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| 3 to
M ISC E L L A N I E S.
MISC E L L A NIIE S
FROM THE Oxfor D SERMONS
ANZ) OTHER WAZZZWGS
OF
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.
STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS
56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
1870

LONDON .
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAM FORD STREET AND CHA BING CROSS,
CON TENTs.
DOCTRINA I.
THE WORD OF GOD - * º º º º
"THE THOUGHT OF GOD THE STAY OF THE SOUL o
BODILY SUFFERING º - - - © tº g
"THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS • o º º e g
WARFARE THE CONDITION OF VICTORY . g º º
SECRECY AND SUDDENNESS OF DIVIN E VISITATIONS .
THE VISIBLE TEMPLE -> . s • e e
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY . • e e
SCRIPTURE A RECORD OF HUMAN SORROW
HOLINESS NECESSARY FOR FIJTURE BLESSED NESS g *
WATCHING • - sº e
WAITING FOR CHRIST
PRESENT BLESSINGS • w
THE DANGER OF RICHES . - • • *
TEARS OF CHRIST AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS
A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE AS REVEALED IN THE GOSPEL
TIMES OF PRIVATE PRAYER
FORMS OF PRIVATE PRAYER . tº * * º
I’AGE
2I3
217
228
242
25 I
262
271
285
292
C O N T E N T S.
HISTORICAL STUDIES.
THE WORLD'S BENEFACTORS . e cº & ©
BALAAM . & gº e ſº e © & g
SAUL . g & & e g ſº * g
DAVID . e sº &
ST, PAUL º e §
ANTONY AND HIS TEMPTATIONS 3. gº sº e
ARIUS . o g * & e e *
CONSTANTINE . * . * e g g &
BASIL AND GREGORY e * & & e &
MARTYRIDOM .
MORAL AND PRACTICAL.
THE GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF HUMAN LIFE .
THE MYSTERIOUSINESS OF OUR PRESENT BEING
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
THE INDIVIDUALITY OF THE SOUL
THE INVISIBLE WORLD .
THE LAPSE OF TIME * *
RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES .
CURIOSITY A TEMPTATION TO SIN
THE PRAISE OF MEN . .
TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES . |
A SOBER MIND * * | ... •
MORAL EFFECTs of COMMUNIQN witH GoD
THE MIND OF LITTLE CHILDREN
PAGE
IO
27
43
73
86
92
96
III
I2 I
I3O
I38
I49
I62
I75
I82
187
I90
I93
I97
I99
2O4.
P R E F A T O R Y NO T E.
THESE selections have been made, with the author's
consent, from his Oxford Sermons, and such other of his
Anglican writings as presented short passages Calculated
to convey some idea of his style and modes of thinking.
Dr. Newman's works include a considerable body of
abstract theological discussion. This has not been
drawn on here, under the idea that those more directly
interested in theological studies would prefer to go to
the treatises themselves. Besides, these do not readily
yield themselves to, extract, owing to the texture of the
reasoning being invariably so close throughout. The
“Apologia” has been untouched from causes somewhat
similar. The little volumes on Church History have
supplied a few portraits. It is hoped that the passages
chosen will, in some degree, contribute to make still
better known one of the deepest thinkers and most
eloquent writers of the present time.
HISTORICAL STUDIES,
THAE WOR/. D’S BAEAVE AEA C7'OA&S.
HOSE men are not necessarily the most useful men in
their generation, nor the most favoured by God, who
make the most noise in the world, and who seem to be prin-
cipals in the great changes and events recorded in history.
On the contrary, even when we are able to point to a
certain number of men as the real instruments of any great
blessings vouchsafed to mankind, our relative estimate of
them, one with another, is often very erroneous; so that
on the whole, if we would trace truly the hand of God in
human affairs, and pursue His bounty as displayed in the
world to its original sources, we must unlearn our admira-
tion of the powerful and distinguished, our reliance on the
opinion of society, our respect for the decisions of the
learned or the multitude, and turn our eyes to private
life, watching in all we read or witness for the true signs
of God's presence, the graces of personal holiness mani-
fested in His elect; which, weak as they may seem to
mankind, are mighty through God, and have an influence
4. HISTO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
upon the course of His Providence, and bring about
great events in the world at large, when the wisdom and
strength of the natural man are of no avail.
Now, observe the operation of this law of God’s
government in respect to the introduction of those
temporal blessings which are of the first importance in
securing our well-being and comfort in the present life.
For example, who was the first cultivator of corn ? Who
first tamed and domesticated the animals whose strength
we use, and whom we make our food P Or who first
discovered the medicinal herbs, which from the earliest
times have been our resource against disease ? If it was
mortal man who thus looked through the vegetable and
animal worlds, and discriminated between the useful and
the worthless, his name is unknown to the millions whom
he has thus benefited. It is notorious that those who
first suggest the most happy inventions, and open a way
to the secret stores of nature; those who weary them-
selves in the search after truth; strike out momentous
principles of action; painfully force upon their contem-
poraries the adoption of beneficial measures; or, again,
are the original cause of the Chief events in national
bistory, are commonly supplanted, as regards celebrity
and reward, by inferior men. Their works are not called
after them, nor the arts and systems which they have
given the world. Their schools are usurped by strangers;
THE WORLD'S BE N EFACT O R.S.
5
and their maxims of wisdom circulate among the chil-
dren of their people, forming, perhaps, a nation's cha-
racter, but not embalming in their own immortality the
names of their original authors.
Such is the history of the social and political world,
and the rule discernible in it is still more clearly
established in the world of morals and religion. Who
taught the doctors and saints of the Church, who, in their
day, or in after times, have been the most illustrious ex-
pounders of the precepts of right and wrong, and by
word and deed are the guides of our conduct? Did
Almighty wisdom speak to them through the operations
of their own minds, or rather, did it not subject them to
instructors unknown to fame, wiser perhaps even than
themselves? Andrew followed John the Baptist, while
Simon remained at his nets. Andrew first recognized
the Messiah among the inhabitants of despised Nazareth,
and he brought his brother to Him. Yet to Andrew,
Christ spake no word of Commendation, which has been
allowed to continue on record; whereas to Simon, even
on his first coming, He gave the honourable name by
which he is now designated, and afterwards put hint
forward as the typical foundation of His Church. No-
thing indeed can hence be inferred, one way or other,
concerning the relative excellence of the two brothers.
So far only appears, that in the providential course of
6 HISTORICA L S T U DIES.
events, the one was the secret beginner, and the other
the public instrument of a great divine work. St. Paul,
again, was honoured with the distinction of a miraculous
conversion, and was called to be the chief agent in the
propagation of the Gospel among the heathen. Yet to
Ananias, an otherwise unknown Saint dwelling at
Damascus, was committed the high office of conveying
the gifts of pardon and the Holy Ghost to the apostle of
the Gentiles.
Providence thus acts daily. The early life of all men
is private. It is as children, generally, that their cha-
racters are formed to good or evil; and those who form
them to good, their truest and chief benefactors, are un-
known to the world. It has been remarked that some of
the most eminent Christians have been blessed with re-
ligious mothers, and have in after life referred their own
graces to the instrumentality of their teaching. Augustine
has preserved to the Church the history of his mother,
Monica ; but in the case of others, even the name is
denied to us of our great benefactress, whosoever she
was, and sometimes, doubtless, the circumstance of her
service altogether.
When we look at the history of inspiration, the same
rule still holds. Consider the Old Testament, which
“makes us wise unto Salvation.” How great a part of it
is written by authors unknown. The Book of Judges,
THE WORLD'S BE N EFACTORS. 7
the Second of Samuel, the Book of Kings, Chronicles,
Esther, and Job, and great part of the Book of Psalms.
The last instance is the most remarkable of these. “Profit-
able" beyond words as is the instruction conveyed to us
in every page of Scripture, yet the Psalms have been the
most directly and visibly useful part of the whole volume,
having been the Prayer Book of the Church ever since
they were written ; and have done more (as far as we dare
judge) to prepare souls for heaven than any of the
inspired books, except the Gospels. Yet the authors of
a large portion of them are altogether unknown. And
so with the Liturgies, which have been the possession of
the Christian Church from the beginning. Who were those
matured and exalted Saints who left them to us P Nay,
in the whole system of our worship, who are the authors
of each decorous provision and each edifying custom P
Who found out the musical tunes in which our praises
are offered up to God, and in which resides so wondrous
a persuasion “to worship and fall down, and kneel
before the Lord our Maker P” Who were those religious
men, our spiritual fathers in the “Catholic faith,” who
raised of old time the excellent fabrics all over the
country in which we worship, though with less of grate-
ful reverence for their memory than we might piously
express? Of these greatest men in every age there is
“no memorial.” They “are perished as though they had
8 HISTORICAL STU DIES.
never been, and become as though they had never been
born.”
Now I know that reflections of this kind are apt to
sadden and vex us, and such of us particularly as are
gifted with ardent and enthusiastic minds, with a
generous love of what is great and good, and a noble
hatred of injustice. These men find it difficult to
reconcile themselves to the notion that the triumph of
the truth in all its forms is postponed to the next world.
They would fain anticipate the coming of the Righteous
Judge. Nay, perhaps they are somewhat too favourably
disposed towards the present world, to acquiesce without
resistance in a doctrine which testifies to the corruption
of its decisions and the worthlessness of its honours.
But that it is a truth has already been shown almost as
matter of fact, putting the evidence of Scripture out of
consideration.
Why indeed should we shrink from this gracious law
of God’s present providence in our own case or in the
case of those we love, when our subjection to it does but
associate us with the best and noblest of our race, or
with beings of nature and Condition superior to our own P
Andrew is scarcely known, except by name, while
Peter has ever held the place of honour all over the
Church ; yet Andrew brought Peter to Christ. And are
not the blessed angels unknown to the world P And is
THE WORLD’s BEN EFACT or s. 9
not God Himself, the Author of all good, hid from man-
kind at large, partially manifested and poorly glorified
in a few scattered servants here and there P And His
Spirit—do we know whence It cometh and whither It
goeth P And though He has taught men whatever there
has been of wisdom among them from the beginning,
yet when He came on earth in visible form, even then
it was said of Him, “The world knew Him not.” His
marvellous providence works beneath a veil which speaks
but an untrue language ; and to see Him who is the
Truth and the Life, we must stoop underneath it, and so
in one sense hide ourselves from the world. They who
present themselves at kings' courts pass on to the inner
chambers, where the gaze of the rude multitude cannot
pierce; and we, if we would see the King of kings in His
glory, must be content to disappear from things that are
seen. Hid are the saints of God. If they are known to
men, it is accidentally, in their temporal offices, as
holding some high earthly station, or effecting some
mere civil work, not as Saints. St. Peter has a place in
history far more as a chief instrument of a strange revo-
lution in human affairs than in his true character as a
self-denying follower of his Lord, to whom truths were
revealed which flesh and blood could not discern.
PA/AAM.
E all profess to revere the Old Testament; yet,
for some reason or other, at least one considerable
part of it—the historical—is regarded by the mass, even
of men who think about religion, as merely historical,
as a relation of facts, as antiquities; not in its divine
characters, not in its practical bearings, not in reference
to themselves. The notion that God speaks in it to
them personally ; the question, “What does He say P”
“What must I do?” does not occur to them. They
consider that the Old Testament regards them only so
far as it can be made typical of one or two of the great
Christian doctrines ; they do not consider it in its fulness
and in its literal sense as a collection of deep moral
lessons, such as are not vouchsafed in the New, though
St. Paul expressly says that it is profitable for instruction
in righteousness.
If the Old Testament history, generally, be intended
B.A. L.A.A. M. II
as a permanent instruction to the Church, much more,
one would think, must such prominent and remarkable
passages in it as the history of Balaam. Yet I suspect
a very great number of readers carry off little more from
it than the impression of the miracle which occurs in it
—the speaking of his ass. And not unfrequently they
talk more lightly on the subject than is expedient. Yet
I think some very startling and solemn lessons may be
drawn from the history, some of which I shall now
attempt to set before you.
What is it which the chapters in question set before
us? The first and most general account of Balaam would
be this: that he was a very eminent person in his age
and Country, that he was Courted and gained by the
enemies of Israel, and that he promoted a wicked cause
in a very wicked way; that when he could do nothing
else for it, he counselled his employers to employ their
women as means of seducing the chosen people into
idolatry, and that he fell in battle in the war which
ensued. These are the chief points, the prominent
features of his history as viewed at a distance—and repul-
sive indeed they are. He took on him the office of a
tempter, which is especially the devil's office. But Satan
himself does not seem so hateful near as at a distance;
and when we look into Balaam’s history closely, we shall
find points of character which may well interest those
I2 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U D I E S,
who do not consider his beginning and his end. Let
us then approach him more nearly, and forget, for a
moment, the summary account of him which I have just
been giving.
Now, first, he was blessed with God's especial favour.
You will ask at once, How could so bad a man be in
God's favour? But I wish you to put aside reasonings,
and Contemplate facts. I say he was especially favoured
by God. God has a store of favours in His treasure-
house, and of various kinds—some for a time, some for
ever ; some implying His approbation, others not. He
showers favours even on the bad. He makes His sun
to rise on the unjust as well as on the just. He willeth
not the death of a sinner. He is said to have loved the
young ruler, whose heart, notwithstanding, was upon the
world. His loving mercy extends over all His works.
How He separates, in His own divine thought, kindness
from approbation, time from eternity, what He does
from what He foresees, we know not, and need not
inquire. At present He is loving to all men, as if He
did not foresee that some are to be saints, others repro-
bates, to all eternity. He dispenses His favours variously
—gifts, graces, rewards, faculties, circumstances, being
indefinitely diversified, nor admitting of discrimination
or numbering on Our part. Balaam, I say, was in His
favour ; not indeed for his holiness' sake, not for ever;
B.A.L.A.A.M. I3
but in a certain sense, according to His inscrutable pur.
pose who chooses whom He will choose, and exalts
whom He will exalt, without destroying man's secret
responsibilities, or His own governance, and the triumph
of truth and holiness, and His own strict impartiality in
the end. Balaam was favoured in an especial way above
the mere heathen. Not only had he the grant of inspira-
tion, and the knowledge of God's will, an insight into the
truths of morality, clear and enlarged, such as we
Christians even cannot surpass, but he was even admitted
to conscious intercourse with God, such as even Christians
have not.
But, again, Balaam was, in the Ordinary and Com-
monly-received sense of the word, without straining its
meaning at all, a very conscientious man. That this
is so, will be plain from some parts of his conduct and
some speeches of his, of which I proceed to remind you,
and which will show also his enlightened and admir-
able view of moral and religious obligation. When
Balak sent to him to call him to curse Israel, he did not
make up his mind for himself, as many a man might do,
or according to the suggestions of avarice and ambition.
No; he brought the matter before God in prayer. He
prayed before he did what he did, as a religious man
ought to do. Next, when God forbade his going, he at
once, as he ought, positively refused to go. “Get you
I4 1H IS TO RIC A. L S T U D I E S.
into your land,” he said, “for the Lord refuseth to give
me leave to go with you.” Balak sent again a more
pressing message and more lucrative offers, and Balaam
was even more decided than before. “If Balak,” he
said, “would give me his house full of silver and gold, I
Cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do
less or more.” Afterwards God gave him leave to go.
“If the men come to call thee, rise up and go with
them.” Then, and not till then, he went.
Almighty God added, “Yet the word that I shall say
unto thee, that shalt thou do.” Now, in the next place,
observe how strictly he obeyed this command. When
he first met Balak, he said, in the words of the text, “Lo,
I am come unto thee; have I now any power at all to
say anything? The word that God putteth in my mouth,
that shall I speak.” Again, when he was about to
prophesy, he said, “Whatsoever He showeth me I will
tell thee;” and he did so, in spite of Balak’s disappoint-
ment and mortification to hear him bless Israel. When
Balak showed his impatience he only replied, calmly,
“Must I not take heed to speak that which the Lord
hath put in my mouth P” Again he prophesied, and
again it was a blessing ; again Balak was angered, and
again the prophet firmly and Serenely answered, “Told
not I thee, saying, All that the Lord speaketh, that I
must do P’ A third time he prophesied blessing; and
B.A. LA A. M. I5
now Balak’s anger was kindled, and he smote his hands
together and bade him depart to his place. But Balaam
was not thereby moved from his duty. “The wrath of a
king is as messengers of death.” Balak might have
instantly revenged himself upon the prophet; but Balaam,
not satisfied with blessing Israel, proceeded, as a prophet
should, to deliver himself of what remained of the
prophetic burthen, by foretelling, more pointedly than
before, destruction to Moab and the other enemies of
the chosen people. He prefaced his prophecy with
these unacceptable words: “Spake I not also unto thy
messengers which thou Sentest unto me, saying, If Balak
would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot
go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either
good or bad of mine own mind, but what the Lord saith,
that will I speak P And now, behold, I go unto my
people; come, therefore, and I will advertise thee what
this people shall do to thy people in the latter days.”
After delivering his conscience, he “rose up, and went
and returned to his place.”
All this surely expresses the conduct and the feelings
of a high-principled, honourable, conscientious mán.
Balaam, I say, was certainly such in that very sense in
which we commonly use those words. He said, and he
did ; he professed, and he acted according to his profes-
sions; there is no inconsistency in word and deed. He
I6 HISTO RICAL STU DIE S.
obeys as well as talks about religion ; and this being the
case, we shall feel more intimately the value of the
following noble sentiments which he lets drop from time
to time, and which, if he had shown less firmness in his
conduct, might have passed for mere words, the words of
a maker of speeches, a sophist, moralist, or orator. “Let
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end
be like his.” “God is not a man, that He should lie ;
neither the Son of Man, that He should repent.
Behold, I have received commandment to bless ; and
He hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it.” “I shall see
Him, but not now ; I shall behold Him, but not nigh.”
It is remarkable that these declarations are great and
lofty in their mode of expression; and the saying of his
recorded by the prophet Micah is of the same kind.
Balak asked what sacrifices were acceptable to God,
Balaam answered, “He hath showed thee, O man, what
is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?” y
Viewing then the inspired notices concerning Balaam
in all their parts, we cannot deny to him the praise which,
if those notices have a plain meaning, they certainly do
convey, that he was an honourable and religious man,
with a great deal of what was good and noblé about him;
a man whom any one of us at first sight would have
B.A. LA A.M. 17
trusted, sought out in our difficulties, perhaps made the
head of a party, and, anyhow, spoken of with great
respect. We may indeed, if we please, say that he fell
away afterwards from all this excellence; though, after
all, there is something shocking in such a notion. Nay,
it is not natural even that ordinary honourable men
should suddenly change; but however this may be said,
it may be said he fell away; but I presume it cannot be
said he was other than a high-principled man (in the
language of the world) when he so spake and acted.
But now the strange thing is, that at this very time,
zwhile he so spake and acted, he seems as in one sense to
be in God’s favour, so in another and higher to be under
His displeasure. If this be so, the Supposition that he
fell away will not be in point, the difficulty it proposes
to solve will remain; for it will turn out that he was
displeasing to God. Amid his many excellences, the
passage I have in mind is this, as you will easily Sup-
pose: “God’s anger was kindled, because he went” with
the princes of Moab ; “and the angel of the Lord stood
in the way for an adversary against him.” Afterwards,
when God opened his eyes, “he saw the angel of the
Ilord standing in the way, and his Sword drawn in his
hand.” “And Balaam said, I have sinned, for I knew
not that thou stoodest in the way against me ; now,
therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again.”
