Civil Power— Christ's Pro- 
 phecy of the End— God's Purpose of Love in Creation— The Introduction 
 of Evil into the Creation — Christian Love — Christianity a Religion of Self- 
 Denial — The Nature of Sin — The Consequences of Sin (No. 1) — The 
 Consequences of Sin (No. 2) — The Remedy of Sin (No. 1) — The Remedy 
 of Sin (No. 2)— With Christ in Paradise— The Remedy of Sin (No. 3) — 
 The Remedy of Sin (No. 4) — Christ the Resurrection and the Life — The 
 Hope of the Resurrection — The Three Resurrections— The Hope of the 
 Christian— The Publican's Prayer— The Conflict of Flesh and Spirit- 
 Christian Unity — The Duty of Forgiveness — Present Salvation — The 
 Marks of the Children of God — Against Religious Narrowness — The 
 Necessity of Meditation on Religious Subjects — The Need of Effort in the 
 Christian Life — Bodily Works of Mercy — The Athanasian Creed — Con- 
 scious Religion — The Comfort of the Christian Faith— Appendix. 
 
 " The special merit of his volume is not of ten meet with a volume of dis- 
 
 its thoughtfulness ; and as Mr. Medd courses of such uniform excellence, 
 
 writes in a very condensed style, the Nothing hazardous is attempted ; but 
 
 thirty-two sermons which he has given in all that he attempts Mr. Medd 
 
 us contain a great deal more of valu- entirely succeeds. The teaching is 
 
 able matter than many books of much, plain, direct, and effective ; while the 
 
 larger bulk. . . . We believe that breadth of view and the liberality oj 
 
 many of our readers, among the sentiment are most refreshing in these 
 
 clergy as well as the laity, will thank days wJien the sermon is too ofte?i 
 
 us for having drawn tlieir attention made a party manifesto. Professor 
 
 to the excellences of the volume before Blackie would find in them both 
 
 us." — Guardian. ' vigour' and '* grace .' And the reader 
 
 " TJiey range over a wide circle of will also find in tliem a considerable 
 
 subjects, theological and practical; knowledge of the heart, an intelligent 
 
 but are always full, vigorous, and compre /tension of the Christian system, 
 
 energetic, yet with a sobriety of style much lucid exposition of Scriptural 
 
 and an elegance of treatment tfyat truth, and a forcible application of it 
 
 must have charmed the Jiearer just to tlie human conscience.'" — Scottish 
 
 as tJiey win upon the reader. We do Guardian. 
 
 The Permanence of Christianity. Con- 
 sidered in Eight Lectures preached before the University of 
 Oxford, in the year 1872, on the Foundation of the late Rev. 
 John Bampton, M.A. By John Richard Turner Eaton, 
 M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Rector of 
 Lap worth, Warwickshire. 8vo. \2s. 
 
 anto at ©ifori arrti (!Iambrfafl£ 
 
68 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 The Christian Character; Six Sermons 
 
 preached in Lent. By John Jackson, D.D., Bishop of 
 London. Seventh Edition. Small 8vo. $s. 
 
 The Eeconciliation of Reason and 
 
 Faith. Being Sermons on Faith, Evil, Sin and Suffering, Im- 
 mortality, God, Science, Prayer, and other Subjects. By 
 Reginald E. Molyneux, M.A. Crown 8vo. 4J. 
 
 The Soul in its Probation: Sermons 
 
 Preached at the Church of S. Alban the Martyr, Holborn, 
 on the Sundays in Lent, 1873. By the Rev. F. N. Oxenham, 
 M. A. 8vo. 5 j. 
 
 The Last Three Sermons preached at 
 
 Oxford by Philip N. Shutt-leworth, D.D., sometime 
 Lord Bishop of Chichester. Justification through Faith — The 
 Merciful Character of the Gospel Covenant — The Sufficiency of 
 Scripture a Rule of Faith. To which is added a Letter 
 addressed in 1841 to a Young Clergyman, now a Priest in the 
 Church of Rome. New Edition. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Not Tradition but Scripture. By the 
 
 late Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth, D.D., Warden of 
 New College, Oxford, and Rector of Foxley, Wilts, afterwards 
 Bishop of Chichester. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 2>s. 6d. 
 
 MatEtkio Pacf, Kantian 
 
7. Eeiigious SEtmcation. 
 
 A Key to Christian Doctrine and Prac- 
 tice, founded on the Church Catechism. By the Rev. John 
 Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., Editor of "The Annotated 
 Book of Common Prayer," &c. &c. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 Forming a Volume of "Keys to Christian Knowledge." 
 
 " Of c/ieap and reliable text-books of into matters of practical application so 
 
 this nature tltere has hitJierto been a freely as to make it most serviceable , 
 
 great want. We are often asked to re- either as a teac/ier's suggestion book, 
 
 commend books for use in Church Sun- or as an intelligent pupil's reading 
 
 day-schools, and we tliere fore take this book." — Literary Churchman. 
 
 opportunity of saying that we kncnu of " IVill be very useful for the higlier 
 
 none 7nore likely to be of service both classes in Sunday-sclwols, or ratlier 
 
 to teac Iters and sclwlars than t/zese for t/te f idler instruction of t/te Sunday- 
 
 ' Keys.'" — Churchman's Shilling school teacJters tJiemselves, wJtere tJie 
 
 Magazine. parish priest is wise enough to devote a 
 
 ''This is anotJier of Mr. Blunt's certain time regularly to tJieir prepara- 
 
 most useful manuals, with all the pre- tion for tlteir voluntary task." — Union 
 
 cision of a school book, yet diverging Review. 
 
 Household Theology : a Handbook of 
 
 Religious Information respecting the Holy Bible, the Prayer 
 Book, the Church, the Ministry, Divine Worship, the Creeds, 
 &c. &c. By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 Editor of "The Annotated Book of Common Prayer," &c. &c. 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. $ s - 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Bible— The Prayer Book— The Church— Table of Dates— Ministerial Offices 
 — Divine Worship — The Creeds— A Practical Summary of Christian 
 Doctrine — The Great Christian Writers of Early Times — Ancient and 
 Modern Heresies and Sects — The Church Calendar — A short explanation 
 of Words used in Church History and Theology— Index. 
 
 anil at ©if orb anb (Eambribgc 
 
7o Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Manuals of Eeligious Instruction. 
 
 Edited by John Pilkington Norris, B.D., Canon of 
 Bristol, Vicar of St. Mary, Redcliffe, and Examining Chaplain 
 to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 3 Volumes. Small 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. Sold separately. 
 
 The Old Testament. 
 The New Testament. 
 The Prayer Book. 
 
 Or each Volume in Five Parts, is. each Part. 
 
 [These Manuals are intended to supply a five years' course of instruction for 
 young people between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. 
 
 It will be seen that fifteen small graduated text-books are provided :— 
 
 Five on the Old Testament ; 
 Five on the New Testament ; 
 Five on the Catechism and Liturgy. 
 
 In preparing the last, the Editor has thought it best to spread the study of the 
 Catechism over several years, rather than compress it into one. 
 
 This may give rise to what may appear some needless repetition. But the 
 Lessons of our Catechism are of such paramount importance, that it seems de- 
 sirable to keep it continually in our Pupils' hands, as the best key to the study of 
 the Prayer Book. 
 
 There has been a grievous want of definiteness in our young people's know- 
 ledge of Church doctrine. Especially have the Diocesan Inspectors noticed it 
 in our Pupil Teachers. It has arisen, doubtless, from their Teachers assuming 
 that they had clear elementary ideas about religion, in which really they had 
 never been grounded. It is therefore thought not too much to ask them to give 
 one-third of their time to the study of the Prayer Book. 
 
 In the Old Testament and New Testament Manuals the greatest pains have 
 been taken to give them such a character as shall render it impossible for them 
 to supersede the Sacred Text. Two main objects the writers of the Old and 
 New Testament Manuals have proposed to themselves; first, to stimulate interest; 
 second, to supply a sort of running commentary on the inspired page. Especial 
 pains have been taken to draw the reader's attention to the spiritual teaching of 
 Holy Scripture, and to subordinate to this the merely historical interest. 
 
 The writer of the Old Testament Manual has made it his endeavour to help 
 the reader to see our Lord Christ in Law, in Psalms, in Prophets. 
 
 The New Testament Manual is confined to the Gospels and Acts. It was 
 found impossible to include any of the Epistles. But the Fourth Part of the 
 Prayer Book Manual will in some measure supply this deficiency. 
 
 Although they were originally prepared with special regard to Pupil Teachers, 
 they will be found adapted also for all students of a like age (from thirteen to 
 eighteen) who have not access to many books.] 
 
 TOaterloo place, Jonbott 
 
Religious Education 
 
 71 
 
 Rudiments of Theology. A First Book 
 
 for Students. By John Pilkington Norris, B.D., Canon 
 of Bristol, Vicar of St. Mary, Redcliffe, and Examining Chap- 
 lain to the Bishop of Manchester. Second Edition, revised. 
 Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 " It is altogether a remarkable book, and directing the student's mind to 
 
 We have seldom seen clear, incisive ' what the early Fat/iers thought and 
 
 reasoning, orthodox teaching, and turote in the days -when the Church's 
 
 ivide-mindedness in such happy com- theologians had to hold their own 
 
 bination. '— Literary Churchman. against an adverse world.'" — Guar- 
 
 " A most useful book for theological dian. 
 students in the earlier part of their " This work was prepared as a hand- 
 course. . . . The book is one for book for theological students. But it 
 which the Church owes a debt of grati- is to reach a far wider field. It is 
 tude to Canon Norris, combining, as capable ofdobig a most important ser- 
 it does, orthodoxy and. learning, and vice among all classes. We have sel- 
 logical accuracy of 'definition with real dom, if ever, met a more satisfactory 
 charity. We heartily commend it." — or a clearer presentation of the funda- 
 John Bull. mental facts of theology than those 
 
 " We can recommend this book to given in these pages. . . . The 
 
 theological students as a useful and author has the rare faculty — it 
 
 compendious manual. It is clear atid amounts really to genius — of saying 
 
 well arranged. . . . We venture just the thing that ought to be said, 
 
 to believe that, on the whole, he is a and of presenting any truth in such a 
 
 very fair exponent of the teaching of shape that the reader can easily take 
 
 the English Church, and that his book hold of it and make it his own. . . . 
 
 may be profitably used by those for We commend this work to Churchmen 
 
 whom it is chiefly ifitended — that is, generally as one from which all can 
 
 candidates for ordination." — Spec- derive profit. To the Clergy it will 
 
 tator. serve as a model method of dogmatic 
 
 ' ' This unpretending work supplies teaching, and to the laity it will be a 
 
 a real desideratum. . . . It seeks rich storehouse of information con- 
 to lead us from the shifting sands of cerning the things to be believed. . . . 
 
 human systems to the solid ground oj The whole thing is so admirable in 
 
 Divine revelation, wisely recognising tone, arrangement, and style that it 
 
 as its most trustworthy interpreters will, no doubt, become universally 
 
 those who came nearest to its times, popular." — Churchman (New York). 
 
 The Young Churchman's Companion 
 
 to the Prayer Book. By the Rev. J. W. Gedge, M.A., 
 Winchester Diocesan Inspector of Schools for West Surrey 
 and the Channel Islands. (Recommended by the late and 
 present Lord Bishops of Winchester. ) 
 
 Part I. — Morning and Evening Prayer and Litany. 
 
 Part II. — Baptismal and Confirmation Services. 
 
 Part III. — Holy Communion. 
 
 i8mo., is. each Part ; or in paper cover, 6d. 
 
 artb at (©atforb ant) (£ambrxt)ge 
 
72 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 A Catechism on Gospel History, in- 
 culcating Church Doctrine. By the Rev. Samuel Kettle- 
 well, M. A., late Vicar of St. Mark's, Leeds. Third Edition. 
 Small 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 " This work has deservedly reached religions instruction to tJieir own 
 
 a third edition. Originally composed children, as well as for teachers gen- 
 
 when its author was at Leeds, its erally." — National Church. 
 
 usefulness was tested in the parish " Sunday-school teachers and others 
 
 church schools there. 1 1 has since engaged in the instruction of the young 
 
 been enlarged and carefully revised, will .find in its pages many useful 
 
 and will be found exceedingly well suggestions." — Rock. 
 suited for the use of parents in giving 
 
 A Help to Catechizing. For the Use of 
 
 Clergymen, Schools, and Private Families. By James Beaven, 
 D.D., formerly Professor of Divinity in the University of King's 
 College, Toronto. New Edition. i8mo. 2s. 
 
 Catechetical Exercises on the Apostles' 
 
 Creed ; chiefly from Bp. Pearson. By Edward Bicker- 
 steth, D.D., Dean of Lichfield. New Edition. i8mo. 2s. 
 
 Questions illustrating the Thirty-Nine 
 
 Articles of the Church of England, with Proofs from Holy 
 Scripture, and the Primitive Church. By Edward Bicker- 
 steth, D.D. , Dean of Lichfield. Sixth Edition. Small 8vo. 
 
 The Idle Word : Short Religious Essays 
 
 upon the Gift of Speech. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, 
 D.D., Dean of Norwich. Fourth Edition. Small 8vo. 3*. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Connexion of Speech with Reason — The Connexion of Speech with Reason 
 — The Heavenly Analogy of the Connexion of Speech with Reason 
 — An Idle Word Defined from the Decalogue — An Idle Word denned 
 from the Decalogue — What is an Idle Word? — Words of Business and 
 innocent Recreation not Idle — Speech the Instrument of Prophecy and 
 Sacrifice — Hints for the Guidance of Conversation — On Religious Con- 
 versation — Appendix. 
 
 Waterloo Place, Xontion 
 
Religious Education 
 
 73 
 
 A Manual of Confirmation, Comprising 
 
 — I. A General Account of the Ordinance. 2. The Baptismal 
 Vow, and the English Order of Confirmation, with Short 
 Notes, Critical and Devotional. 3. Meditations and Prayers 
 on Passages of Holy Scripture, in connexion with the Ordi- 
 nance. With a Pastoral Letter instructing Catechumens 
 how to prepare themselves for their first Communion. By 
 Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., Dean of Norwich. 
 Ninth Edition. Small 8vo. is. 6d. 
 