C
I8 HISTO RIC A. L. STU DIES.
You observe, Balaam said, “I have sinned,” though he
avers he did not know that God was his adversary.
What makes the whole transaction more strange is this,
that Almighty God had said before, “If the men come
to call thee, rise up and go with them ;” and that when
Balaam offered to go back again, the angel repeated,
“Go with the men.” And afterwards we find, in the
midst of his heathen enchantments, “God met Balaam,”
and “put a word in his mouth;” and afterwards “the
Spirit of God came unto him.”
Summing up then what has been said, we seem, in
Balaam’s history, to have the following remarkable case,
that is, remarkable according to our customary judgment
of things : a man divinely favoured, visited, influenced,
guided, protected, eminently honoured, illuminated, a
man possessed of an enlightened sense of duty, and of
moral and religious acquirements, educated, high-minded,
conscientious, honourable, firm, and yet on the side of
God’s enemies, personally under God's displeasure, and
in the end (if we go to that) the direct instrument of
Satan, and having his portion with the unbelievers. I
do not think I have materially overstated any part of
this description ; but if it be correct only in substance, it
certainly is most fearful, after allowing for incidental
exaggeration, most fearful to every one of us, the more
fearful the more we are conscious to ourselves in the main
BALA A.M. I9
of purity of intention in what we do, and conscientious
adherence to our sense of duty.
And now it is natural to ask, What is the meaning of
this startling exhibition of God's ways? Is it really
possible that a conscientious and religious man should be
found among the enemies of God; nay, should be per-
sonally displeasing to Him, and that at the very time
God was visiting him with extraordinary favour? What
a mystery is this Surely, if this be so, revelation has
added to our perplexities, not relieved them. What
instruction, what profit, what correction, what doctrine is
there in such portions of inspired Scripture ?
In answering this difficulty, I observe, in the first
place, that it certainly is impossible—quite impossible—
that a really conscientious man should be displeasing to
God; at the same time, it is possible to be general/y
conscientious, or what the world calls honourable and
high-principled, yet to be destitute of that religious feat
and strictness which God calls conscientiousness, but
which the world calls Superstition or narrowness of mind.
And, bearing this in mind, we shall, perhaps, have a
solution of our perplexities Concerning Balaam.
Balaam obeyed God from a sense of its being right to
sº do so, but not from a desire to please Him, from fear and
Zove. He had other ends, aims, wishes of his own,
distinct from God's will and purpose, and he would have
2O H IS TO RIC A. L S T U DI E.S.
effected these if he could. His endeavour was, not to
please God, but to please self without displeasing God ;
to pursue his own ends as far as was consistent with
duty. In a word, he did not give his heart to God, but
obeyed Him, as a man may obey human law, or observe
the usages of Society or his country, as something ex-
ternal to himself, because he knows he ought to do
So, from a sort of rational sense, a conviction of its
propriety, expediency, or comfort, as the case may
be.
You will observe he wished to go with Balak’s mes-
sengers, only he felt he ought not to go ; and the problem
which he attempted to solve was, how to go and yet not
offend God. He was quite resolved he would, anyhow,
act religiously and Conscientiously; he was too honour-
able a man to break any of his engagements; if he had
given his word, it was sacred; if he had duties, they
were imperative ; he had a character to maintain, and an
inward sense of propriety to satisfy ; but he would have
given the world to have got rid of his duties; and the
question was, how to do so without violence; and he did
not care about walking on the very brink of transgres-
sion, so that he could keep from falling over. Ac-
cordingly, he was not content with ascertaining God's
will, but he attempted to change it. He inquired of Him
a second time, and this was to tempt Him. Hence, while
BALA A.M. 2 I
God bade him go, His anger was kindled against him
because he went.
This surely is no uncommon character; rather, it is the
Common case even with the more respectable and praise-
worthy portion of the Community. I say plainly, and
without fear of contradiction, though it is a serious thing
to say, that the aim of most men esteemed conscientious
and religious, or who are what is called honourable,
upright men, is, to all appearance, not how to please
God, but how to please themselves without displeasing
Him. This surely is so plain that it is scarcely necessary
to enlarge upon it. Men do not take for the object to-
wards which they act, God's will, but certain maxims,
rules, or measures, right perhaps as far as they go,
but defective because they admit of being subjected to
certain other ultimate ends, which are not religious.
Men are just, honest, upright, trustworthy; but all this,
not from the love and fear of God, but from a mere
feeling of obligation to be so, and in subjection to
certain worldly objects. And thus they are what is
popularly called moral, without being religious. Such
was Balaam. He was, in a popular sense, a strictly
moral, honourable, conscientious man : that he was not
so in a heavenly and true sense is plain, if not from the
considerations here insisted on, at least from his after
history, which (we may presume) brought to light his
;
22 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
secret defect, in whatever it consisted. His defect lay
in this, that he had not a single eye towards God's will,
but was ruled by other objects.
Why did Almighty God give Balaam leave to go to
Balak, and then was angry with him for going? I
suppose for this reason, because his asking twice was
tempting God. God is a jealous God. Sinners as we
are—nay, as creatures of His hands—we may not safely
intrude upon Him, and make free with Him. We may
not dare to do that which we should not dare to do with
an earthly superior, which we should be punished, for
instance, for attempting in the Case of a king or noble of
this world. To rush into His presence, to address Him
familiarly, to urge Him, to strive to make our duty lie in
one direction when it lies in another, to handle rudely
and practise upon His holy word, to trifle with truth, to
treat conscience lightly, to take liberties (as it may be
called) with anything that is God's ; all irreverence, pro-
faneness, unscrupulousness, wantonness, is represented in
Scripture, not only as a sin, but as felt, noticed, quickly
returned on God's part (if I may dare use such human
words of the Almighty and All-holy God, without trans-
gressing the rule I am myself laying down—but He
vouchsafes in Scripture to represent Himself to us in that
only way in which we can attain to the knowledge of
Him)—I say, all irreverence towards God is represented
BALA A. M. 23
&
as being jealously, and instantly, and fearfully noticed
and visited, as friend or Stranger among men might
resent an insult shown him. This should be carefully
considered. We are apt to act towards God and the
things of God as towards a mere system, a law, a name, a
religion, a principle; not as against a Person, a living,
watchful, present, prompt, and powerful eye and arm.
That all this is a great error, is plain to all who study
Scripture; as is sufficiently shown by the death of
50,070 persons for looking into the Ark—the death of
the prophet by the lion, who was sent to Jeroboam from
Judah, and did not minutely obey his instructions—the
slaughter of the children at Bethel by the bears, for
mocking Elisha—the exclusion of Moses from the Pro-
mised Land for Smiting the rock twice—and the judgment
on Ananias and Sapphira.
Now Balaam's fault seems to have been of this nature.
God told him distinctly not to go to Balak. He was
rash enough to ask a second time, and God as a punish-
ment gave him leave to ally himself to His enemies, and
to take part against His people. With this presumptuous-
ness and love of self in his innermost heart, his prudence,
firmness, wisdom, illumination, and general conscien-
tiousness, availed him nothing.
A number of reflections crowd upon the mind on the
review of this awful history, as I may well call it. First,
24. HISTORICAL STUDI E.S.
we see how little we can depend, in judging of right and
Wrong, on the apparent excellence and high character of
individuals. There is a right and wrong in matters of
conduct, in spite of the world; but it is the world's aim
and Satan's aim to take our minds off from the indelible
distinctions of things, and to fix our thoughts upon man;
to make us dependent on his opinion, his patronage, his
honour, his Smiles, and his frowns. But if Scripture is to
be our guide, it is plain that the most conscientious,
religious, high-principled, honourable men (I use the words
in their ordinary, not in their Scriptural sense), may be on
the side of evil, may be Satan's instruments in cursing—if
that were possible—or at least in seducing and en-
feebling the people of God. For in the world's judg-
ment, even when most refined, a person is conscientious
and consistent who acts up to his standard. This is the
world's highest flight ; but in its ordinary judgment, a
man is conscientious and consistent who is only incon-
sistent and goes against Conscience in any extremity,
when hardly beset, and when he must cut the knot or
remain in present difficulties. That is, he is thought to
obey conscience who only disobeys it when it is a
praise and merit to obey it. This, alas ! is the way with
some of the most honourable of mere men of the world;
nay, of the mass of (so called) respectable men.
A second reflection which rises in the mind has re-
B.A. L.A.A. M. 25
lation to the wonderful secret providence of God, while
all things seem to go on according to the course of this
world. Balaam did not see the angel, yet the angel
went out against him as an adversary. He had no open
denunciation of God's wrath directed against him. He
had sinned, and nothing happened outwardly, but wrath
was abroad, and in his path. This, again, is a very
serious and awful thought. God's arm is not shortened.
What happened to Balaam is as if it took place yesterday.
God is what he ever was ; we sin as man has ever sinned.
... We sin without being aware of it. God is our enemy
without our being aware of it; and when the blow falls,
we turn our thoughts to the Creature, we ill treat our
ass, we lay the blame on circumstances of this world,
instead of turning to Him. “Lord, when Thy hand is
lifted up, they will not see ; but they shall see "—in the
next world, if not here—“and be ashamed for their envy
of the people. Yea, the fire of Thine enemies shall devour
them.”
Here, too, is a serious reflection, that when we
have begun an evil course we cannot retrace our steps.
Balaam was forced to go with the men ; he offered to
draw back—he was not allowed—yet God’s wrath fol-
lowed him. This is what comes of Committing our-
selves to an evil line of conduct; and we see daily
instances of it in our experience of life. Men get
26 HISTORICAL STU DIES.
entangled, and are bound hand and foot in dangerous
courses. They make imprudent marriages or connec-
tions; they place themselves in dangerous situations;
they engage in unprofitable or shameful undertakings.
Too often, indeed, they do not discern their evil plight;
but when they do they cannot draw back. God seems
to say, “Go with the men.” They are in bondage, and
they must make the best of it; being the slave of the
creature, without ceasing to be the responsible servants
of God; under His displeasure, yet bound to act as if
they could please Him. All this is very fearful.
Lastly, God gives us warnings now and then, but does
not repeat them. Balaam's sin consisted in not acting
on what was told him once for al/. Let us beware of
trifling with conscience. It is often said that second
thoughts are best ; so they are in matters of judgment,
but not in matters of conscience. In matters of duty
first thoughts are commonly best—they have more in
them of the voice of God.
SA U/C.
HE Israelites seem to have asked for a king from an
unthankful caprice and waywardness. The ill con-
duct, indeed, of Samuel's sons was the occasion of the
sin, but “an evil heart of unbelief,” to use Scripture
language, was the real cause of it. They had ever been
restless and dissatisfied, asking for flesh when they had
manna, fretful for water, impatient of the wilderness, bent
on returning to Egypt, fearing their enemies, murmuring
against Moses. They had miracles even to Satiety, and
then for a change they wished a king, like the nations.
This was the chief reason of their sinful demand. And
further, they were dazzled with the pomp and splendour
of the heathen monarchs around them, and they desired
some one to fight their battles, some visible succour to
depend on, instead of having to wait for an invisible
Providence, which came in its own way and time, little
by little, being dispensed silently, or tardily, or (as they
ºulight consider) unsuitably. Their carnal hearts did not
28 HISTO RICAL STU DIES.
love the neighbourhood of heaven, and like the inha-
bitants of Gadara afterwards, they prayed that Almighty
i God would depart from their coasts.
Such were some of the feelings under which they
desired a king like the nations; and God at length
granted their request. To punish them. He gave them a
king after their own heart, Saul, the son of Kish, a
Benjamite, of whom the Bible speaks in these terms: “I
gave them a king in mine anger, and took him away in
my wrath.”
There is in true religion a sameness, an absence of hue
and brilliancy, in the eyes of the natural man ; a plain-
ness, austereness, and (what he considers) sadness. It is
like the heavenly manna of which the Israelites com-
plained, insipid, and at length wearisome, “like wafers
made with honey.” They complained that “their soul
was dried away.” “There is nothing at all,” they said,
“beside this manna before our eyes. . . . . . We re-
member the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the
cucumbers, and the meions, and the leeks, and the
onions, and the garlick” (Numbers xi. 5; Exodus xvi.).
Such were the dainty meats in which their soul delighted,
and for the same reason they desired a king. Samuel
had too much of primitive simplicity about him to please
them ; they felt they were behind the world, and
clamoured to be put on a level with the heathen.
S.A U. L. 29
Saul, the king whom God gave them, had much to recom-
mend him to minds thus greedy of the dust of the earth.
He was brave, daring, resolute, gifted, too, with strength
of body as well as of mind—a circumstance which seems
to have attracted their admiration. He is described in
person as if one of those sons of Anak, before whose
giant-forms the spies of the Israelites in the wilderness
were as grasshoppers. “A Choice young man, and a
goodly. There was not among the children of Israel a
goodlier person than he ; from his shoulders and upward
he was higher than any of the people.” Both his virtues
and his faults were such as became an eastern monarch,
and were adapted to secure the fear and submission of
his subjects. Pride, haughtiness, obstinacy, reserve,
jealousy, caprice—these in their way were not unbe-
coming qualities in the king after whom their imagination
roved. On the other hand, the better parts of his
character were of an excellence sufficient to engage the
affection of Samuel himself.
As to Samuel, his conduct is far above human praise.
Though injuriously treated by his countrymen, who cast
him off after he had served them faithfully till he was
“old and grey-headed,” and who resolved on setting over
them a king against his earnest entreaties; yet we find
no trace of coldness or jealousy in his behaviour towards
Saul. On his first meeting of him he addressed him in
3O H IS TO RIC A. L. STU D I E S.
the words of loyalty. “On whom is all the desire of
Israel? Is it not on thee and on all thy father's house?"
Afterwards, when he anointed him king, he “kissed him
and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee
to be king over His inheritance?” When he announced
him to the people as their king, he said, “See ye him
whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him
among all the people.” And some time after, when Saul
had irrecoverably lost God's favour, we are told “Samuel
came no more to see Saul until the day of his death ;
nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul.” In the next
chapter he is thus rebuked for immoderate grief: “How
long wilt thou mourn for Saul, Seeing I have rejected him
from reigning over Israel” (1 Sam. ix. 20; x. 1, 24; xv.
35) P Such Sorrow speaks favourably for Saul as well as
for Samuel. It is not only the grief of a loyal subject and
a zealous prophet, but, moreover, of an attached friend ;
and, indeed, instances are recorded, in the first years of
his reign, of forbearance, generosity, and neglect of self,
which sufficiently account for the feelings with which
Samuel regarded him. David, under very different cir-
cumstances, seems to have felt for him a similar affec-
tion.
The higher points of his character are brought out in
instances such as the following. The first announcement
of his elevation came upon him suddenly, but apparently
S.A U. L. 3 I
without unsettling him. He kept it secret, leaving it to
Samuel, who had made it to him, to publish it. “Saul
said unto his uncle, He (that is, Samuel) told us
plainly that the asses were found; but of the matter of
the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, he fold him not.”
Nay, it would even seem he was averse to the dignity
intended for him; for when the divine lot fell upon him
he hid himself, and was not discovered by the people
without recourse to divine assistance. The appointment
was at first unpopular. “The children of Belial said,
How shall this man save us? They despised him, and
brought him no presents; but he held his peace.” Soon
the Ammonites invaded the country beyond Jordan, with
the avowed intention of subjugating it. They sent to
Saul for relief almost in despair, and the panic spread in
the interior as well as among those whose country was
immediately threatened. The sacred writer proceeds :
“Aehold, Sau/ came after the herd out of the field; and
Saul said, What aileth the people, that they weep? and
they told him the tidings of the men of Jabesh. And
the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and his anger was
kindled greatly.” His order for an immediate gathering
throughout Israel was obeyed with the alacrity with
which the multitude serve the strong-minded in times of
danger. A decisive victory over the enemy followed.
Then the popular cry became, “Who is he that said, Shall
32 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
—ſº-
Saul reign over us? Bring the men, that we may put
them to death. And Saul said, Zhere shal/ not a man be
put to death this day; for to-day the Lord hath wrought
salvation in Israel” (I Sam. X., XI.).
Such was Saul’s character and Success: his character
faulty, yet not without promise ; his success in arms as
great as his carnal subjects could have desired. Yet in
spite of Samuel's private liking for him, and in spite of
the good fortune which actually attended him, we find
that from the beginning the prophet's voice is raised
both against people and king in warnings and rebukes,
which are omens of his destined destruction. According
to the text, “I gave them a king in mine anger, and
took him away in my wrath.” At the very time that
Saul was publicly received as king, Samuel protested,
“Ye have this day rejected your God, who Himself saved
you out of all your adversities and your tribulations.” In
a subsequent assembly of the people, in which he testified
his uprightness, he says, “Is it not wheat-harvest to-day P
I will call unto the Lord, and He shall send thunder and
rain, that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is
great in asking you a king.” Again, “If ye shall still do
wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king ”
(I Sam. xii. 17, 25). And after this, on the first instance
of disobedience, and at first sight no very heinous sin, the
sentence of rejection is passed upon him : “Thy kingdom
S.A U. L. 33
shall not continue ; the Lord hath sought Him a man
after His own heart.”
Here, then, a question may be raised. Why was Saul
thus marked for vengeance from the beginning P Why
these presages of misfortune which from the first hung
Over him, gathered, fell in storm and tempest, and at
length overwhelmed him P Is his character so essentially
faulty that it must be thus distinguished for reprobation
above all the anointed kings after him P Why, while
David is called a man after God’s own heart, should Saul
be put aside as worthless?
This question leads us to a deeper inspection of his
character. Now we know the first duty of every man is
the fear of God—a reverence for His word, a love towards
Him, a desire to obey Him; and besides, it was peculiarly
incumbent on the King of Israel, as God's vicegerent, by
virtue of his office, to promote His glory whom his
subjects had rejected. -
Now Saul “lacked this one thing.” His character,
indeed, is obscure, and we must be cautious while con-
sidering it. Still, as Scripture is given us for our instruc-
tion, it is surely right to make the most of what we find
there, and to form our judgment by Such lights as we
possess. It would appear, then, that Saul was never
under the abiding sense of religion, or, in Scripture
language, “the fear of God,” however he might be at
ID
34 HISTORICAL ST U DIES.
times moved and Softened. Some men are inconsistent
in their conduct, as Samson, or as Eli, in a different
way; and yet may have lived by faith, though a weak
faith. Others have sudden falls, as David had. Others
are corrupted by prosperity, as Solomon. But as to Saul,
there is no proof that he had any deep-seated religious
principle at all. Rather it is to be feared that his history
is a lesson to us, that the “heart of unbelief.” may exist
in the very sight of God, may rule a man in spite of
many natural advantages of character, in the midst of
much that is virtuous, amiable, and commendable.
Saul, it would seem, was naturally brave, active,
generous, and patient; and what Nature made him such
he remained, that is, without improvement, with virtues
which had no value, because they required no effort and
implied the influence of no principle. On the other
hand, when we look for evidence of his faith, that is, his
practical sense of things unseen, we discover instead a
deadness to all considerations not connected with this
present world. It is his habit to treat prophet and priest
with a coldness, to say the least, which seems to argue
some great internal defect. It would not be inconsistent
with the Scripture account of him, even should the real
fact be, that (with some general notions concerning the
being and providence of God) he doubted of the divinity
of the dispensation of which he was an instrument.
SAU L. 35
The circumstance which first introduces him to the
inspired history is not in his favour. While in search of
his father's asses, which were lost, he came to the city
where Samuel was ; and though Samuel was now an old
man, and from childhood known as the especial minister
and prophet of the God of Israel, Saul seems to have
considered him as a mere diviner, such as might be found
among the heathen, who, for “the fourth part of a shekel
of silver,” would tell him his way.
The narrative goes on to mention, that after his leaving
Samuel, “God gave him another heart;" and on meeting
a company of prophets, “the Spirit of God came upon
him, and he prophesied among them.” Upon this, “all
that knew him beforetime” said, “What is this that is
come unto the son of Kish P is Saul also among the
prophets? . . . . therefore it became a proverb.” From
this narrative we gather that his carelessness and cold-
ness in religious matters were So notorious, that in the
eyes of his acquaintance there was a certain strangeness
and incongruity which at Once struck the mind in
associating him with a school of the prophets.
Nor have we any reason to believe, from the after
history, that the divine gift, then first imparted, left any
religious effect upon his mind. At a later period of his
life we find him suddenly brought under the same sacred
influence on his entering the School where Samuel taught;
36 HISTORICAL STUDIES.
but instead of softening him, its effect upon his outward
conduct did but testify the fruitlessness of Divine Grace
when acting upon a will obstinately set upon evil.
The immediate occasion of his rejection was his failing
under a specific trial of his obedience, set before him at
the very time he was anointed. He had collected with
difficulty an army against the Philistines: while waiting
for Samuel to offer the sacrifice, his people became dis-
pirited, and began to fall off and return home. Here he
was doubtless exposed to the temptation of taking unlaw-
ful measures to put a stop to their defection. But when
we consider that the act to which he was persuaded was
no less than that of his offering sacrifice, he being neither
priest nor prophet, nor having any commission thus to
interfere with the Mosaic ritual, it is plain “his forcing
Aimself” to do so (as he tenderly described his sin) was a
direct profaneness—a profaneness which implied that he
was careless about forms, which in this world will ever
be essential to things Supernatural, and thought it mattered
little whether he acted in God’s way or in his own.
After this, he seems to have separated himself from
Samuel, whom he found unwilling to become his instru
ment, and to have had recourse to the priesthood instead
Ahijah, or Ahimelech (as he is afterwards called), the
high priest, followed his camp ; and the ark too, in spite
of the warning conveyed by the disasters which attended
S.A U. L. 37
the presumptuous use of it in the time of Eli. “And
Saul said unto Ahijah, Bring hither the ark of God.”
While it was brought, a tumult which was heard in the
camp of the Philistines increased. On this interruption,
Saul irreverently put the ark aside, and went out to the
battle.
It will be observed that there was no professed or
intentional irreverence in Saul’s conduct ; he was still on
the whole the same he had ever been. He outwardly
respected the Mosaic ritual. About this time he built his
first altar to the Lord, and in a certain sense seemed
to acknowledge God's authority (I Sam. xiv. 35). But
nothing shows he considered there was any vast distinc-
tion between Israel and the nations around them. He
was indifferent, and cared for none of these things. The
chosen people desired a king like the nations, and such a
one they received.
After this he was commanded to “go and Smite the
sinners, the Amalekites, and utterly destroy them and
their cattle.” This was a judgment on them which God
had long decreed, though He had delayed it ; and He
now made Saul the minister of His vengeance. But
Saul performed it only so far as fell in with his own
inclinations and purposes. He Smote, indeed, the
Amalekites, and “destroyed all the people with the edge
of the sword”—this exploit had its glory. The best of the
38 H IS TO RIC A. L. STUDI F. S.
flocks and herds he spared, and why? To sacrifice there-
with to the Lord. But since God had expressly told him
to destroy them, what was this but to imply that divine
intimations had nothing to do with such matters ? What
was it but to consider that the established religion was
but a useful institution, or a splendid pageant Suitable to
the dignity of monarchy, but resting on no unseen super-
\l natural sanction ? Certainly, he in no sense acted in the
fear of God, with the wish to please Him, and the con-
viction that he was in His sight. One might consider it
mere pride and wilfulness in him, acting in his own way
because it was his own (which doubtless it was in great
measure), except that he appears to have had an eye to
the feelings and opinions of men as to his conduct, though
not to God's judgment. He “feared the people, and
obeyed their voice.” Again, he spared Agag, the king of
the Amalekites. Doubtless he considered Agag as “his
brother,” as Ahab afterwards called Benhadad. Agag
was a king, and Saul observed towards him that courtesy
and clemency which earthly monarchs observe one
towards another, and rightly, when no divine command
comes in the way. But the God of Israel required a
king after his own heart, jealous of idolatry; the people
had desired a king like the nations around them.
It is remarkable, however, that while he spared Agag,
he attempted to exterminate the Gibeonites with the
S A U L. 39
sword, who were tolerated in Israel by virtue of an
oath taken in their favour by Joshua and “the princes of
the congregation.” This he did “in his zeal to the
children of Israel and Judah.”
From the time of his disobedience in the matter of
Amalek, Samuel came no more to see Saul, whose season
of probation was over. The evil spirit exerted a more
visible influence over him, and God sent Samuel to anoint
David privately, as the future king of Israel. I need not
trace further the course of moral degradation which is
exemplified in Saul's subsequent history. Mere natural
virtue wears away when men neglect to deepen it into
religious principle. Saul appears in his youth to be
unassuming and forbearing : in advanced life he is not
only proud and gloomy (as he ever was in a degree), but
cruel, resentful, and hard-hearted, which he was not in
his youth. His injurious treatment of David is a long
history, but his conduct to Ahimelech, the high priest,
admits of being mentioned here. Ahimelech assisted
David in his escape, Saul resolved on the death of
Ahimelech and all his father's house. On his guards
refusing to execute his Command, Doeg, a man of Edom
one of the nations Saul was raised up to withstand,
undertook the atrocious deed. On that day eighty-five
priests were slain. Afterwards Nob, the city of the
priests, was smitten with the edge of the Sword, and all
4O H IS TO RIC A. L S T U IDI E. S.
destroyed—“Men and women, children and sucklings,
and oxen, and asses, and sheep.” That is, Saul executed
more complete vengeance on the descendants of Levi,
the sacred tribe, than on the sinners, the Amalekites, who
laid wait for Israel in the way, on their going up from
Egypt.
Last of all, he finishes his bad history by an open act
of apostacy from the God of Israel. His last act is like
his first, but more significant. He began, as we saw, by
consulting Samuel as a diviner: this showed the direction
of his mind. It steadily persevered in its evil way—and
he ends by consulting a professed sorceress at Endor.
The Philistines had assembled their hosts; Saul's heart
trembled greatly ; he had no advisers or comforters;
Samuel was dead ; the priests he had himself slain with
the sword. He hoped by magic rites—which he had
formerly denounced—to foresee the issue of the approach-
ing battle. God meets him even in the cave of Satanic
delusions — but as an antagonist : the reprobate king
receives, by the mouth of dead Samuel, who had once
anointed him, the news that he is to be “taken away in
God’s wrath "-that the Lord would deliver Israel, with
him, into the hands of the Philistines; and that on the
morrow he and his sons should be numbered with the
dead (I Sam. xxviii. 19).
The next day “the battle went sore against him ; the
y 8
SAUL, 4 I
archers hit him, and he was sore wounded of the archers.”
“Anguish came upon him " (2 Sam. i. 9), and he feared
to fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. He desired
his armour-bearer to draw his sword and thrust him
through therewith. On his refusing, he fell upon his own
sword, and so came to his end.
Unbelief and wilfulness are the wretched characteristics
of Saul's history—an ear deaf to the plainest commands,
a heart hardened against the most gracious influences.
Do not suppose, because I Speak thus strongly, I Con-
sider Saul’s state of mind to be something very unusual.
Let us only reflect on our hardness of heart, and we
shall understand something of Saul's ambition when he
prophesied. We may be conscious to ourselves of the
truth of things sacred as entirely as if we saw them ; and
yet we often feel in as ordinary and as unconcerned a
mood as if we were altogether unbelievers. Again, Jet us
reflect on our callousness after mercies received, or after
suffering. We are often in worse case even than this ;
for to realize the unseen world in our imagination, and
feel as if we saw it, may not always be in our power.
What makes our insensibility still more alarming is, that
it follows the grant of the highest privileges. There is
something awful in this, if we understood it; as if that
peculiar hardness of heart which we experience, in spite
of whatever excellences of character we may otherwise
42 HISTO RIC A. L S T U D I F. S.
possess—like Saul, in spite of the benevolence, or fair-
ness, or candour, or consideration, which are the virtues
of this age—was the characteristic of a soul transgressing
after it had “tasted the powers of the world to come,”
and an earnest of the second death. May this thought
rouse us to a deeper seriousness than we have at present,
while Christ continues to Intercede for us, and grant us
time for repentance
DA V//D
HEN Saul was finally rejected for not destroying the
Amalekites, Samuel was bid go to Bethlehem, and
anoint, as future king of Israel, one of the sons of Jesse,
who should be pointed out to him when he was come there. .
Samuel accordingly went thither and made a sacrifice;
when, at his command, Jesse's seven sons were brought
by their father, one by one, before the prophet; but none
of them proved to be the choice of Almighty God.
David was the youngest and out of the way, and it
seemed to Jesse as unlikely that God's choice should fall
upon him, as it appeared to Joseph's brethren and to his
father, that he and his mother and brethren should, as his
dreams foretold, bow down before him. On Samuel's
inquiring, Jesse said, “There remaineth yet the youngest,
and, behold, he keepeth the sheep.” On Samuel's
bidding, he was sent for. “Now he was ruddy,” the
sacred historian proceeds, “and withal of a beautiful
countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord
44 HISTORICAL STU D.I.E.S.
said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” After Samuel
had anointed him, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon
David from that day forward.” It is added, “But the
Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.”
David’s anointing was followed by no other immediate
mark of God's favour. He was tried by being sent back
again, in spite of the promise, to the care of his sheep,
till an unexpected occasion introduced him to Saul's
court. The withdrawing of the Spirit of the Lord from
Saul was followed by frequent attacks from an evil spirit,
as a judgment upon him. His mind was depressed, and
a “trouble,” as it is called, came upon him, with symptoms
very like those which we now refer to derangement.
His servants thought that music, such perhaps as was
used in the Schools of the prophets, might soothe and
restore him ; and David was recommended by one of
them for that purpose in the words of the text: “Behold,
I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is
Cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man
of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person,
and the Lord is with him.”
David came in the power of that sacred influence
whom Saul had grieved and rejected. The Spirit which
inspired his tongue guided his hand also, and his Sacred
songs became a medicine to Saul's diseased mind.
“When the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, . . . .
DAVI D. 45
David took an harp, and played with his hand; so Saul
was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed
from him.” Thus he is first introduced to us in that
character in which he still has praise in the Church, as
“the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet
psalmist of Israel.” (2 Sam. xxiii. I.)
Saul “loved David greatly, and he became his armour-
bearer ;” but the first trial of his humility and patience
was not over, while many other trials were in store.
After a while he was a second time sent back to his
sheep; and though there was war with the Philistines,
and his three eldest brethren were in the army with Saul,
and he had already essayed his strength in defending his
father's flocks from wild beasts, and was “a mighty
valiant man,” yet he contentedly stayed at home as a
private person, keeping his promise of greatness to him-
self, till his father bade him go to his brethren to take
them a present from him, and report how they fared.
An accident, as it appeared to the world, brought him
forward. On his arrival at the army, he heard the
challenge of the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath. I
need not relate how he was divinely urged to engage the
giant, how he killed him, and how he was in consequence
again raised to Saul's favour; who, with an infirmity not
inconsistent with the deranged state of his mind, seems to
have altogether forgotten him.
46 HISTO RIC A. L. STU DIES,
From this time began David's public life; but not yet
the fulfilment of the promise made to him by Samuel.
He had a second and severer trial of patience to endure
for many years; the trial of “being still" and doing
nothing before God's time, though he had (apparently)
the means in his hands of accomplishing the promise for
himself. It was to this trial that Jeroboam afterwards
showed himself unequal. He too was promised a king-
dom, but he was tempted to seize upon it in his own
way, and so forfeited God's protection.
David's victory over Goliath so endeared him to Saul,
that he would not let him go back to his father's house.
Jonathan too, Saul's son, at Once felt for him a warm
affection, which deepened into a firm friendship. “Saul
set him over the men of war; and he was accepted in the
sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's
servants.” (I Sam. xviii. 5.) This prosperous fortune,
however, did not long Continue. As Saul passed through
the cities from his victory over his enemies, the women
of Israel came out to meet him, singing and dancing,
and they said, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and
David his ten thousands.” Immediately the jealous
king was “very wroth, and the saying displeased
him ;” his sullenness returned ; he feared David as a
rival; and “eyed him from that day and forward.”
On the morrow, as David was playing before him, as
I) AVID. 47
at other times, Saul threw his javelin at him. After this,
Saul displaced him from his situation at his court, and
sent him to the war, hoping so to rid himself of him
by his falling in battle; but by God’s blessing David
returned victorious.
In a second war with the Philistines, David was
successful as before ; and Saul, overcome with gloomy
and malevolent passions, again cast at him with his
javelin, as he played before him, with the hope of killing
him.
This repeated attempt on his life drove David from
Saul’s court; and for some years after, that is, till Saul's
death, he was a wanderer upon the earth, persecuted in
that country which was afterwards to be his own king-
dom. Here, as in his victory over Goliath, Almighty
God purposed to show us, that it was His hand which
set David on the throne of Israel. David conquered his
enemy by a sling and stone, in order, as he said at the
time, that all . . . . might know “that the Lord saveth
not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's.”
(I Sam. xvii. 47.) Now again, but in a different way,
His guiding providence was displayed. As David slew
Goliath without arms, so now he refrained himself and
used them not, though he possessed them. Like
Abraham he traversed the land of promise “as a strange
land” (Heb. xi. 9), waiting for God's good time. Nay,
48 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U D II. S.
tar more exactly, even than to Abraham, was it given to
David to act and suffer that life of faith which the Apostle
describes, and by which “the elders obtained a good
report.” By faith he wandered about, “being destitute,
afflicted, evil-entreated, in deserts, and in mountains,
and in dens, and in caves of the earth.” On the other
hand, through the same faith, he “subdued kingdoms,
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, waxed valiant
in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”
On escaping from Saul, he first went to Samuel to ask
his advice. With him he dwelt some time. Driven
thence by Saul, he went to Bethlehem, his father's city,
then to Ahimelech the high-priest, at Nob. Thence he
fled, still through fear of Saul, to Achish, the Philistine
king of Gath; and finding his life in danger there, he
escaped to Adullam, where he was joined by his kindred,
and put himself at the head of an irregular band of men,
such as, in the unsettled state of the Country, might be
usefully and lawfully employed against the remnant of
the heathen. After this he was driven to Hareth, to
Keilah, which he rescued from the Philistines, to the
wilderness of Ziph among the mountains, to the wilder-
ness of Maon, to the strongholds of Engedi, to the
wilderness of Paran. After a time he again betook him-
self to Achish, king of Gath, who gave him a city; and
there it was that the news was brought him of the death
D.A. V. I D. 49
|
of Saul in battle, which was the occasion of his elevation
first to the throne of Judah, afterwards to that of all
Israel, according to the promise of God made to him by
Samuel.
It need not be denied that, during these years of
wandering, we find in David's conduct instances of in-
firmity and inconsistency, and some things which, without
being clearly wrong, are yet strange and startling in so
favoured a servant of God. With these we are not
Concerned, except so far as a lesson may be gained from
them for themselves. We are not at all concerned with
them as regards our estimate of David's character. That
character is ascertained and sealed by the plain word of
Scripture, by the praise of Almighty God, and is no
subject for our criticism; and if we find in it traits which
we cannot fully reconcile with the approbation divinely
given to him, we must take it in faith to be what it is said
to be, and wait for the future revelations of Him who
“overcomes when He is judged.” Therefore I dismiss
these matters now, when I am engaged in exhibiting the
eminent obedience and manifold virtues of David. On
the whole, his situation, during these years of trial, was
certainly that of a witness for Almighty God, one who
does good and suffers for it, nay, Suffers on rather than
rid himself from suffering by any unlawful act,
Now then let us consider what was, as far as we can
E
SO H IS TO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
£).
t-
understand, his especial grace, what is his gift; as faith
was Abraham's distinguishing virtue, meekness the excel-
lence of Moses, self-mastery the gift especially Conspi-
cuous in Joseph.
This question may best be answered by considering
the purpose for which he was raised up. When Saul
was disobedient, Samuel said to him, “Thy kingdom
shall not continue : the Lord hath sought Him a
man after His own heart, and the Lord hath Com-
manded him to be captain over His people, because
thou hast not kept that which the Lord Commanded
thee.” (I Sam. xiii. 14.) The office to which first
Saul and then David were called, was different from
that with which other favoured men before them had
been intrusted. From the time of Moses, when Israel
became a nation, God had been the king of Israel, and
His chosen servants, not delegates, but mere organs
of His will. Moses did not direct the Israelites by his
own wisdom, but he spake to them, as God spake from
the pillar of the cloud. Joshua, again, was merely a
sword in the hand of God. Samuel was but His minister
and interpreter. God acted, the Israelites “stood still
and saw " His miracles, then followed. But, when they
had rejected Him from being king over them, then their
thief ruler was no longer a mere organ of His power and
will, but had a certain authority intrusted to him, more
DAVI D. 5 I
or less independent of Supernatural direction ; and acted,
not so much from God, as for God, and in the place
of God. David, when taken from the sheepfolds “to
feed Jacob His people and Israel His inheritance,”
| “fed them,” in the words of the Psalm, “with a
faithful and true heart; and ruled them prudently
with all his power.” (Ps. lxxviii. 71–73.) From this
account of his office, it is obvious that his very first
duty was that of ſidelity to 4/mighty God in the trust
committed to him. He had power put into his hands, in
a sense in which neither Moses had it, nor Samuel.
He was charged with a certain office, which he was
bound to administer according to his ability, so as best
to promote the interests of Him who appointed him.
Saul had neglected his Master's honour; but David,
in this an eminent type of Christ, “Came to do God's
* will” as a viceroy in Israel, and, as being tried and
found faithful, he is especially called “a man after God's
own heart.”
David's peculiar excellence then is that of ſide/ity to ſ/e
trus; committed to Žim, a firm, uncompromising, single-
hearted devotion to the cause of his God, and a burning
zeal for His honour.
This characteristic virtue is especially illustrated in
the early years of his life. He was tried therein and
found faithful ; before he was put in power, it was
52 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U 1) I E.S.
proved whether he could obey. Till he came to the
throne, he was like Moses or Samuel, an instrument
in God’s hands, bid do what was told him and nothing
more;—having borne this trial of obedience well, in
which Saul had failed, then at length he was intrusted
with a sort of discretionary power, to use in his Master's
service. -
Observe how David was tried, and what various high
qualities of mind he displayed in the course of the trial.
First, the promise of greatness was given him, and Samuel
anointed him. Still he stayed in the sheepfolds; and
though called away by Saul for a time, yet returned
contentedly when Saul released him from attendance.
How difficult it is for such as know they have gifts suit-
able to the Church's need to refrain themselves till God
makes a way for their use ! and the trial would be the
more severe in David's case, in proportion to the ardour
and energy of his mind; yet he fainted not under it.