 Easy Lessons Addressed to Candidates 
 
 for Confirmation. By John Pilkingtox Norris, B.D., 
 Canon of Bristol, Vicar of St. Mary, Redciiffe, and Examining 
 Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. Small 8vo. is. 6J. 
 
 "An admirable Jiand-book on con- 
 firmation. It is sound, scriptural, 
 plain, and practical. It brings out 
 only important points, and is not over- 
 loaded with unessential things. Be- 
 sides, it has t/ie rare merit of being 
 adapted to persons of varying ages." — 
 Churchman (New York). 
 
 "Is so arranged as to convey the 
 teaching of t lie Catechism to tliose zvho, 
 from early disadvantages, are unable 
 to commit it to memory. Earnest 
 counsels are appended for the guidance 
 of the confirmed in maturer years. 1 ' — 
 National Church. 
 
 " The Cation aims in the first nitie 
 I essons to transfuse Hie substance of Hie 
 Catechism into a form which such 
 persons could(readily apprehetid ; and 
 in this he has entirely succeeded. His 
 little book, Jiovuever, is equally well 
 
 adapted for better educated candidates, 
 whose interest in t/ie time-lionoured 
 formula, so often repeated will probably 
 be stimulated afresh by the novelty of 
 t/ie arrangement. Canon Morris's ex- 
 planations are thoroughly clear, and 
 it is needless to say that his teaching 
 is sound and moderate." — Scottish 
 Guardian. 
 
 "A valuable little work, in which 
 the principal points of the Church's 
 teaching are clearly and fully set forth. 
 The remarks on the Sacraments are 
 exceedingly good, and although these 
 ' Lessofis' are primarily intended for 
 t/iose who are preparing for confirm- 
 ation, they might with advantage be 
 studied by tliose who, having passed 
 this stage, are desirous of refreshing 
 tJieir memories respecting the doctrines 
 tJiey profess to believe." — Rock. 
 
 Catechesis ; or, Christian Instruction 
 
 preparatory to Confirmation and First Communion. By 
 Charles Wordsworth, D.C.L., Bishop of St. Andrews. 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. 2s. 
 
 mti at ©iforfc artb GTambrt&ge 
 
8. allegories ann Sales. 
 
 Allegories and Tales. By the Rev. W. 
 
 E. Heygate, M.A., Rector of Brighstone. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 ' ' It is eminently original, and every either for young or for old. The stories 
 
 one of its sixty-three short allegories is a are some of them quaint, some of them 
 
 story that the dullest child zuillread and picturesque, all of tJiem pleasatit ; and 
 
 the intelligent child -will understand the ?noral they inclose shines out soft 
 
 and enjoy. Grave thought, kindly rail- and clear as through a crystal. This 
 
 lery, biting sarcasm, grim humour, sin- is a book that may be recommended for 
 
 cere indigfiation, wise counsel, a broad a present, not only for young people, but 
 
 charity, and other characteristics, -rim for those of larger growth.'" — Athen- 
 
 through the allegories, many of which ^eum. 
 
 are highly poetical and good models of " The Rector of Brighstone has the 
 
 that style of composition." — Edinburgh gift of writing moral and spiritual 
 
 Courant. lessons for the young in the most at- 
 
 " Mr, Heygate 1 svolume contains about tractive fashion. His 1 Allegories and 
 
 sixty short tales or allegories, all rife Tales' are excellent specimens of stories, 
 
 with good teaching, plainly set forth, with a moral, in which the moral is 
 
 and written in a very engaging and not obtrusive and yet is not lost." — 
 
 attractive style. As a present for chil- English Independent. 
 dren this book would be at once accept- "A book of very great beauty and 
 
 able and beneficial. It can be highly power. Mr. Heygate is a thoughtful, 
 
 commended." — Church Herald. earnest and able writer, on whom more 
 
 il There are both grace and precision than any one is fallen in a striking 
 
 about these 'Allegories and Tales,' manner tlie mantle of the great author 
 
 which make them charming to read of'Agathos.'" — John Bull. 
 
 Sacred Allegories. The Shadow of the 
 
 Cross— The Distant Hills— The Old Man's Home— The King's 
 Messengers. By the Rev. William Adams, M.A., late 
 Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. New Edition. With 
 numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $s. 
 
 The Four Allegories may be had separately, with Illustra- 
 tions. i6mo. is. each. 
 
 Waterloo JUace, |L otto on 
 
Allegories and Tales 
 
 75 
 
 The First Chronicle of ^Escendune. 
 
 A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan. By the Rev. A. D. 
 Crake, B.A., Author of the "History of the Church under 
 the Roman Empire," &c. &c. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 
 " The volume will possess a strong period. We can scarcely imagine it 
 
 interest, especially for the young, and possible that it should be anything else 
 
 be useful, too, for though in form a tale, than a great favourite." — Literary 
 
 it may be classed among ' the side-lights Churchman. 
 
 of history.'" — Standard. "It is one of the best historical tales 
 "Altogether the book shows great for the young that has been published 
 tliought and careful study of the matt- for a long time." — Nonconformist. 
 tiers and customs of those early Saxon "Written with much spirit and a 
 times." — John Bull. careful altetition to the best authorities 
 " We sliall be glad when Mr. Crake on the history of the period of which he 
 takes up his pen once more, to give us treats." — National Church. 
 a further instalment of the annals of " The facts upo?t which the Chronicle 
 the House of AEscendune." — Church is based have been carefully brought 
 Times. together from a variety of sources, and 
 "A very interesting and well-written great skill has been shown in the con- 
 story of Saxon tunes — the times of struction of the narrative. TJie aim 
 Dunstan and the hapless Edwy. The of the author is certainly a good one, 
 author has evidently taken great pains and his efforts have been attended with a 
 to examine into the real history of the considerable amount of 'success .' '—Rock. 
 
 Alfgar the Dane, or the Second Chron- 
 icle of ^Escendune, A Tale. By the Rev. A. D. Crake, 
 B.A., Author of the " History of the Church under the 
 Roman Empire," &c. &c. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 " Mr. Crake's 'Chronicles of AEscen- 
 dune ' have their second instalment in 
 'Alfgar the Dane,' a youth who is 
 saved from tJie massacre on S. Brice's 
 night to meet with many capital ad- 
 ventures." — Guardian. 
 
 ' ' Sure to be excessively popular with 
 boys, and we look forward with great 
 interest to the Third Chronicle, which 
 will tell of the Norman invasion." — 
 Church Times. 
 
 " As in his former production, Mr. 
 Crake seems to have taken great pains 
 to be correct in his facts, and he has, we 
 really believe, combined accuracy with 
 liveliness. Schoolboys, not at Blox/uzm 
 only, ought to be very grateful to him ; 
 though in thus speaking we by no 
 means intend to imply that seniors 
 
 will not find this little book both inter- 
 esting and instructive. Its tone is as 
 excellent as that of Mr. Crake's pre- 
 vious tale."— Church Quarterly Re- 
 view. 
 
 "Here, strung together with char- 
 acters in hartnony with the times, is a 
 thoroughly well-written history of the 
 later Danish invasions of England. 
 . ... As a tale his work is interest- 
 ing; as a history it is of very consider- 
 able value." — Nonconformist. 
 