Afterwards for seven years, as the time appears to be, he
withstood the strong temptation, ever before his eyes, of
acting without God's guidance, when he had the means
of doing so. Though skilful in arms, popular with his
countrymen, successful against the enemy, the king's
Son-in-law, and on the other hand grievously injured by
Saul, who not only Continually sought his life, but even
suggested to him a traitor's Conduct by accusing him
D.A. VI D. 53
of treason, and whose life was several times in his
hands, yet he kept his honour pure and unimpeachable.
He feared God and honoured the king; and this at
a time of life especially exposed to the temptations of
ambition.
There is a resemblance between the early history of
David and that of Joseph. Both distinguished for piety
in youth, the youngest and the despised of their respective
brethren, they are raised, after a long trial, to a high
station, as ministers of God's Providence. Joseph was
tempted to a degrading adultery ; David was tempted by
ambition. Both were tempted to be traitors to their
masters and benefactors. Joseph's trial was brief; but
his conduct under it evidenced settled habits of virtue which
he could call to his aid at a moment's notice. A long
imprisonment followed, the consequence of his obedience,
and borne with meekness and patience ; but it was no
part of his temptation, because, when once incurred,
release was out of his power. David's trial, on the other
hand, lasted for years, and grew stronger as time went on.
His master too, far from “putting all that he had into
his hand” (Genesis xxxix. 4), sought his life. Continual
opportunity of avenging himself incited his passions;
self-defence, and the divine promise, were specious argu-
ments to seduce his reason. Yet he mastered his heart,
—he was “still ;”—he kept his hands clean and his lips
54 HISTORICAL STUDIES.
~~~~
guileless, he was loyal throughout, -and in due time
inherited the promise.
Let us call to mind some of the circumstances of his
stedfastness recorded in the history.
He was about twenty-three years old when he slew the
Philistine ; yet, when placed over Saul's men of war, in
the first transport of his victory, we are told he “behaved
himself wisely.” (I Sam. xviii. 5–30.) When fortune
turned, and Saul became jealous of him, still “David
behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and the Lord
was with him.” How like is this to Joseph under
different circumstances ! “Wherefore, when Saul saw
that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid
of him ; and all Israel and Judah loved David.” Again,
“And David behaved himself more wisely than all the
servants of Saul, so that his name was much set by.”
Here in shifting fortunes is evidence of that staid, com-
posed frame of mind in his youth, which he himself
describes in the one hundred and thirty-first Psalm.
“My heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty . . . . . .
Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that
is weaned of his mother.”
The same modest deportment marks his subsequent
conduct. He consistently seeks Counsel of God. When
he fled from Saul he went to Samuel ; afterwards we find
him following the directions of the prophet Gad, and
David * 55
Ö
afterwards of Abiathar the high priest. (I Sam, xxii. 5,
20 ; xxiii. 6.) Here his character is in full contrast to
the character of Saul.
Further, consider his behaviour towards Saul when he
had him in his power; it displays a most striking and
admirable union of simple faith and unblemished loyalty.
Saul, while in pursuit of him, went into a cave in
Engedi. David surprised him there, and his companions
advised to seize him, if not to take his life. They said,
“Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee.”
(I Sam. xxiv. 4.) David, in order to show Saul
how entirely his life had been in his power, arose
and cut off a part of his robe privately. After he
had done it, his “heart smote him " even for this
slight freedom, as if it were a disrespect offered
towards his king and father. “He said unto his men,
The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto
my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine
hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.”
When Saul left the cave, David followed him and cried,
“My Lord the king. And when Saul looked behind
him, David stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed
himself.” He hoped that he could now convince Saul of
his integrity. “Wherefore hearest thou men's words,” he
asked, “saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Be-
hold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had
56 H IS TO RIC A. L. STU DIES.
delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave; and
some bade me kill thee . . . . Moreover, my father, see,
yea see the skirt of thy robe in my hand : for in that I
cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not, know
thou and see, that there is neither evil nor transgression
in mine hand, and I have not sinned against thee: yet
thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge between
me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee: but mine
hand shall not be upon thee . . . . . . After whom is
the king of Israel come out P after whom dost thou
pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. The Lord there-
fore judge . . . . and see, and plead my cause, and
deliver me out of thine hand.” Saul was for the time
overcome ; he said, “Is this thy voice, my son David P
and Saul lifted up his voice and wept.” And he said,
“Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast rewarded
me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil.” He
added, “And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt
surely be king.” At another time David surprised Saul in
the midst of his camp, and his companion would have
killed him ; but he said, “Destroy him not, for who can
stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and
be guiltless P’ (I Sam. xxvi. 9.) Then, as he stood
over him, he meditated sorrowfully on his master's
future fortunes, while he himself refrained from in-
terfering with God's purposes. “Surely the Lord shall
DAW I D. 57
smite him ; or his day shall come to die; or he shall
descend into battle and perish.” David retired from
the enemy's camp; and when at a safe distance,
roused Saul's guards, and blamed them for their negli-
gent watch, which had allowed a stranger to ap-
proach the person of their king. Saul was moved the
second time ; the miserable man, as if waking from a
dream which hung about him, said, “I have sinned;
return, my son David . . . . . . behold, I have played
the fool, and have erred exceedingly.” He added, truth
overcoming him, “Blessed be thou, my son David ; thou
shalt both do great things, and also shalt still prevail.”
How beautiful are these passages in the history of the
chosen king of Israel ! How do they draw our hearts
towards him, as one whom in his private character it
must have been an extreme privilege and a great delight
to know ! Surely the blessings of the patriarchs de-
scended in a united flood upon “the lion of the tribe of
Judah,” the type of the true Redeemer who was to come.
He inherits the prompt faith and magnanimity of Abra-
ham ; he is simple as Isaac ; he is humble as Jacob ; he
has the youthful wisdom and self-possession, the tender-
ness, the affectionateness, and the firmness of Joseph.
And, as his own especial gift, he has an overflowing
thankfulness, an ever-burning devotion, a zealous fidelity
to his God, a high unshaken loyalty towards his king, an
58 HISTORICAL STUDI E.S.
§
heroic bearing in all circumstances, such as the multitude
of men see to be great, but cannot understand. Be it
our blessedness, unless the wish be presumptuous, so
to acquit ourselves in troubled times; cheerful amid
anxieties, Collected in dangers, generous towards enemies,
patient in pain and Sorrow, Subdued in good fortune
How manifold are the ways of the Spirit, how various the
graces which He imparts; what depth and width is there
in that moral truth and virtue for which we are created
Contrast one with another the Scripture saints how
different are they, yet how alike how fitted for their
respective circumstances, yet how unearthly, how settled
and composed in the faith and fear of God . As in the
services, so in the patterns of the Church, God has met
all our needs, all our frames of mind. “Is any afflicted P
let him pray; is any merry P let him sing psalms.”
(James v. 13.) Is any in joy or in sorrow? there
are saints at hand to encourage and guide him. There
is Abraham for nobles, Job for men of wealth and
merchandise, Moses for patriots, Samuel for rulers,
Elijah for reformers, Joseph for those who rise into
distinction; there is Daniel for the forlorn, Jeremiah
for the persecuted, Hannah for the downcast, Ruth for
the friendless, the Shunammite for the matron, Caleb for
the soldier, Boaz for the farmer, Mephibosheth for the
subject; but none is vouchSafed to us in more varied
D.A.V. I. D. 59
lights, and with more abundant and more affecting
lessons, whether in his history or in his writings, than
he who is described as Cunning in playing, and a mighty
valiant man, and prudent in matters, and comely in
person, and favoured by Almighty God.
ST. AA OZ.
VERY season of Paul’s life is full of wonders, and
admits of a separate commemoration; which
indeed we do make whenever we read the Acts of the
Apostles or his Epistles.
We cannot well forget the manner of his conversion.
He was journeying to Damascus with authority from the
chief priests to seize the Christians, and bring them to
Jerusalem. He had sided with the persecuting party
from their first act of violence, the martyrdom of St.
Stephen ; and he continued foremost in a bad cause,
with blind rage endeavouring to defeat what really was the
work of Divine power and wisdom. In the midst of his
fury he was struck down by miracle, and converted to the
faith he persecuted. Observe the circumstances of the
case. When the blood of Stephen was shed, Saul, then
a young man, was standing by, “Consenting unto his
death,” and “kept the raiment of them that slew him.”
S.T. P. A U L. 6 I
(Acts xxii. 20.) Two speeches are recorded of the Martyr
in his last moments ; One, in which he prayed that God
would pardon his murderers, the other his witness that
he saw the heavens opened, and Jesus on God’s right
hand. His prayer was wonderfully answered. Stephen
saw his Saviour; the next vision of that Saviour to mortal
man was vouchsafed to the very young man, even Saul,
who shared in his murder and his intercession.
Strange, indeed, it was ; and what would have been
St. Stephen's thoughts could he have known it ! The
prayers of righteous men avail much. The first martyr
had power with God to raise up the greatest apostle.
Such was the honour put upon the first fruits of those
sufferings upon which the Church was entering. Thus
from the beginning the blood of the martyrs was the seed
of the Church. Stephen, one man, was put to death for
saying that the Jewish people were to have exclusive
privileges no longer ; but from his very grave rose the
favoured instrument by whom the thousands and tem
thousands of the Gentiles were brought to the knowledge
of the truth !
Herein then, first, is St. Paul's conversion memorable;
that it was a triumph over the enemy. When Almighty
God would convert the world, opening the door of faith
to the Gentiles, who was the chosen preacher of His
mercy P Not one of Christ's first followers. To show
62 HISTO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
His power, He put forth his hand into the very midst of
the persecutors of His Son, and seized upon the most
strenuous among them. The prayer of a dying man is
the token and occasion of his triumph which He had
reserved for Himself. His strength is made perfect
in weakness. As of old, He broke the yoke of His
people's burden, the staff of their shoulder, the rod
of their oppressor. (Isa. ix. 4.) Saul made furiously
for Damascus, but the Lord Almighty “ knew his abode,
and his going out and coming in, and his rage against
Him,” and “because his rage against Him, and his
tumult came up before Him,” therefore, as in Senna-
cherib's case, though in a far different way, He “put
His hook in his nose and His bridle in his lips, and
turned him back by the way by which he came.”
(Isa. xxxvii. 28, 29.) “He spoiled principalities and
powers, and made a show of them openly” (Col. ii. I5),
triumphing over the serpent's head while his heel was
wounded. Saul, the persecutor, was converted, and
preached Christ in the Synagogues.
In the next place, St. Paul's conversion may be consi-
dered as a suitable introduction to the Office he was called
to execute in God's providence. I have said it was a
triumph over the enemies of Christ; but it was also an
expressive emblem of the nature of God's general
dealings with the race of man. What are we all but
S.T. PA U. L. 63
rebels against God, and enemies of the Truth? What
were the Gentiles in particular at that time, but “alien-
ated" from Him, “and enemies in their mind by wicked
works?” (Col. i. 21.) Who then could so appropriately
fulfil the purpose of Him who came to call sinners
to repentance, as one who esteemed himself the least
of the apostles, that was not meet to be called an
Apostle, because he had persecuted the Church of
God P When Almighty God in His infinite mercy
purposed to form a people to Himself out of the
heathen, as vessels for glory, first He chose the in-
strument of this His purpose, as a brand from the
burning, to be a type of the rest. There is a parallel
to this Order of Providence in the Old Testament. The
Jews were bid to look unto the rock whence they were
hewn. (Isa. li. I.) Who was the especial patriarch of
their nation?—Jacob. Abraham himself, indeed, had been
called and blessed by God's mere grace. Yet Abraham
had remarkable faith. Jacob, however, the immediate
and peculiar patriarch of the Jewish race, is represented
in the character of a sinner, pardoned and reclaimed by
Divine mercy, a wanderer exalted to be the father of a
great nation. Now I am not venturing to describe him
as he really was, but as he is represented to us; not per-
sonally, but in that particular point of view in which the
sacred history has placed him ; not as an individual, but
64 H IS TO RIC A. L. STU DI E.S.
as he is typically, or in the way of doctrine. There
is no mistaking the marks of his character and fortunes
in the history, designedly (as it would seem) recorded
to humble Jewish pride. He makes his own confession
as St. Paul afterwards: “I am not worthy of the
least of all Thy mercies.” (Gen. xxxii. Io.) Every
year, too, the Israelites were bid bring their offering,
and avow before God that “a Syrian ready to perish
was their father.” (Deut. xxvi. 5.) Such as was the
father, such (it was reasonable to suppose) would be
the descendants. None would be “greater than their
father Jacob.” (John iv. 12.) for whose sake the nation
was blest.
In like manner St. Paul is, in one way of viewing the
dispensation, the Spiritual father of the Gentiles; and
in the history of his sin and its most gracious forgiveness,
he exemplifies far more than his brother apostles his
own Gospel; that we are all guilty before God, and can
be saved only by His free bounty. In his own words,
“for this cause obtained he mercy, that in him first Jesus
Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to
them which should hereafter believe on Him to life ever-
lasting.” (1 Tim. i. 16.)
And in the next place, St. Paul’s previous course of
life rendered him, perhaps, after his conversion, more fit
an instrument of God’s purposes towards the Gentiles, as
ST, PA. U L. 65
well as a more striking specimen of it. Here it is
necessary to speak with Caution. We know that, what-
ever were St. Paul's successes in the propagation of the
Gospel, they were in their source and nature not his, but
through “the grace of God which was with him.” Still,
God makes use of human means, and it is allowable to
inquire reverently what these were, and why St. Paul was
employed to convert the heathen world rather than St.
James the Less, or St. John. Doubtless his intellectual
endowments and acquirements were among the circum-
stances which fitted him for his office. Yet, may it not
be supposed that there was something in his previous
religious history which especially disciplined him to be
“all things to all men P’’ Nothing is so difficult as to
enter into the characters and feelings of men who have
been brought up under a system of religion different from
our own ; and to discern how they may be most forcibly
and profitably addressed, in order to win them over to
the reception of Divine truths, of which they are at
present ignorant. Now St. Paul had had experience in
his own case of a state of mind very different from that
which belonged to him as an apostle. Though he had
never been polluted with heathen immorality and pro-
faneness, he had entertained views and sentiments very
far from Christian ; and had experienced a conversion to
which the other apostles (as far as we know) were
F
66 IH IS TO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
Strangers. I am far indeed from meaning that there is
ought favourable to a man's after religion in an actual
unsettling of principle, in lapsing into infidelity, and then
returning again to religious belief. This was not St.
Paul's case; he underwent no radical change of religious
principle. Much less would. I give Countenance to the
notion, that a previous immoral life is other than a
grievous permanent hindrance and a curse to a man after
he has turned to God. Such considerations, however,
are out of place in speaking of St. Paul. What I mean
is, that his awful rashness and blindness, his self-confident,
headstrong, Cruel rage, against the worshippers of the
true Messiah, then his strange Conversion, then the length
of time that elapsed before his solemn ordination, during
which he was left to meditate in private on all that had
happened, and to anticipate the future, all this constituted
a peculiar preparation for the office of preaching to a lost
world, dead in sin. It gave him an extended insight, on
the one hand, into the ways and designs of Providence,
and on the other hand into the workings of sin in the
human heart, and the various modes of thinking to which
the mind may be trained. It taught him not to despair
of the worst sinners, to be sharp-sighted in detecting the
sparks of faith amid corrupt habits of life, and to enter
into the various temptations to which human nature is
exposed. It wrought in him a profound humility, which
S.T. P. A U L. 67
disposed him (if we may say so) to bear meekly the
abundance of the revelations given him ; and it imparted
to him a practical wisdom how to apply them to the Con-
version of others, so as to be weak with the weak, and
strong with the strong, to bear their burdens, to instruct
and encourage them, to “strengthen his brethren,” to
rejoice and weep with them, in a word, to be an earthly
Aaracleſe, the comforter, help, and guide of his brethren.
It gave him to know in some good measure the /earts of
ſmen ; an attribute (in its fulness) belonging to God alone,
and possessed by Him in union with perfect purity from
all sin; but which in us can scarcely exist without Our
owr, melancholy experience, in some degree, of moral evil
in ourselves, since the innocent (it is their privilege)
have not eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil.
Lastly, to guard against misconception of these last
remarks, I must speak distinctly on a part of the subject
only touched upon hitherto, viz., on St. Paul's spiritual
state before his conversion. For, in spite of what has
been said by way of Caution, perhaps I may still be
supposed to warrant the maxim Sometimes maintained,
that the greater sinner makes the greater Saint.
Now, observe, I do not allege that St. Paul's previous
sins made him a more Spiritual Christian afterwards, but
rendered him more ſitted for a £articular purpose in God's
68 H IS TO RIC A. l. STU DIES,
providence—more fitted, when converted, to reclaim
others; just as a knowledge of languages (whether
divinely or humanly acquired) fits a man for the office of
missionary, without tending in any degree to make him a
better man. I merely say, that if we take two men
equally advanced in faith and holiness, that one of the two
would preach to a variety of men with the greater success
who had the greater experience in his own religious
history of temptation, the war of flesh and spirit, sin, and
victory over sin; though at the same time, at first sight
it is of course unlikely that he who had experienced all
these changes of mind should be equal in faith and
obedience to the other who had served God from a child.
But, in the next place, let us observe, how very far St.
Paul's conversion is, in matter of fact, from holding out
any encouragement to those who live in sin, or any self-
satisfaction to those who have lived in it; as if their
present or former disobedience could be a gain to them.
Why was mercy shown to Saul the persecutor? He him-
self gives us the reason, which we may safely make use
of “ſ obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in
unbelief.” (I Tim. i. I2, 13.) And why was he
“enabled” to preach the Gospel? “Because Christ
counted him faithful.” We have here the reason more
clearly stated even than in Abraham's case, who was
honoured with special Divine revelations, and promised
ST. P. A U L. 69
a name on the earth, because God “knew him, that he
would command his children and his household after
him, to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and
judgment.” (Gen. xviii. 19.) Saul was ever faithful,
according to his notion of “the way of the Lord.”
Doubtless he sinned deeply and grievously in persecuting
the followers of Christ. Had he known the Holy Scrip-
tures, he never would have done so ; he would have recog-
nized Jesus to be the promised Saviour, as Simeon and
Anna had, from the first. But he was bred up in a human
School, and paid more attention to the writings of men
than to the word of God. Still, observe, he differed
from other enemies of Christ in this, that he kept a clear
conscience, and habitually obeyed God according to his
lºnowledge. God speaks to us in two ways, in our hearts
and in His word. The latter and clearer of these in-
formants St. Paul knew little of; the former he could not
but know in his measure (for it was within him), and he
obeyed it. That inward voice was but feeble, mixed up
and obscured with human feelings and human traditions;
so that what his conscience told him to do, was but
partially true, and in part was wrong. Yet still, believing
it to speak God's will, he deferred to it, acting as he did
afterwards when he “was not disobedient to the heavenly
vision,” which informed him Jesus was the Christ.
(Acts xxvi. 19.) Hear his own account of himself;
70 HISTORICAL STU DIES.
“I have lived in all good conscience before God until
this day.” “After the most straitest sect of our religion,
I lived a Pharisee.” “Touching the righteousness
which is in the Law, blameless.” (Acts xxiii. I ; xxvi. 5.
Phil. iii. 6.) Here is no ease, no self-indulgent habits, no
wilful sin against the light, nay, I will say no pride.
That is, though he was doubtless influenced by much
sinful self-confidence, in his violent and bigoted hatred of
the Christians, and though (as well as even the best of
us) he was doubtless liable to the occasional temptations
and defilements of pride, yet, taking pride to mean open
rebellion against God, warring against God's authority,
setting up reason against God, this he had not. He
“verily thought within himself that he ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Turn
to the case of Jews and Gentiles who remained uncon-
verted, and you will see the difference between them and
him. Think of the hypocritical Pharisees, who professed
to be saints, and were sinners; “full of extortion, excess,
and uncleanness (Matt. xxiii. 25, 27);” believing Jesus
to be the Christ, but not confessing Him, as “loving
the praise of men more than the praise of God.”
(John xii. 43.) St. Paul himself gives us an account
of them in the second chapter of his Epistle to the
Romans. Can it be made to apply to his own previous
state? Was the name of God blasphemed among the
S.T. P. A U. L. 71
Gentiles through him P-On the other hand, the Gentile
reasoners sought a vain wisdom. (I Cor. i. 22.) These
were they who despised religion and practical morality
as Common matters, unworthy the Occupation of a
refined and cultivated intellect. “Some mocked,
others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.”
(Acts xvii. 32.) They prided themselves on being
above vulgar prejudices, in being indifferent to the
traditions afloat in the world about another life, in
regarding all religions as equally true and equally false.
Such a hard, vain-glorious temper our Lord solemnly
condemns, when he says to the Church at Laodicea, “I
would thou wert cold or hot.”
The Pharisees, then, were breakers of the Law ; the
Gentile reasoners and statesmen were infidels. Both were
proud, both despised the voice of conscience. We see,
then, from this review, the kind of sin which God pities
and pardons. All sin, indeed, when repented of, He will
put away ; but pride hardens the heart against repentance
and sensuality debases it to a brutal nature. The Holy
Spirit is quenched by open transgressions of conscience
and contempt of His authority. But, when men err in
ignorance, following closely their own notions of right
and wrong, though these notions are mistaken, great as
is their sin, if they might have possessed themselves of
truer notions—(and very great as was St. Paul's sin,
72 HISTO RIC A. L S T U DI E.S.
because he certainly might have learned from the Old
Testament far clearer and diviner doctrine than the tradi-
tion of the Pharisees), yet such men are not left by the
God of all grace. God leads them on to the light, in
spite of their errors in faith, if they continue strictly to
obey what they believe to be His will. And, to declare
this comfortable truth to us, St. Paul was thus carried on
by the Providence of God, and brought into the light by
miracle, that we may learn, by a memorable instance of
His grace, what He ever does, though He does not in
ordinary cases thus declare it openly to the world,
AAWTO/VY AND Aſ/S TAEMAX TA TVOAVS.
HERMIT'S life—that is, a strictly monastic or
Solitary life—may be called unnatural, and is not
Sanctioned by the Gospel. Christ sent His Apostles by
two and two ; and Surely He knew what was in man
from the day that He said, “It is not good for him to be
alone.” So far, then, Antony's manner of life may be
said to have no claim upon our admiration ; but this
part of his pattern did not extend to his imitators, who
by their numbers were soon led to the formation of
monastic Societies, and who, after a while, entangled
even Antony himself in the tie of becoming in a certain
sense their religious head and teacher. Monachism
consisting, not in Solitariness, but in austerities, prayers,
retirement, and obedience, had nothing in it, so far, but
what was perfectly Christian, and, under circumstances,
exemplary; especially when viewed in its connection with
the relative duties, which were soon afterwards appro-
priated to it, of being almoner to the poor, educating the
74. HISTO RICAL S T U IDI E.S.
clergy, and defending the faith as delivered to us.
Monachism became, in a little time, nothing else than
a peculiar department of the Christian ministry—a mi-
mistry not of the Sacraments, or clerical, but especially of
the word and doctrine; not indeed by any formal ordi-
nation to it, for it was as yet a lay profession, but by
the common right, or rather duty, which attaches to all
of us to avow, propagate, and defend the truth, especially
when our devotion to it has the Countenance and en-
couragement of Church authorities.
St. Antony's life, written by his friend the great
Athanasius, has come down to us. Some critics, indeed,
doubt its genuineness, and consider it interpolated. I
conceive no question can be raised about its substantia/
accuracy; and on rising from the perusal of it, we are
able to pronounce Antony an extraordinary man. En-
thusiastic he certainly must be accounted; had he lived
in this day and in this Country, he would have been
exposed to a considerable (though of course not in-
superable) temptation to become a sectarian. Panting
after some higher rule of life than that which the or-
dinary forms of Society admit of, and finding our present
lines too rigidly drawn to include any style of mind that
is out-of-the-way, any rule that is not “gentlemanlike,”
“ comfortable,” and “established,” he might possibly
have broken what he could not bend. The question is
A N T O N Y. 75
not whether he would have been justified in so doing
(of course not); nor whether the most angelic temper of
all is not that which settles down content with what is
everyday (as Abraham's heavenly guests eat of the calf
which he had dressed, and as our Saviour went down to
Nazareth, and was subject to his parents); but whether
such resignation to worldly comforts is not quite as often
at least the characteristic of a grovelling mind also,
—whether there are not minds between the lowest and
the highest of ardent feelings, keen imaginations, and
undisciplined tempers, who are under a strong irritation
prompting them to run wild,—whether it is not our duty
(so to speak) to play with such, carefully letting out line
lest they snap it; and whether our established system is
as indulgent and as wise as is desirable in its treatment of
such persons, inasmuch as it provides no occupation for
them, does not understand how to turn them to account,
lets them run to waste, tempts them to schism, loses
them, and is weakened by the loss. For instance, had
we Some regular missionary seminary, such an institu-
tion would in one way supply the deficiency I speak of
As for Antony : did I see him before me, I might be
tempted to consider him somewhat of an enthusiast; but
what I desire to point out to the reader is the subdued
and Christian form which his enthusiasm took. It was
not vulgar, bustling, imbecile, unstable, undutiful ; it was
76 HISTO RICAL STU DIES.
calm and composed, manly, intrepid, magnanimous, full
of affectionate loyalty to the Church and to the Truth.
Antony was born A.D. 251, while Origen was still alive;
while Cyprian was Bishop of Carthage; Dionysius,
Bishop of Alexandria ; and Gregory Thaumaturgus, of
Neocaesarea : he lived till A.D. 335, to the age of IoS,
nine years after the birth of St. Chrysostom, and two
years after that of St. Augustine. He was an Egyptian
by birth, and the son of noble, opulent, and Christian
parents. He was brought up as a Christian, and from
his boyhood showed a strong disposition towards a
solitary life. Shrinking from the society of his equals,
and despising the external world in comparison of the
world within him, he set himself against what is con-
sidered a liberal education—that is, the acquisition of
foreign languages. At the same time he was very
dutiful to his parents, simple and self-denying in his
habits, and attentive to the sacred services and readings
of the Church.
Before he arrived at man's estate, he had lost both his
parents, and was left with a sister, who was a child, and
an ample inheritance. His mind at this time was
earnestly set upon imitating the Apostles and their con-
verts, who gave up their possessions and followed Christ.
One day, about six months after his parents' death, as he
went to church, as usual, the subject pressed seriously
A.N TO NY. 77
upon him. The gospel of the day happened to contain
the text, “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou
hast,” &c. Antony applied it to himself, and acted upon
it. He had three hundred acres, of especial fertility
even in Egypt; these he at once made over to the use
of the poor of his own neighbourhood. Next, he turned
into money all his personal property, and reserving a
portion for his sister's use, gave the rest to the poor.
After which he was struck by hearing in church the text—
“Take no thought for the morrow ;” and, considering he
had not yet fully satisfied the evangelical precept, he
gave away what he had reserved, placing his sister in the
care of some trustworthy female acquaintances, who had
devoted themselves to a single life.
He commenced his ascetic life, according to the
custom hitherto observed, by retiring to a place not far
from his own home. Here he remained for a while, to
steady and fix his mind in his new habits, and to gain
what advice he could towards the formation of them,
from such as had already engaged in them. This is a
remarkable trait, as Athanasius records it as showing
how little he was influenced by self-will or sectarian
spirit in what he was doing ; how ardently he pursued an
ascetic life as in itself good, and how willing he was to
become the servant of any who might give him directions
in his pursuit.
78 PII STO RIC A. L S T U D I E S.
After a while, our youth's enthusiasm began to take its
usual course. His spirits fell, his courage flagged; a
reaction followed, and the temptations of this world
assaulted him with a violence which showed that as yet
he scarcely understood the true meaning of his profes-
sion. Had he been nothing more than an enthusiast, he
would have gone back to the world. His abandoned
property, the guardianship of his sister, his family con-
nections, the Conveniences of wealth, worldly reputation,
disgust of the sameness and coarseness of his food, bodily
infirmity, the tediousness of his mode of living, and the
painfulness of idleness, became instruments of tempta-
tion. And other and fiercer assaults arose. However,
his faith rose above them all, or rather as Athanasius
says: “not himself, but the grace of God that was in
him.” -
Such a life Antony lived for about fifteen years. At the
end of this time, being now thirty-five, he betook himself
to the desert, having first spent some days in prayers and
holy exercises in the tombs. There, however, we are
necessarily introduced to another subject—his alleged
conflicts with the evil spirits.
It is quite certain that Antony believed himself to be
subjected to sensible and visible conflicts with evil spirits.
It is far from my desire to rescue him from the imputa-
tion of enthusiasm ; the very drift of my account of him
A N T O N Y. 79
being to show how enthusiasm is sobered and refined by
being submitted to the discipline of the Church, instead
of being allowed to run wild externally to it. If he
were not an enthusiast, or in danger of being such, we
should lose one chief instruction his life conveys. This
admission, however, does not settle the question to which
the narrative of his spiritual conflicts gives rise. The
following is the account of his visit to the tombs —
“Thus bracing himself after the pattern of Elias, he set
off to the tombs, which were some distance from his
village ; and, giving directions to an acquaintance to
bring him bread after some days' interval, he entered
into one of them, suffered himself to be shut in, and
remained there by himself. This the enemy not en-
during, yea rather dreading, lest before long he should
engross the desert also with his holy exercise, assaulted
him one night with a host of spirits, and so lashed him,
that he lay speechless on the ground from the torture,
which he declared was far more severe than from strokes
which man could inflict. But, by God’s providence,
who does not overlook those who hope in Him, on
the next day his acquaintance came with the bread,
and, on opening the door, saw him lying on the
ground, as if dead. Whereupon he carried him to
the village church, and laid him on the ground; and
many of his relations and the villagers took their places
8o H IS TO RICAL ST U D I F. S.
by the body, as if he were already dead. However,
about midnight his senses returned, and, Collecting him-
self, he observed that they were all asleep except his
aforesaid acquaintance; whereupon he beckoned him to
his side, and asked him, without waking any of them, to
Carry him back again to the tombs.
“The man took him back ; and when he was shut in,
as before, by himself, being unable to stand from his
wounds, he lay down and began to pray. Then he cried
out loudly, ‘Here am I, Antony; I do not shun your
blows. Though ye add to them, yet nothing shall
separate me from the love of Christ.’ And then he
began to sing, ‘Though a host should encamp against
me, yet shall not my heart be afraid.’ The devil has no
trouble in devising divers shapes of evil. During the
night, therefore, the Evil One made so great a tumult
that the whole place seemed to be shaken, and, as if they
broke down the four walls of the building, they seemed
to rush in, in the form of wild beasts and reptiles. . . . .
But Antony, though scourged and pierced, felt indeed
his bodily pain, but the rather kept vigil in his soul. So,
as he lay groaning in body, yet a watcher in his mind, he
spoke in taunt, “Had ye any power, one of you would
be enough to assail me ; you try, if possible, to frighten
me with your number, because the Lord has spoiled you
of your strength. Those pretended forms are the proof
A N T O N Y. SI
of your impotence. Our Seal and wall of defence is faith
in the Lord.' After many attempts, then, they gnashed
their teeth at him, because they were rather making
themselves a sport than him. But the Lord a second
time remembered the conflict of Antony, and came to his
help. Raising his eyes, he saw the roof as if opening,
and a beam of light descending towards him ; suddenly
the devils vanished, his pain ceased, and the building was
whole again. Upon this Antony said, ‘Where art thou,
Lord? Why didst thou not appear at the first, to ease
my pain P' A voice answered, ‘Antony, I was here, but
waited to see thy bearing of the contest. Since, then,
thou hast Sustained and not been worsted, I will be to
thee an aid for ever, and will make thy name famous in
every place.’”
After this preliminary vigil, Antony made for the desert,
where he spent the next twenty years in solitude. To
enter into the state of opinion and feeling which the ac-
Counts of his life there imply, it is necessary to observe, that
as regards the Church's warfare with the devil, the primitive
Christians considered themselves to be similarly circum-
stanced with the Apostles. They did not draw a line
between the condition of the Church in their day and in
the first age, but believed that what it had been, such it
was still in its trials and in its powers; that the open
assaults of Satan, and their own means of repelling them,
G
82 HISTO RIC A. L S T U IDIES.
were such as they are described in the Gospels. Exor-
cism was a sacred function in the primitive Church, and
the energumen took his place with catechumens and
penitents, as in the number of those who had the especial
prayers, and were allowed some of the privileges of the
Christian body. Our Saviour speaks of the power of
exorcising as depending on fasting and prayer, in Certain
special cases, and thus seems to countenance the notion
of a direct conflict between the Christian athlete and the
powers of evil, a conflict carried on by definite weapons,
for definite ends, and not that indirect warfare merely
which the religious conduct of life implies. “This kind
can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting.”
Surely none of Christ's words are chance words : He
spoke with a ſºur?ose, and the Holy Spirit guided the
Evangelists in their selection of them, with a purpose;
and if so, this text is a rule and an admonition, and was
acted upon as such by the primitive Christians, whether
from their received principles of interpretation, or the
traditional practice of the Church.
In like manner, whether from their mode of interpreting
Scripture or from the opinions and practices which came
down to them, they conceived the devil to have that
power over certain brute animals which Scripture some-
times assigns to him. He is known on one memorable
occasion to have taken the form of a serpent ; at another
A N T O N Y. 83
time, a legion of devils possessed a herd of swine. These
instances may, for what we know, be revealed specimens
of a whole side of the Divine dispensation, viz., the
interference of spiritual agencies, good or bad, with the
course of the world, under which, perhaps, the speaking
of Balaam’s ass falls; and the early Christians, whether
so understanding Scripture, or from their traditionary
system, acted as if they were so. They considered that
brute nature was widely subject to the power of spirits;
as, on the other hand, there had been a time when even
the Creator Spirit had condescended to manifest Himself
in the bodily form of a dove. Their notions concerning
local demoniacal influences in oracles and idols, in
which they were sanctioned by Scripture, confirmed this
belief. . . . . . When, then, we read of Antony's
sensible contests with the powers of evil, the abstract
possibility of these is to be decided by the existence,
in his day, of such parallel facts as demoniacal posses-
sions, which certainly are witnessed unanimously by
his contemporaries; and the really Superhuman Cha-
racter of what seemed like natural occurrences is to
be estimated, not by the mere circumstance that they
may be brought under natural laws, as demoniacal pos-
sessions also may be by the physician, but by the known
actual presence of unseen agents to which they may be
referred. Antony's conflict in the tombs may be solved
84 PII STO RIC A. L S T U DI E. S.
into a dream, or an attack from jackals ; yet this only
removes the real agent a step further back. Satan may
still have been the real agent at bottom, and have been
discerned by Antony through the shadow of things
sensible.
These things being considered, I judge of Antony's
life thus: there may be enthusiasm here ; there may
be, at times, exaggerations and misconceptions of what,
as they really happened, meant nothing. And still it may "
be true that that conflict begun by Our Lord, when He
was interrogated and assaulted by Satan, was continued
in the experience of Antony, who lived not so very long
after Him. How far the evil spirit acted, how far he was
present in natural objects, how far was dream, how far
fancy, is little to the purpose. I see, anyhow, the root
of a great truth here, and think that those are wiser who
admit something than those who deny all. I see Satan
frightened at the invasions of the Church upon his king-
dom; I see him retreating step by step ; I see him dis-
possessed by fasting and prayer, as was predicted; and
I see him doing his utmost in whatever way to resist.
Nor is there anything uncongenial to the Gospel system
that so direct a war should be waged upon him ; a war
without the ordinary duties of life and of society for its
subject-matter and instruments. Our Saviour Himself
was forty days in the wilderness, and St. Paul in prison,
A N T O N Y. 85
St. Peter at Joppa, and St. John at Patmos, show that
social duties may be providentially suspended under the
Gospel, and a direct intercourse with the next world be
imposed upon the Christian. And if so much be allowed,
certainly there is nothing in Antony's life to make us
suspicious of him personally. His doctrine was pure
and unimpeachable; and his temper is high and heavenly
—without cowardice, without gloom, without formality,
and without self complacency. Superstition is abject
and crouching, it is full of thoughts of guilt ; it distrusts
God, and dreads the powers of evil. Antony at least has
nothing of this, being full of holy confidence, divine
peace, cheerfulness and valorousness, be he (as some
men may judge) ever so much an enthusiast.
A R/(WS.
RIUS first published his heresy about the year 319.
It is said that on the death of Achillas, he had
aspired to the primacy of the Egyptian Church ; and,
according to Philostorgios, the historian of his party, a
writer of little credit, he had generously resigned his
claims in favour of Alexander, who was elected. His
ambitious character renders it not improbable that he
was a candidate for the vacant dignity; but the difference
of age between himself and Alexander, which must have
been considerable, at once accounts for the elevation
of the latter, and it is an evidence of the indecency
of Arius in becoming a competitor at all. His first
attack on the Catholic doctrine was conducted with
an openness which, considering the general duplicity of
his party, is the most honourable trait in his character.
In a public meeting of the clergy of Alexandria, he
accused his diocesan of Sabellianism ; an insult which
Alexander, from deference to the talents and learning
A R I U. S. 87
of the objector, sustained with somewhat too little of the
dignity befitting the “Ruler of the People.” The mis-
chief which ensued from his misplaced weakness, was
considerable. Arius was one of the public preachers of
Alexandria ; and, as Some Suppose, Master of the Cate-
chetical School. Others of the city Presbyters were
stimulated by his example to similar irregularities. Col-
luthus, Carpomas, and Sarmatas, began to form each his
own party, in a church which Meletius had already
troubled; and Colluthus went so far as to promulgate
an heretical doctrine and to found a sect. Still hoping to
settle these disorders without the exercise of his episcopal
power, Alexander Summoned a meeting of his clergy, in
which Arius was allowed to state his doctrines freely,
and to argue in their defence; and, whether from a desire
not to overbear the discussion, or from distrust in his
own power of accurately expressing the truth, and anxiety
about the charge of heresy brought against himself, the
primate, though in nowise a man of feeble mind, is said
to have refrained from committing himself on the Contro-
verted subject, “applauding,” as Sozomen says, “Some-
times one party and sometimes the other.” At length the
error of Arius appeared to be of that serious and Con-
firmed nature, that countenance of it became sinful. The
heresy began to spread beyond the Alexandrian Church ;
the indecision of Alexander excited the murmurs of the
88 HISTO RIC A. L S T U DIE S.
Catholics; till, at last, called unwillingly to the discharge
of a severe duty, he gave public evidence of his real
indignation against the blasphemies which he had so long
endured, and excommunicated Arius with his followers.