 " It is not often that a writer com- 
 bines so completely the qualities which 
 go to make up the historian and the 
 novelist, but Mr. Crake has this happy 
 conjunction of faculties in an emine?it 
 degree." — Standard. 
 
 att& at ®xtorb att& &ambribge 
 
76 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Semele; or, The Spirit of Beauty: a 
 
 Venetian Tale. By the Rev. J. D. Mereweather, B.A. 
 English Chaplain at Venice. Small 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 The Hillford Confirmation. A Tale. 
 
 By M. C. Phillpotts. New Edition. i6mo. is. 
 
 Waterloo place, ^ottoon 
 
9. I£)t0torg anD TBtograpfjp, 
 
 Bossuet and his Contemporaries. 
 
 By H. L. Sidney Lear. Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of "Christian Biographies." 
 
 contains so many ifiterestvig " Bossuet' s daily life, his style of 
 
 facts that it may be profitably read preaching, his association with the 
 
 even by those who already kuorv the stirring political, social, and ecclesias- 
 
 man and the period." — Spectator. lical events of his time, are prese7ited 
 
 " Here is a clear and good work, the in a simple but picturesque way." — 
 
 product of thorough industry and of Daily News. 
 
 /wuesl mind" — Nonconformist. " We are always glad to welcome a 
 
 "All biography is delightful, and fresh work front the graceful pen of the 
 
 this story of Bossuet is eminently so." author of 1 A Dominican Artist.'" — 
 
 —Notes and Queries. Saturday Review. 
 
 Fenelon, Archbishop of Oambrai. A 
 
 Biographical Sketch. By H. L. Sidney Lear. Crown Svo. 
 2s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Christian Biographies." 
 
 "Those who know — and we may be scarcely too much to extend the same 
 
 fairly ask, who does not ? — the charm- praise to the whole book. " — Spectator. 
 
 ing books which we have already had "Fenelon is thoroughly readable, 
 
 from the present writer, will need and is much more than a biographical 
 
 nothing more than the announcement sketch. There are nearly 500 pages, 
 
 of it to make them welcome this new ac- and there are very few wJiich fail to 
 
 count of 'the life of 'the saintly Fenelon." give a reader something for glad 
 
 —Church Quarterly Review. or serious thought."— Notes and 
 
 " The history of the Church offers Queries. 
 
 few more attractive biographies than "We doubt much whether the real 
 
 that of the great Archbishop, whom man was ever so vividly portrayed 
 
 everybody appreciated save his king." or his portrait so elegantly framed as 
 
 — Guardian. in this choice and readable book." — 
 
 ' ' The delightful volume under notice Watchman. 
 
 will add much to the well-deserved re- " One of the great charms of this 
 
 putation of its author." — Church work consists in the letters scattered 
 
 Times. up and dow)i its pages, some addressed 
 
 " The writer has foimd a subject to his royal pupil, and others to his 
 
 which suits her genius, a?idshe handles frie?ids. The sweet nature and singu- 
 
 it with both skill and sympathy. . . . lar fascination of the Archbishop shine 
 
 The account of his life at Catubrai is forth conspicuously in these self-reve- 
 
 one of tlie most delightful ?iarratives latious, which breathe a truly religious 
 
 that we have ever read. It would spirit." — English Independent. 
 
 ant) at (Shforti ant) Cambridge 
 
78 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 A Christian Painter of the Nineteenth 
 
 Century ; being the Life of Hippolyte Flandrin. By H. L. 
 Sidney Lear. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Christian Biographies," 
 
 ' 1 This is a touching and instructive 
 story of a life singularly full of nobil- 
 ity, affectio?i, and grace, and it is 
 worthily told." — Spectator. 
 
 "Sympathetic, popular, and free, 
 almost to a fault, from technicalities. 
 . . . The book is welcome as a not 
 untimely memorial to a man who 
 deserves to be held up as an example." 
 — Saturday Review. 
 
 " The record of a life marked by 
 exalted aims, and crowned by no small 
 
 amount of honour and success, cannot 
 but be welcome to earnest students of 
 all kinds. . . . There are many 
 fine pieces of criticism in this book, — 
 utterances of Flandrin' s which show 
 the clear wit of the man, his candour, 
 
 and self-balanced judgment 
 
 We have written enough to show how 
 interesting the book is." — Athenaeum. 
 
 " This is a charming addition to 
 biographical literature." — Notes and 
 Queries. 
 
 A Dominican Artist : A Sketch of the 
 
 Life of the Rev. Pere Besson, of the Order of St. Dominic. 
 By H. L. Sidney Lear. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Christian Biographies." 
 
 " The author of the Life of Pere 
 Besson writes with a grace and refine- 
 ment of devotional feeling peculiarly 
 suited to a subject-matter which suffers 
 beyond most others from any coarse- 
 ness of touch. It would be difficult to 
 find ' the simplicity and purity of a 
 holy life ' more exquisitely illustrated 
 than in Father Besson's career, both 
 before and after his joining the Domi- 
 nican Order under the auspices of 
 Lacordaire. . . . Certainly we have 
 never come across what could more 
 strictly be termed in the truest sense 
 1 the life of a beautiful soul.' The 
 author has done well in presenting to 
 English readers this singtdarly grace- 
 ful biography, in which all who can ap- 
 preciate genuine simplicity and noble- 
 ness of Christian character will find 
 much to admire and little or nothi?ig 
 to condemn." —Saturday Review. 
 
 "It would indeed have been a de- 
 plorable omission had so exquisite a 
 biography been by any neglect lost to 
 English readers, and had a character 
 
 so perfect in its simple and complete 
 devotion been withheld from our 
 
 admiration But we have 
 
 dwelt too long already on thisfascinat- 
 ing book, and must now leave it to our 
 readers." — Literary Churchman. 
 
 " A beautiful and most interesting 
 sketch of the late Pere Besson, an 
 artist who forsook the easel for the 
 altar." — Church Times. 
 
 1 ' Whatever a reader may think of 
 Pere Besson's profession as a monk, 
 no one will doubt his goodness ; no one 
 can fail to profit who will patiently 
 read his life, as here written by a 
 friend, whose sole defect is in being 
 slightly unctuous." — Athenaeum. 
 
 " The story of Pere Besson 1 s life is 
 one of jnuch interest, and told with 
 simplicity, candour, and good feeling. " 
 — Spectator. 
 
 " We strongly recommend it to otcr 
 readers. It is a charmifig biography , 
 that will delight and edify both old and 
 young." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 Waterloo f late, fonoon 
 
History and Biography 
 
 79 
 
 The Life of Madame Louise de France, 
 
 Daughter of Louis XV. , also known as the Mother Terese de 
 S. Augustin. By H. L. Sidney Lear. Crown 8vo. 2> s - 6d. 
 Forming a Volume of " Christian Biographies." 
 " Such a record of deep, earnest, self- family of LouisXV. thereissues this Ma- 
 sacrificing piety, beneath the surface of dame Louise, whose life is set before us 
 Parisian life, during what we all re- as a specimen of as calm andunworldly 
 gard as the worst age of French godless- devotion — of a devotion, too, full of 
 ness. ought to teach us all a lesson of 'hope shrewd sense and practical adminis- 
 and faith, let appearances be what tJiey trative talent — as any we have ever 
 may. Here, from out of the court and met with.'"— Literary Churchman. 
 