This proceeding, obligatory as it was on a Christian
bishop, and ratified by the concurrence of a provincial
council, and expedient even for the immediate interests
of Christianity, had other churches been equally honest
in their allegiance to the true faith, had the effect of
increasing the influence of Arius, by throwing him upon
his fellow Lucianists of the rival dioceses of the East, and
giving notoriety to his name and tenets. In Egypt, indeed,
he had already been supported by the Meletian faction ;
which, in spite of its profession of orthodoxy, continued
in alliance with him, through jealousy to the Church,
even after he had fallen into heresy. But the coun-
tenance of these schismatics was of small consideration,
compared with the powerful aid frankly tendered him,
on his excommunication, by the leading men in the great
Catholic communities of Asia Minor and the East.
Palestine was the first to afford him a retreat from
Alexandrian Orthodoxy, where he received a cordial
reception from the learned Eusebius, Metropolitan of
Caesarea, Athanasius of Anazarbus, and others; who, in
letters in his behalf, did not hesitate to declare their con-
currence with him in the full extent of his heresy. Euse-
A R I U. S. 89
bius even declared that Christ was not very God (3)\móivos
6eós); and his associate Athanasius asserted, that He
was in the number of the hundred sheep of the parable,
i.e., the creatures of God.
Yet, in spite of the countenance of these and other
eminent men, Arius found it difficult to maintain his
ground against the general indignation which his heresy
excited. He was resolutely opposed by Philogonius,
patriarch of Antioch, and Macarius of Jerusalem ; who
promptly answered the call made upon them by Alex-
ander, in his circulars addressed to the Syrian Churches.
In the meanwhile Eusebius of Nicomedia, the early
friend of Arius, and the ecclesiastical adviser of Con-
stantia, the Emperor's sister, declared in his favour; and
offered him a refuge, which he readily accepted, from the
growing unpopularity which attended him in Palestine.
Supported by the patronage of so powerful a prelate,
Arius was now scarcely to be considered in the position
of a schismatic or an outcast. He assumed in conse-
quence a more calm and respectful demeanour towards
Alexander; imitated the courteous language of his friend ;
and addressed his diocesan with an affectation of hu-
mility, and deferred or appealed to previous statements
made by Alexander himself on the doctrine in dispute.
At this time also he seems to have Corrected and com-
pleted his system. George, afterwards Bishop of Laodicea,
90 HIIST O RICAL ST U DIE S.
taught him an evasion for the Orthodox test ékóeod, by
a reference to I Cor. xi. I2. Asterius, a sophist of Cap-
padocia, Supported the Secondary sense of the word Zogos
as applied to Christ by a reference to such passages as
Joel ii. 25 ; and, in Order to explain away the force of
the pºévoyevms, maintained, that to Christ alone out of
all creatures it had been given to be fashioned under the
immediate presence and perilous weight of the Divine
hand. Now, too, as it appears, the title of &Amóivos 6eós
was ascribed to him ; the ÖAAovotöv was withdrawn; and
an admission of His actual indefectibility substituted for
it. The heresy being thus placed on a less exceptionable
basis, the influence of Eusebius was exerted in Councils
both in Bithynia and Palestine; in which Arius was
acknowledged, and more urgent Solicitations addressed
to Alexander, in order to effect his readmission into the
Church.
This was the history of the controversy for the first
four or five years of its existence; i. e., till the era of
the Battle of Hadrianople (A.D. 323), by the issue of
which Constantine, becoming master of the Roman
world, was at liberty to turn his thoughts to the state
of Christianity in the eastern province of the Empire.
From this date it is connected with civil history; a con-
sequence natural, and indeed necessary, under the exist-
ing circumstances, though it was the occasion of subject-
A R I U.S. 9I
ing Christianity to fresh persecutions, in place of those
which its nominal triumph had terminated. When a
heresy, condemned to excommunication by One Church,
was taken up by another, and independent Christian
bodies then stood in open opposition, nothing was left
to those who desired peace, to say nothing of orthodoxy,
but to bring the question under the notice of a General
Council. But as a previous step, the leave of the civil
power was plainly necessary for so public a display of
that wide-spreading association, of which the faith of the
Gospel was the uniting and animating principle. Thus
the Church could not meet together in one, without
entering into a sort of negotiation with the powers that
be ; whose jealousy it is the duty of Christians, both as
individuals and as a body, if possible, to dispel. On the
other hand, the Roman Emperor, as a professed disciple
of the truth, was, of course, bound to protect its interests,
and to afford every facility for its establishment in purity
and efficacy. It was under these circumstances that the
Nicene Council was convoked.
COAWSTA W7//VE.
IT is an ungrateful task to discuss the private opinions
- and motives of an Emperor who was the first to
profess himself the Protector of the Church, and to
relieve it from the abject and suffering condition in which
it had lain for three centuries. Constantine is our bene-
factor; inasmuch as we, who now live, may be considered
to have received the gift of Christianity by means of the
increased influence which he gave to the Church. And,
were it not that in conferring his benefaction, he
burdened it with the bequest of an heresy, which out-
lived his age by many centuries, and still exists in its
effects in the divisions of the East, nothing would here
be said, from mere grateful recollection of him, by way of
analysing the state of mind in which he viewed the
benefit which he has conveyed to us. But his conduct
as it discovers itself in the Subsequent history, natural
as it was in his case, yet has somewhat of a warning in it,
which must not be neglected in after times.
C O N S T A NT IN E. 93
It is of course impossible accurately to describe the
various feelings with which one in Constantine's peculiar
position was likely to regard Christianity; yet the joint
effect of them all may be gathered from his actual con-
duct, and the state of the civilized world at the time.
He found his empire distracted with civil and religious
dissensions, which tended to the dissolution of Society;
at a time, too, when the barbarians without were pressing
upon it with a vigour, formidable in itself, but far more
menacing in consequence of the decay of the ancient
spirit of Rome. He perceived the power of its old
polytheism, from whatever cause, exhausted, and a newly
risen philosophy vainly endeavouring to resuscitate a
mythology which had done its work, and now, like all
things of earth, was fast returning to the dust from which
it was taken. He heard the same philosophy inculcating
the principles of that more exalted and refined religion
which a civilized age will always require; , and he
witnessed the same substantial teaching, as he would con-
sider it, embodied in the precepts, and enforced by the
energetic discipline, the union, and the example of the
Christian Church. Here his thoughts would rest, as in a
natural solution of the investigation to which the state
of his empire gave rise ; and, without knowing enough
of the internal characters of Christianity to care to
instruct himself in them, he would discern, on the face of
94 HISTORICAL ST U DIE S.
it, a doctrine more real than that of philosophy, and a
rule of life more self-denying than that of the Republic.
The Gospel seemed to be the fit instrument of a civil
reformation, being but a new form of the old wisdom
which had existed in the world at large from the begin-
ning. Revering, nay, in One sense, honestly submitting
to its faith, yet he acknowledged it rather as a system
than joined it as an institution ; and, by refraining from
the sacrament of baptism till his last illness, he acted in
the spirit of men of the world in every age, who dislike
to pledge themselves to engagements which they still
intend to fulfil, and to descend from the position of
judges to that of disciples of the truth.
Peace is so eminently a perfection of the Christian
temper, Conduct, and discipline, and it had been so
wonderfully exemplified in the previous history of the
Church, that it was almost unavoidable in a heathen
soldier and statesman to regard it as the sole precept of
the Gospel. It required a far more refined moral per-
ception to detect and to approve the principle on which
this peace is founded in Scripture; to submit to the dic-
tation of truth, as such, as a primary authority in matters
of political and private conduct; to understand how belief
in a certain creed was a condition of divine favour; how
the social union was intended to result from a unity of
opinions; the love of man to spring from the love of God;
CON STA N T IN E. 95
and zeal to be prior in the Succession of Christian graces
to benevolence. It had been predicted by Him who
came to offer peace to the world, that, in matter of fact,
that gift would be changed into the sword of discord ;
mankind being alienated from the doctrine, more than
they were won over by the amiableness, of Christianity.
But He alone was able thus to discern through what a
succession of difficulties divine truth advances to its final
victory; shallow minds anticipate the end apart from the
course which leads to it. Especially they who receive
scarcely more of His teaching than the instinct of civili-
zation recognizes (and Constantine must, on the whole,
be classed among such), view the religious dissensions of
the Church as simply evil, and (as they would fain
prove) contrary to His own precepts; whereas, in fact,
they are but the history of truth in its first stage of trial,
when it aims at being “pure” before it is “peaceable ;”
and are reprehensible so far, as baser passions mix them-
selves with that true loyalty towards God which desires
His own glory in the first place, and only in the second
place the tranquillity and good order of Society.
AA S/Z. A /V/D GRAEGORY.
T often happens that men of very dissimilar talents and
tastes are attracted together by their very dissimili-
tude. They live in intimacy for a time, perhaps a long
time, till their circumstances alter, or some sudden event
comes to try them. Then the peculiarities of their
respective minds are brought out into action ; and
quarrels ensue, which end in Coolness or separation.
Such are the two main characters which are found in the
Church—high energy and sweetness of temper; far from
incompatible of course, united in Apostles, though in
different relative proportions, yet only partially combined
in ordinary Christians, and often altogether parted from
each other.
This contrast of character, leading first to intimacy,
then to difference, is interestingly displayed, though
painfully, in one passage of the history of Basil and
Gregory. Gregory the affectionate, the tender-hearted,
the man of quick feelings, the accomplished, the eloquent
preacher—and Basil, the man of firm resolve and hard
BASIL AND G R E G O R.Y. 97
deeds, the high-minded ruler of Christ's flock, the diligent
labourer in the field of ecclesiastical politics. Thus they
differed ; yet not as if they had not much in common
still ; both had the blessing and discomfort of a sensitive
Imind; both were devoted to an ascetic life; both were
men of classical tastes; but both were special champions
of the orthodox Creed ; both were skilled in argument,
and successful in their use of it; both were in highest
place in the Church, the one Exarch of Caesarea, the
other Patriarch of Constantinople.
Basil and Gregory were both natives of Cappadocia;
but here, again, under different circumstances. Basil was
born of a good family, and with Christian ancestors ;
Gregory was the son of a Bishop of Nazianzus, who had
been brought up an idolater, or rather an Hypsistarian, a
mongrel sort of religionist, part Jew, part Pagan. He
was brought over to Christianity by the efforts of his wife
Nonna, and at Nazianzus admitted by baptism into the
Church. In process of time he was made bishop of that
city; but, not having very clear doctrinal views, he was
betrayed in 360 into signing the Arian Creed, which
caused him much trouble, and from which at length his
son rescued him. Caesarea being at no insurmountable
distance from Nazianzus, the two friends had known each
other in their own Country; but their intimacy began at
Athens, whither they separately repaired for the purposes
98 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U DIES.
of education. This was about A.D. 351, when each of
them was twenty-two years of age. Gregory came to the
seat of learning shortly before Basil, and thus was able to
be his host and guide on his arrival; but fame had
reported Basil's merits before he came, and he seems to
have made his way, in a place of all others most difficult
to a stranger, with a facility peculiar to himself. He soon
found himself admired and respected by his fellow-
students; but Gregory was his only friend, and shared
with him the reputation for talent and attainments. They
remained at Athens four or five years; and, at the end of
the time, made the acquaintance of Julian, since of evil
name in history as the Apostate.
The friends had been educated for rhetoricians, and
their oratorical powers were such, that they seemed to
have every prize in prospect which a secular ambition
could desire. Their names were known far and wide,
their attainments acknowledged by enemies, and they
themselves personally popular in their circle of acquaint-
ance. It was under these circumstances that they took
the extraordinary resolution of quitting the world together;
extraordinary the world Calls it, utterly perplexed to find
that any Conceivable objects can, by any sane person, be
accounted better than its own gifts and favours. They
resolved to seek baptism of the Church, and to consecrate
their gifts to the service of the Giver. With characters of
;
*
e
:
:
.
:
:
:
BA SI L A N ID G. R. E. G. O. R.Y. 99
mind very different—the one grave, the other lively; the
one desponding, the other sanguine; the one with deep
feelings, the other with acute and warm, they agreed
together in holding that the things that are seen are not
to be compared to the things that are not seen. They
quitted the world, while it entreated them to stay. What
passed when they were about to leave Athens, represents
as in a figure the parting which they and the world took
of each other. When the day of valediction arrived, their
companions and equals, nay, some of their tutors came
about them, and resisted their departure by entreaties,
arguments, and even by violence. This occasion showed,
also, their respective dispositions; for the firm Basil
persevered and went ; the tender-hearted Gregory was
softened, and stayed a while longer. Basil, indeed, in
º, spite of the reputation which attended him, had, from the
first, felt disappointment with the celebrated abode of
philosophy and literature, and seems to have given up
the world from a conviction of its emptiness. . . . . Yet
Gregory had inducements of his own to leave the world,
not to insist on his love of Basil's Company. His mother
had devoted him to God both before and after his birth ;
and when he was a child he had a remarkable dream
which made a great impression upon him. . . . . The
impression, indeed, was as “a spark of heavenly fire,” or
“a taste of divine milk and homey.”
IOO HISTO RICAL ST U DIE S.
As far then as these descriptions go, One might Say
that Gregory's abandonment of the world arose from an
early passion, as it might be called, for a purity higher
than his own nature; and Basil's from a profound sense
of the world’s nothingness and the world's defilements.
Both seem to have viewed it as a sort of penitential
exercise, as well as a means towards perfection.
When they had once resolved to devote themselves to
the service of religion, the question arose, how they
might best improve and employ the talents committed to
them. Somehow, the idea of marrying and taking orders,
Or taking Orders and marrying, building or improving
their parsonage, and showing forth the charities and the
humanities and the gentilities of a family man, did not
suggest itself to their minds. They fancied that they
must give up wife, children, property, if they could be
perfect; and, this being taken for granted, that their
choice did but lie between two modes of life, both of
which they regarded as extreme. Here, then, for a time,
they were in some perplexity. Gregory speaks of two
ascetic disciplines, that of the solitary and that of the
secular; one of which, he says, profits a man's self, the
other his neighbour. Midway, however, between these
lay the cenobite, or what we commonly call the mo-
nastic ; removed from the world yet acting in a certain
circle. And this was the rule which the friends at length
BASIL AND G R E G O R.Y. IOI
determined to adopt, withdrawing from mixed society in
order to be of greater service to it.
Not many years passed after their leaving Athens,
when Basil put his resolution into practice; and, having
fixed upon Pontus for his retirement, wrote to Gregory to
remind him of his promise. Gregory hesitated. Then
he wrote to expostulate with him. Gregory's answer
was as follows:– -
“I have not stood to my word, I own it; having
protested, ever since Athens and our friendship and
union of heart there, that I would be your companion,
and follow a strict life with you. Yet I act against my
wish, duty annulled by duty, the duty of friendship by
the duty of filial reverence. . . . . However, I still shall
be able to perform my promise in a measure, if you will
accept thus much. I will come to you for a time, if, in
turn, you will give me your company here; thus we shall
be quits in friendly service, while we have all things
Common. And thus I shall avoid distressing my parents,
without losing you.”
When we bear in mind what has been already men-
tioned about Gregory's father, we may well believe that
there really were very urgent reasons against the son
leaving him, when it came to the point, over and above
the ties which would keep him with a father and mother,
both advanced in years. Basil, however, was disappointed ;
IO2 HISTO RICAL S T U DIES.
and instead of retiring to Pontus, devoted a year to
visiting the monastic institutions of Syria and Egypt.
On his return, his thoughts again settled on his friend
Gregory; and he attempted to overcome the obstacle in
the way of their old project, by placing himself in a
district called Tiberius, near Gregory's own home.
Finding, however, the spot cold and damp, he gave up
the idea of it. On one occasion, while he was yet living
in Caesarea, where for a time he had taught rhetoric,
Gregory wrote to him a familiar letter, as from a country-
man to an inhabitant of a town.
Meanwhile Basil had chosen for his retreat a spot
near Neocaesarea, in Pontus, close by the village where
lay his father's property, where he had been brought up
in childhood by his grandmother, Macrina, and whither
his mother and sister had retired for a monastic life after
his father's death. The river Iris ran between the two
places. Within a mile of their monastery was the Church
of the Forty Martyrs, where father, mother, and sister
were successively buried. On settling there, he again
wrote to Gregory, urging him to come.
Gregory answered this letter by one which is still
extant, in which he satirizes, point by point, the picture
of the Pontine solitude which Basil had drawn to allure
him ; perhaps from distaste for it, perhaps in the temper
of one who studiously disparages what, if he had admitted
BA SI L A N D G R E G O R Y. IO3
the thought, might prove too great a temptation for him.
He ends thus: “This is longer, perhaps, than a letter, but
shorter than a comedy. For yourself it will be good of
you to take this castigation well; but if you do not, I will
give you some more of it.” Basil did take the castigation
well; but this did not save him from the infliction of the
concluding threat; for Gregory, after paying him a visit,
continued in the same bantering strain in a later epistle.
* º: * * * &
The next kindly intercourse between Basil and Gregory
took place on occasion of the difference between Basil
and his bishop, Eusebius, when Gregory interfered
successfully to reconcile them. And the next arose out
of circumstances which followed the death of Gregory's
brother, Caesarius. On his death-bed he had left all his
goods to the poor ; a bequest which was interfered with,
first by servants and others about him, who carried off
at once all the valuables on which they could lay hands;
and after Gregory had come into possession of the
residue, by the fraud of certain pretended creditors, who
appealed to the law on his refusing to satisfy them.
Basil, on this occasion, gained him the interest of the
Prefect of Constantinople, and another, whose influence
was great at Court.
We now come to the election of Basil to the Exarchate
of Cappadocia, which was owing in no small degree to the
IO4. HISTO RIC A. L S T U D ITES.
• *-m.
exertions of Gregory and his father in his favour. The
event, which was attended with considerable hazard of
defeat from the strength of the civil party, and an
episcopal faction opposed to Basil, doubtless was at the
inoment a cause of increased affection between the
friends, though it was soon the occasion of the differ-
ence and coolness which I have already spoken of
Gregory, as I have said, was of an amiable temper,
fond of retirement and literary pursuits, and culti-
vating Christianity in its domestic and friendly aspect,
rather than amid the toils of ecclesiastical warfare. I
have also said enough to show that I have no thoughts
whatever of accusing him of any approach to self-indul-
gence ; and his subsequent Conduct at Constantinople
made it clear how well he could undergo and fight up
against persecution in the quarrel of the Gospel. But
Such scenes of Commotion were real sufferings to him,
even independently of the personal danger of them ; he
was unequal to the task of ruling, and Basil in vain
endeavoured to engage him as his coadjutor and comrade
in the government of his Exarchate.
At length Gregory came to Caesarea, where Basil
showed him all marks of affection and respect; and when
Gregory declined any public attentions, from a fear of the
jealousy it might Occasion, his friend let him do as he
would, regardless, as Gregory observes, of the charge
BA S II, A N D G R E G O R Y. IG5
which might fall on himself, of neglecting Gregory, from
those who were ignorant of the circumstances. However,
Basil could not detain him long in the metropolitan city.
About two years after Basil's elevation, a dispute arose
between him and Anthimus, Bishop of Tyana. Cappa-
docia had been divided by the civil power into two parts;
and Anthimus contended that an ecclesiastical division
must necessarily follow the civil, and that, in Consequence,
he himself, as holding the chief see in the second Cappa-
docia, was the rightful metropolitan of the province. The
justice of the case was with Basil, but he was opposed by
the party of bishops who were secretly Arianizers, and
had already opposed themselves to his election. Accord-
ingly, having might on his side, Anthimus began to
alienate the monks from Basil, to appropriate the revenues
of the Church of Caesarea, which lay in his province, and
to expel or gain over the presbyters, giving, as an excuse,
that respect and offerings Ought not to be paid to
heterodox persons.