 The Revival of Priestly Life in the 
 
 Seventeenth Century in France. Charles de Condren — 
 S. Philip Neri and Cardinal de Berulle — S. Vincent 
 de Paul — Saint Sulpice and Jean Jacques Olier. 
 By H. L. Sidney Lear. Crown 8vo. 3J. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Christian Biographies." 
 "A book the authorship of which may belong, can read without quick 
 will command the respect of all who sympathy and emotion these touching 
 can honour sterling worth. No Chris- sketches of the early Oratorians and the 
 tian, to whatever denomination he Lazarists." — Standard. 
 
 Life of S. Francis de Sales. By H. L. 
 
 Sidney Lear. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Christian Biographies." 
 
 "It is written with the delicacy, his own writings and in those of his 
 
 freshness, and absence of all affecta- most intimate and affectionate friends. 
 
 Hon which characterized the former The book is written with the grave and 
 
 works by the same hand, and which quiet grace which characterizes the 
 
 render these books so very much more productions of its author, and cannot 
 
 pleasant reading than are religious fail to please those readers who can 
 
 biographies in general. The character sympathize with all forms of goodness 
 
 of S. Francis de Sales, Bishop of and devotion to noble purpose." — 
 
 Geneva, is a charming one. His un- Westminster Review. 
 
 affected humility, his freedom from "A book which contains the record 
 
 dogmatism in an age when dogma of a life as sweet, pure, and noble, as 
 
 was placed above religion, his freedom any man by divine help, granted to 
 
 from bigotry in an age of persecution, devout sincerity of soul, has been per- 
 
 were alike admirable.'''' — Standard. mitted to live upon earth. The ex- 
 
 " The author of 'A Dominican ample of this gentle but resolute and 
 
 Artist? in writing this new life of the energetic spirit, wholly dedicated to 
 
 wise and loving Bishop and Prince of the highest conceivable good, offering 
 
 Geneva, has aimed less at historical itself, with all the temporal uses of 
 
 or ecclesiastical investigation than at mental existence , to the service of in- 
 
 a vivid and natural representation of finite and eternal beneficence, is ex- 
 
 the inner mind and life of the subject tremely touching. It is a book worthy 
 
 of his biography, as it can be traced in of acceptance." — Daily News. 
 
 mti at ©xforti ant) Cambridge 
 
8o Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 Henri Perreyve. By A. Gratry, Pretre 
 
 de l'Oratoire, Professeur de Morale Evangelique a la Sorbonne, 
 et Membre de l'Academie Fran9aise. Translated by special 
 permission. With Portrait. By H. L. Sidney Lear. Crown 
 8vo. 3J. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of "Christian Biographies." 
 
 ' ' A most touching and powerful of the memoir gave himself up to the 
 
 piece of biography , interspersed with duties of his sacred office, and to the 
 
 profound refections on personal reli- cultivation of the graces with which lie 
 
 gion, and on the prospects of Chris- was endowed." — Church Times. 
 
 tianity." — Church Review. "It is easy to see that Henri Per- 
 
 " The works of the translator of reyve, Professor of Moral Theology at 
 
 Henri Perreyve form, for the most the Sorbonne, was a Roman Catholic 
 
 part, a series of saintly biographies priest of no ordinary type. With com- 
 
 which have obtained a larger share o_f paratively little of what Protestants 
 
 popularity than is generally accorded call superstition, with great courage 
 
 to books of this description. . . . and sincerity , with a nature singularly 
 
 The description of his last days will gzcileless and noble, his priestly voca- 
 
 probably be read with greater interest tion, although pursued, according to 
 
 than any other part of tJie book ; pre- his biographer, with unbridled zeal, 
 
 senting as it does an example op forti- did not stifle his human sympathies 
 
 tude under suffering, and resignation, and aspirations. He could not believe 
 
 when cut off so soon after entering upon that his faith compelled him 'to re- 
 
 a much-coveted and useful career, of nounce sense and reason,' or that a 
 
 rare occurrence in this age of self- priest was not free to speak, act, and 
 
 assertion. This is, in fact, the essen- think like other men. Indeed, the 
 
 Hal teaching of the entire volume." Abbe Gratry makes a kind of apology 
 
 —Morning Post. for his friend's free-speaking in this 
 
 " 'Those who take a pleasure in read- respect, and endeavours to explain 
 
 ing a beautiful accomit of a beautiful it. Perreyve was the beloved disciple 
 
 character would do well to procure the of Lacordaire, who left him all his 
 
 Life of 'Henri Perreyve.'' . . . We manuscripts, notes, and papers, and 
 
 would, especially recommend the book he himself attained the position of a 
 
 for the perusal of English priests, who great pulpit orator. " — Pall Mall 
 
 may learn many a holy lesson from Gazette. 
 the devoted spirit in which the subject 
 
 The Last Days of Pere Gratry. By Pere 
 
 Adolphe Perraud, of the Oratory, and Professor of La 
 Sorbonne. Translated by special permission. By the Author 
 of "Life of S. Francis de Sales," &c. Crown 8vo. 3J. 6d. 
 
 Walter Kerr Hamilton, Bishop of Salis- 
 bury. A Sketch by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., Canon of 
 St. Paul's, and Ireland Professor of Exegesis in the University 
 of Oxford. Second Edition. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Waterloo Place, fonbon 
 
History and Biography 
 
 81 
 
 Life of S. Vincent de Paul. With Intro- 
 duction by the Rev. R. F. Wilson, M.A., Prebendary of 
 Salisbury and Vicar of Rownhams, and Chaplain to the Bishop 
 of Salisbury. Crown 8vo. gs. 
 
 " A most readable volume, illustrat- 
 ing plans and arrangements , which 
 from the circumstances of the day are 
 invested with peculiar interest." — 
 English Churchman. 
 
 "A 11 will be pleased at reading the 
 presefit admirably written narrative, 
 in which we do not know whether to 
 admire more the candour and eat nest- 
 ness of the writer or his plain, sensible, 
 and agreeable style" — Weekly Re- 
 gister. 
 
 " We trust that this deeply interest- 
 ing a?id beautifully zvritten biography 
 will be extensively circulated in Eng- 
 land." — Church Herald. 
 
 " We heartily recommend the intro- 
 duction to the study of all concerned 
 zvith ordinations." — Guardian. 
 
 " We are glad that S. Vincent de 
 Paul, one of the most remarkable men 
 
 produced by the Gallican Church, has 
 at last found a competent English 
 biographer. The volume before us has 
 evidently been written with conscien- 
 tious care and scrupulous industry. 
 It is based on the best authorities, 
 which have been compared with praise- 
 worthy diligence; its style is clear, 
 elegant, and unambitious; and it 
 shows a fine appreciation of the life 
 and character of the man whom it 
 commemorates." — Scottish Guar- 
 dian. 
 