Gregory at once offered his assistance to his friend,
hinting to him, at the same time, that some of those
about him had some share of blame in the dispute.
It happened unfortunately for their intimacy that they
were respectively connected with distinct parties in the
Church. Basil knew and valued and gained over many
Ioff HISTORICAL STU D.I.E.S.
of the semi-Arians, who dissented from the orthodox
doctrine more from over subtlety or want of clearness of
mind, than from unbelief. Gregory was in habits of
intimacy with the religious brethren of Nazianzus, his
father's see, and these were eager for Orthodoxy almost
as a badge of party. Basil, in one of his letters, had
reflected on these monks; and, on this occasion, Gregory
warned him against Eustathius and his friends, whose
Orthodoxy was suspicious, and who, being ill-disposed
towards Anthimus, were likely to increase the difference
between the latter and Basil.
Gregory's offer of assistance to Basil was frankly made,
and seems to have been as frankly accepted, “I will
come if you wish me,” he had said, “if so be, to advise
with you, if the Sea wants water, or you a Counsellor;
at all events, to gain benefit, and to act the philosopher
by bearing ill-usage in your Company.” Accordingly
they set out together for Mount Taurus, in the second
Cappadocia, where there was an estate or Church dedi-
cated to St. Orestes, the property of the see of Caesarea.
On their return with the produce of the farm, they were
encountered by the retainers of Anthimus, who blocked
up the pass, and attacked their company. This warfare
between Christian bishops was obviously a great scandal
to the Church, and Basil adopted a measure which he
considered would put an end to it. He increased the
B.A. S I L A N D G R E G O R. Y. Io'ſ
number of bishopricks in that district, considering that
residents might be able to secure the produce of the
estate without disturbance, and to quiet and gain over
the minds of those who had encouraged Anthimus in his
opposition. Sasima was a village in this neighbourhood,
and here he determined to place his friend Gregory,
doubtless considering that he could not show him a
greater mark of confidence than to commit to him the
management of the quarrel, or confer on him a post, to
his own high Spirit more desirable, than the place of risk
and responsibility.
Gregory had been unwilling even to be made a priest,
but he shrunk with fear from the office of a bishop. He
had on his mind that overpowering sense of the awfulness
of the ministerial commission which then prevailed in more
serious minds. “I feel myself to be unequal to this
warfare,” he had said on his ordination, “and therefore
have hid my face, and slunk away. And I Ought to sit
down in solitude, being filled with bitterness, and to
keep silence, from a conviction that the days were evil,
since God’s beloved have kicked against the truth, and
we have become revolting children. And besides this,
there is the internal warfare with one's passions, which
my body of humiliation wages with me night and day,
part hidden, part open—and the tossing to and fro
and whirling through the Senses and the delights of life;
108 H IS TO RIC A. L S T U D IF. S.
---------
and the deep mire in which I stick fast; and the law of
sin warring against the law of the Spirit, and striving tO
efface the royal image in us, and whatever of a divine
effluence has been vested in us. Before one has subdued
with all one's might the principle which drags One down,
and has cleansed the mind duly, and has surpassed others
much in approach to God, I consider it unsafe either to
undertake cure of souls, or mediatorship between God and
man, for some such thing is a priest.” With these admirable
feelings the weakness of man mingled itself: at the urgent
command of his father he submitted to be consecrated ;
but the reluctance which he had felt to undertake the
office was now transferred to his occupying the see to
which he had been appointed. An ascetic, like Gregory,
ought not to have complained of the Country as deficient
in beauty and interest, even though he might be allowed
to feel the responsibility of a situation which made him
a neighbour of Anthimus. Yet such was his infirmity ;
and he repelled the accusations of his mind against
himself by charging Basil with unkindness in placing him
at Sasima. On the other hand, it is possible that Basil,
in his eagerness for the settlement of the Exarchate,
too little consulted the character and taste of Gregory;
and, above all, the feelings of duty which bound him to
Nazianzus. This is the latter's account of the matter, in
a letter which displays much heat and even resentment
BA SI L A N D G R E G O RY. IO9
against Basil:—“Give me,” he says, “peace and quiet
above all things. Why should I be fighting for sucklings
and birds which are not mine, as if in a matter of souls
and church rules P. Well, play the man, be strong, turn
everything to your Own glory, as rivers suck up the
mountain rill, thinking little of friendship or intimacy,
Compared with high aims and piety, and disregarding
what the world will think of you for all this, being the
property of the Spirit alone ; while, on my part, so much
shall I gain from this your friendship, not to trust in
friends, nor to put anything above God.”
In the beginning of the same letter, he throws the
blame upon Basil's episcopal throne, which suddenly
made him higher than himself. Elsewhere he accuses
him of ambition, and desire of aggrandising himself.
Basil, on the other hand, seems to have accused him of
indolence and want of spirit.
Such was the melancholy Crisis of an estrangement
which had been for some time in preparation. Hence.
forth no letters, which are preserved, passed between the
two friends; nor are any acts of intercourse discoverable
in their history. Anthimus appointed a rival bishop to
Sasima ; and Gregory, refusing to contest the see with
him, returned to Nazianzus. Basil laboured by himself.
Gregory retained his feeling of Basil's unkindness even
after his death ; though he revered and admired him not
I IO H IS TO RICAL ST U DIES.
2- - - *-ºss-
less, or even more than before, and attributed his con-
duct to a sense of duty. In his commemorative oration,
after praising his erection of new sees, he says: “Into
this measure I myself was brought in by the way. I do
not seem bound to use a soft phrase. For admiring as
I do all he did, more than I can say, this one thing I
cannot praise, for I will confess my feeling, which is
otherwise not unknown to the world, his extraordinary
and unfriendly conduct towards me, of which time has
not removed the pain. For to this I trace all the irregu-
larity and confusion of my life, and my not being able,
or not seeming, to Command my feelings, though the
latter of the two is a small matter ; unless, indeed, I may
be suffered to make this excuse for him, that, having
views beyond this earth, and having departed hence
before life was over, he viewed everything as the Spirit's ;
and knowing how to reverence friendship, then only
slighted it, when it was a duty to prefer God, and to
make more account of the things hoped for, than things
perishable.”
This lamentable occurrence took place eight or nine
years before Basil's death; he had before and after it
many trials, many Sorrows; but this probably was the
greatest of all.
MAA 7TVA’ DO//.
HE word martyr properly means “a witness,” but is
used to denote exclusively one who has suffered death
for the Christian faith. Those who have witnessed for
Christ without suffering death are called confessors; a
title which the early martyrs often made their own, before
their last solemn confession unto death, or martyrdom.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the chief and most glorious of
martyrs, as having before Pontius Pilate witnessed a
good confession; but we do not call Him a martyr, as
being much more than a martyr. True it is He died for
the truth, but that was not the chief purpose of His death.
He died to save us sinners from the wrath of God. He
was not only a martyr, He was an atoning sacrifice.
He is the Supreme object of our love, gratitude, and
reverence. Next to Him, we honour the noble army of
martyrs; not, indeed, comparing them with Him, “who
is above all, God blessed for ever;” or as if they in
suffering had any part in the work of reconciliation ; but
II? H IS TO RIC A. L S T U IDI E. S.
because they have approached most closely to His pat-
tern of all His servants. They have shed their blood for
the Church, fulfilling the text: “He laid down His life
for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren.” They have followed His steps, and claim
our grateful remembrance. Had St. Stephen shrunk
from the trial put upon him, and recanted to save his
life, no one can estimate the Consequences of such a
defection. Perhaps (humanly speaking) the cause of
the Gospel would have been lost; the Church might have
perished ; and, though Christ had died for the world, the
world might not have received the knowledge or the
benefits of His death. The channels of grace might
have been destroyed, the sacraments withdrawn from the
feeble and corrupt race which has such need of them.
Now, it may be said that many men suffer pain, as great
as martyrdom, from disease and in other ways: again, that
it does not follow that those who happened to be martyred
were always the most useful and active defenders of the
faith; and therefore, that in honouring the martyrs we are
honouring with especial honour those to whom indeed
we may be peculiarly indebted (as in the case of the
apostles), but nevertheless who may have been but ordi-
nary men, who happened to stand in the most exposed
place, in the way of persecution, and were slain as if by
chance, because the Sword met them first. But this, it is
M A R T Y. R D O M. II.3
feared, would be a strange way of reasoning in any
parallel case. We are grateful to those who have done
us favours, rather than to those who might or would, if it
had so happened. We have no concern with the ques-
tion whether the martyrs were the best of men or not, or
whether others would have been martyrs too, had it been
allowed them. We are grateful to those who were such,
from the plain matter of fact that they were such, that
they did go through much suffering in order that the
world might gain an inestimable benefit, the light of the
Gospel.
But in truth, if we could view the matter considerately,
we shall find that (as far as human judgment can decide
on such a point) the martyrs of the primitive times were,
as such, men of a very elevated faith, not only our bene-
factors, but far our superiors. Let us consider what it was
then to be a martyr.
First, it was to be a voluntary sufferer. Men, perhaps,
suffer in various diseases more than the martyrs did, but
they cannot help themselves. Again, it has frequently
happened that men have been persecuted for their
religion without having expected it, or being able to avert
it. These in one sense indeed are martyrs, and we
naturally think affectionately of those who have suffered
in our cause, whether voluntarily or not. But this was
not the case with the primitive martyrs. They knew
I
II4 H IST OR I. CAL STU DIES.
beforehand clearly enough the Consequences of preaching
the Gospel; they had frequent warnings brought home
to them of the sufferings in store for them if they per-
severed in their labours of brotherly love. Their Lord
and Master had suffered before them ; and besides
suffering Himself, had expressly foretold their sufferings.
“If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute
you.” They were repeatedly warned and strictly charged
by the chief priests and rulers not to preach Christ's
name. They had experience of lesser punishments from
their adversaries in earnest of the greater ; and at length
hey saw their brethren one by one slain for persevering
in their faithfulness to Christ. Yet they continued to
keep the faith, though they might be victims of their
obedience any day.
All this must be considered when we speak of their
sufferings. They lived under a continual trial, a daily
exercise of faith, which we, living in peaceable times, can
scarcely understand. Christ had said to His apostles,
“Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as
wheat.” Consider what is meant by siſting, which is a
continued agitation, a shaking about to separate the mass
of corn into two parts. Such was the early discipline
inflicted on the Church. No mere sudden stroke came
upon it ; but it was solicited day by day, in all its mem-
bers, by every argument of hope and fear, by threats and
M A RTY R D O M. II5
inducements, to desert Christ. This was the lot of the
martyrs. Death, their final Suffering, was but a confirma-
tion of a life of anticipated death. Consider how dis.
tressing anxiety is—how irritating and wearying it is to
be in a state of constant excitement, with the duty of
maintaining calmness and steadiness in the midst of it,
and how especially inviting any prospect of tranquillity
would appear in such circumstances, and then we shall
have some notion of a Christian's condition under a
persecuting heathen government. I put aside for the
present the peculiar reproach and contempt which was
the lot of the primitive Church, and their actual priva-
tions. Let us merely consider them as harassed, shaken
as wheat in a sieve. Under Such circumstances, the
stoutest hearts are in danger of failing. They could steel
themselves against certain definite Sufferings, or prepare
themselves to meet one expected Crisis; but they yield
to the incessant annoyance which the apprehension of
persecution and importunity of friends inflict on them.
They sigh for peace; they gradually come to believe that
the world is not so wrong as Some men Say it is, and that
it is possible to be over strict and over nice. They learn
to temporise and be double-minded. First one falls, and
then another; and such instances come as an additional
argument for concession to those that remain firm as yet,
who of course feel dispirited, lonely, and begin to doubt
I IG JH IS TO RICA L S T U D H E S.
the correctness of their own judgment; while on the
other hand, those who have fallen, in self-defence become
their tempters. Thus the Church is sifted, the cowardly
falling off, the faithful continuing firm, though in dejec-
tion and perplexity. Among these latter are the martyrs;
not accidental victims taken at random, but the picked
and choice ones, the elect remnant, a sacrifice well
pleasing to God, because a costly gift, the finest wheat-
flour of the Church ; men who have been warned what to
expect from their profession, and have had many oppor-
tunities of relinquishing it, but have “borne and had
patience, and for Christ's name sake have laboured and
have not fainted.” Such was St. Stephen, not entrapped
into a confession and slain (as it were) in ambuscade, but
boldly confronting his persecutors, and, in spite of cir-
cumstances that foreboded death, awaiting their fury.
And if martyrdom in early times was not the chance and
unexpected death of those who happened to profess the
Christian faith, much less is it to be compared to the
sufferings of disease, be they greater or not. No one is
maintaining that the mere undergoing pain is a great
thing. A man Cannot help himself when in pain; he
cannot escape from it, be he as desirous to do so as he
may. The devils bear pain against their will. But to be
a martyr is to feel the storm coming, and willingly to
endure it at the call of duty, for Christ's sake and for the
M A R T Y. R D O M. I 17
good of the brethren ; and this is a kind of firmness
which we have no means of displaying at the present day,
though our deficiency may be, and is continually evidenced,
as often as we yield (which is not seldom) to inferior and
ordinary temptations.
But, in the next place, the suffering itself of martyrdom
was in some 1 espects peculiar It was a death cruel in
itself, publicly inflicted, and heightened by the fierce
exultation of a malevolent populace. When we are in
pain, we can lie in peace by ourselves; we receive the
sympathy and kind services of those about us ; and, if we
like it, we can retire altogether from the sight of others,
and suffer without a witness to interrupt us. But the
sufferings of martyrdom were for the most part public,
attended with every circumstance of ignominy and popu-
lar triumph, as well as with torture. Criminals, indeed,
are put to death without kindly thoughts from the by-
standers; still, for the most part, even criminals receive
commiseration and a sort of respect. But the early
Christians had to endure “the shame" after their
Master's pattern. They had to die in the midst of
enemies who reviled them, and in mockery bid them (as
in Christ's case) come down from the Cross. They were
supported on no easy couch, soothed by no attentive
friends; and considering how much the depressing
power of pain depends upon the imagination, this cir-
II.8 HISTORICAI, STUDIES.
cumstance alone at once separates their sufferings widely
from all instances of pain in disease. The unseen God
alone was their comforter, and this invests the scene of
their suffering with Supernatural majesty, and awes us
when we think of them. “Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for
Thou art with me.” A martyrdom is a season of God's
especial power in the eye of faith, as great as if a miracle
were visibly wrought.
MORAL AND PRACTICAI,
THAE GRAEA 7TWESS AAWD //TT/C}; WAESS
OA. Aſ UMA AW Z/AºA.
“The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty
years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been,
and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of
my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”—GEN. xlvii. 9.
HY did the aged patriarch call his days few, who
had lived twice as long as men now live, when he
spoke? Why did he call them evil, seeing he had on
the whole lived in riches and honour, and, what is more,
in God's favour P. Yet he described his time as short, his
days as evil, and his life as but a pilgrimage. Or if we
allow that his afflictions were such as to make him
reasonably think cheaply of his life, in spite of the
blessings which attended it, yet that he should call it
short, considering he had so much more time for the
highest purposes of his being than we have, is at first
sight surprising. He alludes indeed to the longer life
which had been granted to his fathers, and perhaps felt a
decrepitude greater than theirs had been ; yet this dif-
I 2.2 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I C A L,
ference between him and them could hardly be the real
ground of his complaint in the text, or more than a con-
firmation or occasion of it. It was not because Abraham
had lived one hundred and seventy-five years, and
Isaac one hundred and eighty, and he himself, whose life
was not yet finished, but one hundred and thirty, that he
made this mournful speech. For it matters not when
time is gone what length it has been ; and this doubtless
was the real cause why the patriarch spoke as he did,
not because his life was shorter than his father's, but
because it was well-nigh over. When life is past, it is all
one whether it has lasted two hundred years or fifty.
And it is this characteristic, stamped on human life in
the day of its birth, viz., that it is mortal, which makes it
under all circumstances and in every form equally feeble
and despicable. All the points in which men differ,
health and strength, high and low estate, happiness or
misery, vanish before this common lot, mortality. Pass
a few years, and the longest lived will be gone. Nor
will what is past profit him then, except in its conse-
quences.
And this sense of the nothingness of life, impressed on
us by the very fact that it comes to an end, is much
deepened when we contrast it with the capabilities of us
who live it. Had Jacob lived to Methusaleh's age, he
would have called it short. This is what we all feel, though
GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF HUMAN LIFE, I23
zº;
at first sight it seems a contradiction, that even though the
days as they go be slow, and be laden with many events,
or with sorrows, or dreariness, lengthening them out and
making them tedious, yet the year passes quick though
the hours tarry, and time bygone is as a dream, though
we thought it would never go while it was going. And
the reason seems to be this ; that when we contemplate
human life in itself, in however small a portion of it, we
see implied in it the presence of a Soul, the energy of a
Spiritual existence, of an accountable being : conscious-
ness tells us this concerning it every moment. But when
we look back on it in memory, we view it but externally
as a mere lapse of time, as a mere earthly history. And
the longest duration of this external world is as dust, and
weighs nothing against one moment's life of the world
within. Thus we are ever expecting great things from
life, from our internal consciousness, every moment of
our having souls ; and we are ever being disappointed
on considering what we have gained from time past, and
can hope from time to come. And life is ever promising
and never fulfilling ; and hence, however long it be, our
days are few and evil.
Our earthly life then gives promise of what it does not
accomplish. It promises immortality, yet it is mortal ;
it contains life in death, and eternity in time ; and it
attracts us by beginnings which faith alone brings to an
I24 M O R. A. L. A. N. D. P R A CT I CA. L.
end. I mean, when we take into account the powers
with which our souls are gifted as Christians, the very
consciousness of these fills us with a certainty that they
must last beyond this life. That is in the case of good
and holy men, whose present state, I say, is to them who
know them well an earnest of immortality. The great-
ness of their gifts, contrasted with their scanty time for
exercising them, forces the mind forward to the thought
of another life as almost the necessary counterpart and
consequence of this life, and certainly implied in this
life, provided there be a righteous governor of the world
who does not make man for nought. . . . . And if this
earthly life is short, even when longest, from the great dis-
proportion between it and the powers of regenerate man,
Tstill more is this the case, of course, where it is cut short and
death comes prematurely. Men there are, who in a single
moment of their lives have shown a superhuman height
and majesty of mind which it would take ages for them
to employ on its proper objects, and, as it were, to
exhaust; and who by such passing flashes, like rays
of the Sun and the darting of lightning, give token of
their immortality, give token to us that they are but
angels in disguise, the elect of God, sealed for eternal
life, and destined to judge the world and to reign with
Christ for ever. Yet they are suddenly taken away, and
we have hardly recognized them when we lose them.
GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF HUMAN LIFE. I25
S.
Can we believe that they are not removed for higher
things elsewhere P This is sometimes said with reference
to our intellectual powers, but it is still more true of our
moral nature. There is something in moral truth and
goodness, in faith, in firmness, in heavenly-mindedness,
in meekness, in courage, in lovingkindness, to which this
world's circumstances are quite unequal, for which the
longest life is insufficient, which makes the highest oppor-
tunities of this world disappointing, which must burst the
prison of this world to have its appropriate range. So
that when a good man dies, one is led to say, “He has
not half showed himself, he has had nothing to exercise
him; his days are gone like a shadow, and he is withered
like grass.”