 ' ' Mr. Wilson has done his work 
 admirably and evidently con amore, 
 and he completely proves the thesis 
 with which he starts, viz., that in the 
 life of the Saint there is a homeliness 
 and simplicity, and a general absence 
 of the miraculous or the more ascetic 
 type of saintliness."— John Bull. 
 
 Life of Kobert Gray, Bishop of Cape 
 
 Town and Metropolitan of the Province of South Africa. Edited 
 by his Son, the Rev. Charles Gray, M.A., Vicar of Helms- 
 ley, York. With Portrait and Map. 2 Vols. 8vo. 32s. 
 
 " This work is more tha?i a bio- true apostolic spirit, was a faithful 
 
 graphy; it is a vahiable additio?i to son of the Church, and a distinguished 
 
 tfie history of the nineteenth ce?itury. or7iament of the Episcopate." — Stan- 
 
 Mr. Keble more than o?ice described dard. 
 
 Bishop Gray's struggles as 'like a bit " Not only interesting as the record 
 
 out of the fourth century. ,'" — Guar- of a good man's life, but extremely 
 
 dian. valuable as materials for Church his- 
 
 " We welcome it as a worthy tribute tory" — Church Times. 
 to the memory of 07ie who possessed the 
 
 Life, Journals, and Letters of Henry 
 
 Alford, D.D., late Dean of Canterbury. Edited by his 
 Widow. With Portrait and Illustrations. New Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. gs. 
 
 anb at ©ifort) ant) (£ambrit)ge 
 
82 
 
 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 History of the Church under the 
 
 Roman Empire, a.d. 30-476. By the Rev. A. D. Crake, 
 B.A. New Edition. Crown 8vo. p. 6d. 
 
 " A compendious history o_f 'the Chris- schools for tJie young." — English 
 
 tian Church under the Roman Empire Churchman. 
 
 will be hailed with pleasure by all "Mr. Crake gives us in a clear and 
 
 readers of ecclesiastical lore. . . . concise form a narrative of the Church 
 
 The author is quite free from the history during the period with which 
 
 spirit of controversialism ; wherever it is most important that the young 
 
 he refers to a prevalent practice of should first be made acquainted. The 
 
 ancient times he gives his authority, different events appear to be described 
 
 In his statement of facts or opinions with a judicious regard to their rela- 
 
 he is always accurate and concise, and tive importance, and the manual may 
 
 his manual is doubtless destined to a be safely recommended." — John Bull. 
 
 lengthened Period of popularity." — " The facts are well marshalled, the 
 
 Morning Post. literary style of the book is simple and 
 
 " It is very well done. It gives a good; while the pri7iciples enunciated 
 
 very comprehensive view of the progress throughout render it a volume which 
 
 of events, ecclesiastical and political, may be safely put into the hands of 
 
 at the great centres of civilisation students. For the higher forms of 
 
 during the first five centtcries of Chris- grammar-schools it is exactly the book 
 
 tianity." — Daily News. required. Never ponderous , and f re- 
 
 " In his well-planned and carejully quently very attractive and interest- 
 written volume of $00 pages Mr. Crake trig, it is at once readable and edifying, 
 has supplied a well-ktiown and long- and fills efficiently a vacant place 
 felt want. Relying on all the highest in elementary historical literature, 
 and best authorities for his main facts Furthermore its type is clear and bold, 
 and conclusions, and wisely making and it is well broken up into para- 
 use of all modem research, Mr. Crake graphs." — Union Review. 
 has spared neither time nor labour to "It retells an oft-told tale in a 
 make his work accurate, trustworthy , singularly fresh and perspicuous style, 
 and intelligent" — Standard. rendering the book neither above the 
 
 " Really interesting, well suited to comprehension of an intelligent boy or 
 
 tJie needs of those for whom it was pre- girl of fourteen or upwards, nor be- 
 
 pared, and its Church tone is un- neath the attention of an educated 
 
 exceptionable." — Church Times. man. We can imagine no better book 
 
 " As a volume for students and the as an addition to a parochial library, 
 
 higher forms of our public scJtools it as a prize, or as a reading book in the 
 
 is admirably adapted." — Church upper forms of middle-class schools." — 
 
 Herald. Scottish Guardian. 
 
 " We cordially recommend it for . 
 
 Church Memorials and Characteristics ; 
 
 being a Church History of the six First Centuries. By the late 
 William Roberts, Esq., M.A., F.R.S. Edited by his Son, 
 Arthur Roberts, M.A., Rector of Woodrising, Norfolk. 
 8vo. *js. 6d. 
 
 OTaterloo place, jLontion 
 
History and Biography 
 
 S3 
 
 Essays, Historical and Theological. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, and 
 Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford. Two 
 Vols. Svo. 24J. 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 Volume I. — Introduction and Memoir of the Author — Lord Strafford — Arch- 
 bishop Laud — Carlyle's Cromwell — Luther. 
 
 Volume II.— Dr. Arnold — Blancho White— Dr. Pusey's Sermon — The Book of 
 Job — Maurice's Theological Essays — Indian Conversion — The Argument 
 of Design — The Principle of Causation considered in Opposition to Atheis- 
 tic Theories — In Memoriam — List of the Author's Articles and Works. 
 
 " These volumes, we cannot doubt, 
 will be eagerly welcomed and largely 
 read. They contain specimens, well 
 selected, and extending over a period 
 of thirty years, of the work of a great 
 ?nitid ; the real greatness of which was, 
 indeed, well known to all students of 
 theology. . . . We trace in every page 
 tlie handwriting of a mind which, 
 though it may look with keen interest 
 on ail Hie varying movements of 
 Hiought, in days past and present, and 
 though it can handle with the grasp 
 of a master any form of tliought with 
 which it comes to deal, yet is evidently 
 a mind of deep, quiet reflection, facing 
 alone before God tlie great questions 
 of Truth and Being, 'brooding' over 
 them (to use his own expression) until 
 they take definite shape, never suffer- 
 ing them to come forth in the shape of 
 tluit crude suggestion and hazy specula- 
 tion so fashionable in tJiese days, which 
 touch tnany truths witlwut really 
 grasping tliem, and raise many ques- 
 tions but thoroughly answer nofte. . . . 
 We hope we have said enough to giz'e 
 our readers some idea of these remark- 
 able volumes, and to induce tliem to 
 study them as a whole. Many other 
 features might fairl y claim notice ; but 
 these may be left to speak for themselves. 
 As we read, we grieve more and more 
 that it has pleased God to call from us 
 so able a champion of His truth, and 
 one liardly more impressive by t/ie 
 strength of his argument tlian by ' the 
 quietness and conscience' of his 
 spirit." — Guardian. 
 
 " We have said enough, we trust, 
 to induce our readers to study t/iese 
 
 volumes for themselves. They will find 
 in them much tJiat will bear, not one, 
 but many perusals." — Saturday Re- 
 view 
 
 " These essays will be welcome ez'en 
 beyond the circle of those w/10, during 
 his lifetime, Jiad any knowledge of, or 
 acquaintance with, tliei? author. TJiey 
 are the products of a lucid, comprehen- 
 sive, and powerful mind; the mitui of one 
 w/10 was a student and a thinker, but 
 who,by his vivid grasps of ideasjiis fir?n 
 faith in the principles he Jiad made his 
 own, and his faculty of impressive 
 illustration, had much of tlie facility 
 which is usually acquired only in the 
 actual experie?ice of the world." — 
 British Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Selected from the earliest as ivell 
 as the latest of Dr. Mozley s writings, 
 this collection represents not only the 
 full exteti t of his menta I powers, but also 
 tlie course and ultimate issue of his in- 
 tellectual career ; for as it was by ten- 
 acity of purpose and determination of 
 will that he obtained for his opinions 
 recognition and esteem, so also, owing 
 to his argumentative tenacity and in- 
 tensity of aim, some of these essays, ij 
 the prophecy may be hazarded, will re- 
 tain a lasting place in literature." — 
 Atheweum. 
 
 " These Essays stand above tlie litie 
 of epliemeral literature. For the 
 more experienced student of history 
 it would be difficult to fiame a more 
 positively refreshing book. Dr. Mozley 
 was a hard hitter, and few writers 
 liave been able to strike so decisively 
 on the weak points of an adversary s 
 case." — Contemporary Review. 
 
 anb at ©iforb anti Cambridge 
 
84 Rivington's Select Catalogue 
 
 A Key to the Knowledge of Church 
 
 History (Ancient). Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, 
 M.A., F.S.A., Editor of "The Annotated Book of Common 
 Prayer," &c. &c. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. Also a Cheap Edition, 
 is. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of "Keys to Christian Knowledge." 
 
 "It offers a short and condensed everything that could be consistently 
 account of the origin, growth, and con- expected in a volume of its character, 
 dition of the Church in all parts of the There are many notes, theological, 
 world, from A.D. i down to the etid of scriptural, and historical, and. the 
 the fifteenth century. Mr. Blunts 'get up* of the book is specially corn- 
 first object has been conciseness, and mendable. As a text-book for the 
 this has been admirably carried out, higher forms of schools the work will 
 and to students of Church history this be acceptable to numerous teachers." — 
 feature will readily recommend itself. Public Opinion. 
 
 As an elementary work 'A Key* will "It contains some concise notes on 
 be specially valuable, inasmuch as it CJutrch History, compressed into a 
 points out certain definite lines of small compass, and we think it is 
 thought, by which those who enjoy the likely to be useful as a book of refer- 
 opportunity may be guided in reading ence." — John Bull. 
 the statements of more elaborate his- "A very terse and reliable collection 
 tories. A t tJie same time it is but fair of the main facts and incidents con- 
 to Mr.Blufit to remark that, for general nected with Church History." — Rock. 
 readers, the little volume contains 
 
 A Key to the Knowledge of Church 
 
 History (Modern). Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, 
 M.A., F.S.A., Editor of "The Annotated Book of Common 
 Prayer," &c. &c. Small 8 vo. 2s. dd. Also a Cheap Edition, 
 is. 6d. 
 
 Forming a Volume of " Keys to Christian Knowledge." 
 
 The Eeformation of the Church of 
 
 England ; its History, Principles, and Results. A.D. 15 14- 1547. 
 By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., Editor of 
 "The Annotated Eook of Common Prayer," &c. &c. Fourth 
 Edition. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 Perranzabuloe, the Lost Church Found ; 
 
 or, The Church of England not a New Church, but Ancient, 
 Apostolical, and Independent, and a Protesting Church Nine 
 Hundred Years before the Reformation. By the Rev. C. T. 
 Collins Trelawny, M.A., late Rector of Timsbury, Somerset. 
 New Edition. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d. 
 
 Waterloo place, Jonoon 
 
History and Biography 85 
 
 The Principles of Catholic Eeform; 
 
 or, The Harmony of Catholicism and Civilization. Confer- 
 ences of 1S7S in the Cirque d'Hiver, Paris. By Hyacinthe 
 Loyson, Priest. Translated by Lady Durand. Crown 8vo, 
 3s. 6d. ; or in paper cover, 3s. 
 
 The Life of Alexander Lycurgus. 
 
 Archbishop of the Cyclades. By F. M. F. Skene. With an 
 Introduction by the Bishop of Lincoln. Crown 8vo. 
 30. 6d. ; or in paper cover, 3s. 
 
 Historical Narratives. From the Russian. 
 
 By H. C Romanoff, Author of "Sketches of the Rites and 
 Customs of the Greco-Russian Church," &c. Crown 8 vo. 6s. 
 
 Sketches of the Eites and Customs of 
 
 the Greco-Russian Church. By H. C. Romanoff. With an 
 Introductory Notice by the Author of ' ' The Heir of Redclyffe. M 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. Js. 6d. 
 
 " The volume before us is anything ' to present the English with correct 
 
 but a formal liturgical treatise. It descriptions of the ceremonies of the 
 
 might be more valuable to a fe^v scholars Greco-Russian Church, and at tlie 
 
 if it were, but it would certai?ily fail same time with pictures of domestic 
 
 to obtain perusal at the hands of tlie life in Russian homes, especially those 
 
 great majority of those whom tlie of the clergy and the middle class of 
 
 writer, not unreasonably, hopes to nobles;' and, beyond question, the 
 
 attract by tlie narrative style she has author's labour has been so far suc- 
 
 adopted. WJiat she has set before us cessful that, whilst her Church scenes 
 
 is a series of brief outlines, which, by may be cotnmended as a series of most 
 
 their simple effort to clothe the infor- dramatic and picturesque tableaux, 
 
 mat ion given us in a living garb, her social sketclies enable us to look at 
 
 reminds us of a once-popular child's certain points beneath the surface of 
 
 book which we remember a generation Russian life, and materially enlarge 
 
 ago, called ' Sketclies of Human Man- our kncnvledge of a coufitry concerning 
 
 ners.' " — Church Times. which we Jiave still a very great deal 
 
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 Abbott, Helleuica ... 86 
 
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 Alford, Life and Journal . 81 
 
 Greek Testament . 7 
 
 New Testament . ' 7 
 
 Andrewes, Manual for the Sick 27 
 
 Angels, The Holy ... 46 
 
 A nnotated Bible ... 9 
 
 Annotated Prayer Book . . 2 
 
 Compendious Edition . 1 
 
 Annual Register ... 87 
 Ascetic Library : — 
 
 Mysteries of Mount Calvary 36 
 
 Counsels on Holiness of Life 36 
 
 Preparation for Death . . 36 
 
 Examination of Conscience . 36 
 Augustine, S., Confessions 19, 29 
 
 Avancini, Vita et Doctrina . 35 
 
 Baker, Manual of Devotion 33 
 
 Ball, On tlie Articles . . 43 
 Bampton Lectures for 1865, by 
 
 Mozley 46 
 
 1866, by Liddon . . 51 
 
 1867, by Garbett . 49 
 
 1872, by Eaton . . 67 
 
 1874, by Leathes . 65 
 
 Baring-Gould, Religious Belief 91 
 
 Curious Myths . . 85 
 
 Barrett, Flowers and Festivals 38 
 
 Chorister's Guide . . 38 
 
 Form ana Instrumenta- 
 tion 89 
 
 Barrow, Mystery of Christ . 17 
 Beamont, Prayer Book Inter- 
 leaved ..... 3 
 Be wen, Help' to Catechising . 72 
 Bickersteth (Dean), Apostles' 
 Creed ..... 72 
 
 Questions on the A rticles 72 
 
 (E. H.),' Yesterday, &*c. 88 
 
 The Two Brothers . 88 
 
 Bishop, Notes on Church Organs 38 
 
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 Compendious Editio?i 1 
 
 Dictionary of Theology 44 
 
 Sects, Heresies, &>c. 43 
 
 Directorium Pastorale 40 
 
 Doctrine of the Church 43 
 
 Blunt, Sacraments 
 
 Household Theology 
 
 Key to Church Catechism 
 
 — History ( Ancient") . 
 
 — [Modern) 
 
 Holy Bible . 
 
 Prayer Book . 
 
 Reformation 
 
 Book of Church Law . 
 
 Body, Life of Justification . 
 Temptation 
 
 page 
 4 
 69 
 69 
 
 84 
 17 
 4 
 84 
 37 
 63 
 63 
 77 
 5 
 £7 
 23 
 
 Bossuet a?id his Contemporaries 
 Brewer, Athanasian Creed . 
 Bright, J. F., English History 
 Bright, W., Faith a?id Life . 
 
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 Browning. See Historical 
 
 Handbooks. 
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 dations 39 
 
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 leaved .... 
 Carr, Notes on S. Luke 
 Chilcot, Evil Thoughts . 
 Christian Biographies . 77 — 
 
 Painter 
 
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 Church Builder 
 
 Law, Book of 
 
 Clergy Charities .List of . 
 Coles, Good Friday Addresses 
 Companion to the Old Testatnen 
 
 Compton, The Catholic Sacrifice 59 
 
 Armoury of Prayer . 32 
 
 Consoling Thoughts in Sickness 32 
 
 Cook, Church Doctrine . . 51 
 
 Cordery, Homer's Iliad . . 87 
 
 Crake, First Chronick . . 75 
 
 ^4 If gar the Dane . . 75 
 
 History of the Church . 82 
 
 Creighton. See Hist. Biog. 
 
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 Daily Gleanings ... 24 
 Dale, Ecclesiastes . . . 11 
 Davys, History of England . 87 
 Denton, the Lord's Prayer . 6 
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 Devotional Birthday Book . 31 
 Dictionary of Theology . . 44 
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 Dollinger, Prophecies 
 
 on Reunion . 
 
 the Popes 
 
 Dominican Artist (A) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 47 
 47 
 8 7 
 78 
 
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 Eirenicon of 18th Century . 45 
 
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 Married Life . . 66 
 
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 to Women . . 26 
 
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 (Pere), Last Days of . 80' 
 
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 Sir Walter Ralegh 
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 Hymns and Poems for the Sick 
 
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 35 
 28, 92 
 74 
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 86 
 86 
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 86 
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 40 
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 64 
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 Jones, Priest and Parish . 38 
 Joyce, The Civil Power . . 45 
 
 Kay, On the Psalms , . n 
 Keble, The Christian Year 19, 25, 9? 
 
 Keble College Sermons . . 66 
 
 Ken n aw ay, Consolatio . . 32 
 
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 ^Authorship of" De Imi- 
 
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 Keys to Christian Knowledge : — 
 
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 (Modern) . . 84 
 
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 Witness of the Old Testa- 
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Index 
 
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 Leathes, Witness of St. Paul 
 
 to Christ . . 65 
 
 St. John to Christ . 65 
 
 Lee , Inspiration of Holy Scrip. 1 8 
 
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 Liber Precum Publicarum . 2 
 Library of Spiritual Works 
 for English Catholics : — 
 
 A Kempis, Imitation . . 19 
 
 The Christian Year . . 19 
 
 Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat J9 
 
 S. F. de Sales, Devout Life 19 
 
 Love of God . . 19 
 
 Spiritual Letters . 19 
 
 Confessions of St. A ugustine 19 
 
 The Hidden Life of the Soul 19 
 
 Liddon, Divinity of our Lord 51 
 
 Elements of Religion . 50 
 
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 Second Series . . 50 
 
 Walter Kerr Hamilton 80 
 
 A ndreives' Manual . 26 
 
 Life Record, A ... 91 
 
 Light of the Consciewe . . 32 
 
 Litanies, A Book of . . 3 
 
 Louise de France, Life of . 79 
 
 Lowder, St. George's Mission 40 
 Loysox (H.), Principles of 
 
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 Lycurgus, Life of A lexander 85 
 
 Lyra Apostolica . . . 88 
 
 Lyte, Miscellaneous Poems . 90 
 
 Lyttelton, Private Devotions 22 
 
 Li'CROCK, After Death . . 47 
 
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 Mant, Ancient Hymns . . 31 
 
 Happiness of the Blessed 48 
 
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 Meditations on our Lord . 21 
 
 Melvill, Sermons ... 60 
 
 Latter Sermons . . 62 
 
 Less Prominent Facts . 61 
 
 Lot/ibury Lectures . 60 
 
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 Great Forty Days . 57 
 
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 Molynel x, Reason and Faith 68 
 
 Monsell, Parish Musings . 90 
 
 PAGE 
 
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 Sermons .... 64 
 
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 Old Testament . . 12 
 
 Parochial and Occasional 
 
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 Newman, Parochial Sermons 54, 55 
 
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 Justification . . 56 
 
 Subjects of the Day . 56 
 
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 Lyra Apostolica . . 88 
 
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 Acts of the Apostles 13 
 
 R udivien ts of Theology 7 1 
 
 Lessons for Confirm. . 73 
 
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 Creed 5 
 
 Oxen ham, Eirenicon . . 45 
 Sermons .... 68 
 
 Painted Glass, Study of . 
 Parnell, Ars Pastoria . 
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 Path of Holiness 
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 astical Judgments 
 
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 of Edward VI. . . 2 
 
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 Psalter 6 
 
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 Taylor, Holy Living . . 29, 92 
 
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 Chilcot, Evil Thoughts . 30 
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 Testament . . . . 10 
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 its Trials and Blessings 35 
 
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 Dying . . . 29, 31, 92 
 
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 Trelawny, P erranzabuloe , . 84 
 
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 Way of Life .... 21 
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 nyms of the Greek Testament 18 
 Williams, Devotional Com. : — 
 
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 Our Lord's Nativity . . 14 
 
 Ministry (2nd Year . . 14 
 
 (yd Year) . . 14 
 
 The Holy Week ... 14 
 
 Our Lord's Passion . . 14 
 
 Resurrection . . 14 
 
 j Apocalypse ... 15 
 
 1 Book of Genesis . . 15 
 
 j Characters of Old Test. 15 
 
 I Female Characters . 15 
 
 ! Epistles and Gospels . 52 
 
 Wilson (Bishop), Lord's Sup. 28, 92 
 
 (R. F.). S. Vin. de Paul 81 
 
 Wordsworth (Bp. Charles), 
 
 Catechesis .... 73 
 
 (Bp. Chr.), Commentary 8 
 
 Greek Testament . 8 
 
 Inspiration of the Bible 18 
 
 Miscellanies ... 46 
 
 W ords of the 6 on of God . 34 
 
 Waterloo place, ilontion 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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