I say the word “disappointing” is the only word to
express our feelings on the death of God's saints. Unless
our faith be very active, so as to pierce beyond the grave
and realize the future, we feel depressed at what seems
like a failure of great things. And from this very
feeling surely, by a sort of contradiction, we may fairly
take hope; for if this life be so disappointing, so
unfinished, surely it is not the whole. This feeling of
disappointment will often come upon us in an especial
way, on happening to hear of or to witness the death-
beds of holy men. The hour of death seems to be a
season, of which, in the hands of Providence, much
126 MORAL AND PRA CT I CA. L.
might be made, if I may use the term ; much might be
done for the glory of God, the good of man, and the
manifestation of the person dying. And beforehand
friends will perhaps look forward, and expect that great
things are then to take place, which they shall never
forget. Yet, “How dieth the wise man? as the fool.”
Such is the preacher's experience, and Our own bears
witness to it. King Josiah, the zealous servant of the
living God, died the death of wicked Ahab, the wor-
shipper of Baal. True Christians die as other men.
One dies by a sudden accident, another in battle, another
without friends to see how he dies, a fourth is insensible,
or not himself. Thus the opportunity seems thrown away,
and we are forcibly reminded that “the manifestation of
the sons of God” is hereafter ; that “the earnest ex-
pectation of the creature” is but waiting for it; that this
life is unequal to the burthen of so great an office as the
due exhibition of those secret ones who shall one day
“shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
But further (if it be allowable to speculate), one can
conceive even the same kind of feeling, and a most
transporting one, to come over the soul of the faithful
Christian when just separated from the body, and
conscious that his trial is once for all over. Though his
life has been a long and painful discipline, yet when it
is over we may suppose him to feel at the moment
GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF HUMAN LIFF. 127
the same sort of surprise at its being ended as generally
follows any exertion in this life when the object is
gained and the anticipation over—when we have wound
up our minds for any point of time, any great event,
an interview with strangers, or the sight of some wonder,
or the occasion of some unusual trial. When it comes,
and is gone, we have a strange reverse cf feeling from
our changed circumstances. Such, but without any
mixture of pain, without any lassitude, dulness, or dis-
appointment, may be the happy Contemplation of the
disembodied spirit : as if it said to itself, “So all is now
over; this is what I have so long waited for, for which
I have nerved myself, against which I have prepared,
fasted, prayed, and wrought righteousness. Death is
come and gone—it is over. Ah is it possible P What
an easy trial, what a cheap price for eternal glory ! A
few sharp sicknesses, or some acute pain a while, or some
few and evil years, or some struggles of mind, dreary
desolateness for a season, fightings and fears, afflicting
bereavements, or the scorn and ill-usage of the world—
how they fretted me, how much I thought of them
Yet how little really they are How contemptible a
thing is human life, contemptible in itself, yet in its effects
invaluable for it has been to me like a small seed of
easy purchase, germinating and ripening into bliss ever-
e 3)
lasting,
I28 M OR AL AND PRA CT I CA. L.
Such being the unprofitableness of this life viewed in
itself, it is plain how we should regard it while we go
through it. We should remember that it is scarcely
more than an accident of our being ; that it is no part of
ourselves, who are immortal; that we are immortal spirits,
independent of time and space ; and that this life is but
a sort of outward stage, on which we act for a time, and
which is only sufficient and only intended to answer the
Q purpose of trying whether we will serve God or no. We
should consider ourselves to be in this world in no
fuller sense than players of any game are in the game ;
and life to be a sort of dream, as detached and as different
from our real eternal existence, as a dream differs from
waking; a serious dream, indeed, as affording a means
of judging us, yet in itself a kind of shadow without
substance, a scene set before us, in which we seem to
be, and in which it is our duty to act just as if all we
saw had a truth and reality, because all that meets us
influences us and our destiny. -
Let us then thus account of our present state. It is
precious, as revealing to us, amid shadows and figures,
the existence and attributes of Almighty God and His
elect people. It is precious, because it enables us to
hold intercourse with immortal Souls who are on their
trial as we are. It is momentous as being the scene
and means of our trial ; but beyond this it has no
GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF HUMAN LIFE. I29
claims upon us. “Vanity of vanities, says the preacher,
all is vanity.” We may be poor or rich, young or old,
honoured or slighted, and it ought to affect us no more,
neither to elate us nor depress us, than if we were actors
in a play, who know that the characters that they re-
present are not their own, and that though they may
appear to be superior one to another, to be kings or
to be peasants, they are in reality all on a level.
THE /l/ VS TAE A*/O USAVAESS OF OUA’
AA’ ESAEAVT BAE/AWG.
“I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right
well.”—PSALM cxxxix. I4.
N the very impressive Psalm from which these words
are taken, this is worth noticing among other things.
That the inspired writer finds, in the mysteries without
and within him, a source of admiration and praise. “I
will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made :
marve/lous are Thy works.” When Nicodemus heard of
God’s wonderful working, he said: “How can these
things be P’ But holy David glories in what the natural
man stumbles at. It awes his heart and imagination to
think that God sees him wherever he is, yet without
provoking or irritating his reason. He has no proud
thoughts rising against what he cannot understand, and
calling for his vigilant control. He does not submit his
reason by an effort, but he bursts forth in exultation to
MYSTER I O U S N ESS OF O U R P RES E N T B E IN G. I3 I
think that God is so mysterious. “Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me ;” he says, “it is high, I cannot
attain unto it.” This reflection is suitable on this festival
(Trinity Sunday), on which our thoughts are especially
turned to the great doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. . . .
I will endeavour to show that the difficulty which human
words have in expressing it, is no greater than we meet
with when we would express in human words even those
earthly things of which we actually have experience, and
which we cannot deny to exist, because we see them.
So that our part evidently lies in using the mysteries of
religion as David did, simply as a means of impressing
on our minds the inscrutableness of Almighty God.
Mysteries in religion are measured by the proud accord-
ing to their own capacity; by the humble, according to
the power of God : the humble glorify God for them, the
proud exalt themselves against them.
The text speaks of earthly things. “I am fearfully
and wonderfully made.” Now, let us observe some of
the mysteries that are involved in our own nature.
I. First, we are made up of Soul and body. Now, if
we did not know this so that we cannot deny it, what
notion could our minds ever form of such a mixture of
natures, and how should we ever succeed in making those
who go only by abstract reason take in what we meant P
The body is made of matter : this we see ; it has a
132 M OR AL AND PR A CT I CA. L.
Certain extension, make, form, and solidity. By the
soul we mean that invisible principle which thinks. We
are conscious we are alive, and are rational. Each man
has his own thoughts, feelings, and desires; each man is
One to himself, and he knows himself to be one and indi-
visible—One in such sense, that while he exists, it were
an absurdity to suppose he can be any other than him-
self; one in a sense in which no material body which
consists of parts can be one. He is sure that he is
distinct from the body, though joined to it, because he is
one, and the body is not one, but a collection of many
things. He feels, moreover, that he is distinct from it
because he uses it; for what a man can use he is Superior
to. No one can by any possibility mistake his body for
himself. It is his, it is not he. This principle, then,
which thinks and acts in the body, and which each
person feels to be himself, we call the soul. We do
not know what it is : it cannot be reached by any of the
senses: we cannot see it or touch it. It has nothing in
common with extension or form. To ask what shape the
soul is, would be as absurd as to ask what is the shape
of a thought, or a wish, or a regret, or a hope. And
hence we call the soul spiritual and immaterial, and say
that it has no parts, and is of no size at all. All this
seems undeniable. Yet observe, if all this be true, what is
meant by Saying that it is in the body, any more than
Ú
M. Y S T E R I O U S N ESS OF O U R P R ES E N T B E IN G. I
3
3
saying that a thought or a hope is in a stone or a tree ?
How is it joined to the body ? what keeps it one with
the body ? what keeps it in the body ? what prevents it
any moment from separating from the body ? When
two things which we see are united, they are united by
some connexion which we can understand. A chain or
cable keeps a ship in its place. We lay a foundation of
a building in the earth, and the building endures. But
what is it that unites soul and body P how do they touch P
how do they keep together? how is it that we do not
wander to the stars, or to the depths of the Sea, or to and
fro as chance may carry us, while our body remains where
it was on the earth P So far from its being wonderful
that the body one day dies, how is it that it is made to
live and move at all P how is it that it keeps from dying a
single hour? Certainly it is as incomprehensible as any
thing can be, how Soul and body can make up One man ;
and unless we had the instance before our eyes, we
should seem in saying so, to be using words without
meaning. For instance, would it not be extravagant and
idle to speak of time as deep or high, or of Space as
quick or slow. Not less idle, Surely, it perhaps seems to
some races of spirits, to say that thought and mind have
a body, which in the case of man they have according to
God's marvellous will. It is certain, then, that experience
outstrips reason in its Capacity of knowledge : why then
I34. M O R A L A NL) P R A CT I CA. L.
should reason circumscribe faith, when it cannot compass
sight?
2. Again : the soul is not only one, and without parts,
but moreover, as if by a great Contradiction given in
terms, it is in every part of the body. It is nowhere, yet
everywhere. It may be said, indeed, that it is especially
in the brain ; but granting this, for argument's sake, yet it
is quite certain, since every part of his body belongs to
him, that a man's self is in every part of his body. No
part of a man's body is like a mere instrument, as a knife
or a Crutch might be, which he takes up and may lay
down. Every part of it is part of himself; it is connected
into one by his soul, which is one. Supposing we take stones
and raise a house, the building is not really one ; it is
composed of a number of separate parts, which, viewed
as collected together, we call one, but which are not one,
except in our notion of them. But the hands and feet,
the head and trunk, form one body under the presence of
the soul within them. Unless the soul were in every
part, they would not form one body; so that the soul is
in every part, uniting it with every other, though it con-
sists of no part at all. I do not, of course, mean that
there is any real contradiction in these opposite truths—
indeed, we know that there is not and cannot be, because
they are true—because human nature is a fact before us.
But the state of the case is a contradiction when put into
MYSTER I O U S N ESS OF O U R P RES E N T B E IN G. I35
words ; we cannot so express it as not to involve an ap-
parent contradiction: and then, if we discriminate our
terms, and make distinctions, and balance phrases, and
so on, we shall seem to be technical, and artificial, and
speculative, and to use words without meaning. Now
this is precisely our case as regards the doctrine of the
ever-blessed Trinity. We have never been in heaven.
God, as He is in Himself, is hid from us. We are in-
formed concerning Him by those who were inspired by
Him for the purpose, nay, by His co-eternal Son Himself,
who “knoweth the Father,” when He came on earth.
And in the message they delivered to us from above are
declarations concerning His nature, which seem to run
counter the one to the other. He is revealed to us as
one God, the Father, one indivisible Spirit. Yet there
is said to exist in Him from everlasting His only-begotten
Son, the same as He is, and yet distinct, and from
and in Them both from everlasting, and indivisibly, exists
the co-equal Spirit. All this, put into words, seems a con-
tradiction in terms: men have urged it as such ; then
Christians, lest they should seem to be unduly and
harshly insisting upon words which clash with each other,
and so should dishonour the truth of God, and cause
hearers to stumble, have limited their words, and classified
them ; and then, for doing this, they have been accused of
speculating and theorizing. The same result doubtless
136 M O R.A. L. A. N. D. P R A CT I CA. L.
would take place in the parallel case already mentioned.
Had we no bodies, and were a revelation made us that
there was a race who had bodies as well as souls, what a
number of powerful objections should we seem to possess
against that revelation | We might plausibly say, that the
words used in Conveying it were arbitrary and unmeaning.
What (we should ask) was the meaning of saying that the
soul had no parts, yet was in every part of the body ?
What was meant by saying it was everywhere, and no-
where P How could it be one, and yet repeated, as it
were, ten thousand times over every atom and pore of
the body, which it was said to exist in P. How could it be
confined to the body at all? How did it act upon the
body ? How happened it, as was pretended, that, when
the soul did but will, the arm moved or the feet
walked P. How can a spirit, which cannot touch anything,
yet avail to move so large a mass of matter, and so
easily, as the human body ? These are some of the ques-
tions which might be asked, partly on the ground that
the alleged fact was impossible, partly that the idea was
self-contradictory. And these are just the kind of ques-
tions with which arrogant and profane minds do assail
the revealed doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
3. Further consider what a strange state we are in
when we dream, and how difficult it would be to convey
to a person who had never dreamed what was meant by
MYSTER I O U S N ESS OF O U R P RESENT B E IN G. I37
dreaming. Æſis vocabulary would contain no words to
express any middle idea between perfect possession and
entire suspension of the mind's powers. He would ac-
knowledge what it was to be awake, what it was to be
insensible ; but a state between the two he would neither
have words to describe, nor, if he were self-confident and
arrogant, inclination to believe, however well it was
attested by those who ought to know. ę & e q
Now if we have mysteries even about ourselves, which
we cannot even put into words accurately, much more
may we suppose, even were we not told it, that there
are mysteries in the nature of Almighty God; and, so far
from its being improbable that there should be mysteries,
the declaration that there are, even adds some probability
to the revelation which declareth them. On the other
hand, still more unreasonable is disbelief, if grounded on
the mysteriousness of the revelation, because if we cannot
put into consistent human language human things, much
less is there to surprise us if human words are insufficient
to describe heavenly things.
THE /MMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”—MATT. xvi. 26.
SUPPOSE there is no tolerably-informed Christian
but considers he has a correct notion of the differ-
ence between our religion and the paganism it supplanted.
Every one, if asked what it is we have gained by the
Gospel, will promptly answer that we have gained the
knowledge of our immortality, of our having souls which
will live for ever; that the heathen did not know this,
but that Christ taught it, and that His disciples know it.
Every one will say, and say truly, that this was the great
and solemn doctrine which gave the Gospel a claim to be
heard when first preached, which arrested the thoughtless
multitudes who were busied in the pleasures and pursuits
of this life, awed them with the vision of the life to come,
and sobered them till they turned to God with a true
heart. It will be said, and said truly, that this doctrine
of a future life was the doctrine which broke the power
and the fascination of paganism. The poor benighted
IM M O RT A LITY OF T H E S O U L. I39
º
heathen were engaged in all the frivolities and absurdities
of a false ritual which had obscured the light of nature.
They knew God, but they forsook Him for the inventions
of man ; they made protectors and guardians for them-
selves ; and had “gods many, and lords many.” They
had their profane worship, their gaudy processions, their
indulgent Creed, their easy Observances, their sensual
festivities, their childish extravagances, such as might
suitably be the religion of beings who were to live for
seventy or eighty years, and then die once for all, never
to live again. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die,” was their doctrine and their rule of life. “To-
morrow we die.” This the holy apostles admitted. They
taught so far as the heathen, “To-morrow we die;” but
then they added, “And after death the judgment”—
judgment upon the eternal soul, which lives in spite of
the death of the body. And this was the truth which
awakened men to the necessity of having a better and
deeper religion than that which had spread over the
earth, when Christ came—which so wrought upon them
that they left that old false worship of theirs, and it fell.
Yes! though throned in all the power of the world, a
sight such as eye had never before seen; though Sup-
ported by the great and the many, the magnificence of
kings and the stubbornness of people, it fell. Its ruins
remain scattered over the face of the earth—the shattered
I4O M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
works of its great upholder, that fierce enemy of God, the
pagan Roman Empire. Those ruins are found even
among ourselves, and show how marvellously great was
its power, and therefore how much more powerful was
that which broke its power ; and this was the doctrine of
the immortality of the soul. So entire is the revolution
which is produced among men wherever this high truth
is really received.
I have said that every one of us is able fluently to
speak of this doctrine, and is aware that the knowledge
of it forms the fundamental difference between our state
and that of the heathen. And yet, in spite of our being
able to speak about it, and our “form of knowledge” (as
St. Paul terms it, Rom. ii. 20), there seems scarcely
room to doubt that the greater number of those who are
called Christians in no true sense realize it in their own
minds at all. Indeed it is a very difficult thing to bring
home to us, and to feel that we have Souls ; and there
cannot be a more fatal mistake than to suppose we see
what the doctrine means as Soon as we can use the
words which signify it. So great a thing is it to under-
stand that we have souls, that the knowing it, taken in
connexion with its results, is all one with being serious,
i.e., truly religious. To discern our immortality, is ne-
cessarily connected with fear, and trembling, and re-
pentance, in the case of every Christian. Who is there
IM M O R T A L, IT Y O F T H E S O U L. I4 I
O
but would be sobered by an actual sight of the flames
of hell-fire and the souls therein hopelessly enclosed P
Would not all his thoughts be drawn to that awful sight,
so that he would stand still gazing fixedly upon it, and
forgetting everything else, seeing nothing else, hearing
nothing, engrossed with the Contemplation of it; and when
the sight was withdrawn, still having it fixed in his
memory, so that he would be henceforth dead to the
pleasures and employments of this world considered in
themselves, thinking of them only in reference to that fearful
vision ? This would be the overpowering effect of such
a disclosure, whether it actually led a man to repentance
or not. And thus absorbed in the thought of the life to
come are those who really and heartily receive the words
of Christ and His apostles. Yet to this state of mind,
and therefore to this true knowledge, the multitude of
men called Christians are certainly strangers. A thick
veil is drawn over their eyes; and, in spite of their being
able to talk of the doctrine, they are as if they had never
heard of it. They go on just as the heathen did of old ;
they eat, they drink; or they amuse themselves in vani-
ties, and live in the world, without fear and without sor-
row, just as if God had not declared that their conduct in
this life would decide their destiny in the next ; just as if
they either had no souls, or had nothing or little to do
with the saving of them, which was the Creed of the heathen.
I42 MOR A L A N D PR A CT I CA. L.
Now let us consider what it is to bring home to our-
selves that we have souls, and in what the especial diffi-
Culty of it lies; for this may be of use to us in our
attempt to realize this awful truth.
We are from our birth apparently dependent upon
things about us. We see and feel that we could not live
or go forward without the aid of man. To a child, this
world is everything; he seems to himself a part of this
world—a part of this world in the same sense in which a
branch is part of a tree ; he has little notion of his own
Separate existence ; that is, he has no just idea he has a
Soul. And if he goes through life with his notions un-
changed, he has no just notion even to the end of life
that he has a soul. He views himself merely in his con-
nection with this world, which is his all; he looks to this
world for his good, as to an idol; and when he has to
look beyond this life, he is able to discern nothing in
prospect, because he has no idea of anything, nor can
fancy anything but this life. And if he is obliged to
fancy Something, he fancies this life over again; just as
the heathen, when they reflected on those traditions of
another life which were floating among them, could but
fancy the happiness of the blessed to consist in the
enjoyment of the Sun, and the sky, and the earth, as
before, only as if these were to be more splendid than
they are now.
IM M O RTA. LITY OF T H E S O U L. I43
To understand that we have souls, is to feel our sepa-
ration from things visible, our independence of them, our
distinct existence in ourselves, our individuality, Our
power of acting for ourselves, this way or that way, our
accountableness for what we do. These are the great
truths which lie wrapped up indeed even in a child's
mind, and which God's grace can unfold there, in spite of
the influence of the external world ; but at first this out-
ward world prevails. We look off from self to the things
around us, and forget ourselves in them. Such is our
state—a depending for Support on the reeds which are
no stay, and overlooking our real strength—at the time
when God begins His process of reclaiming us to a truer
view of our place in His great system of providence.
And when He visits us, then in a little while there is a
stirring within us. The unprofitableness and feebleness
of the things of this world are forced upon our minds;
they promise, but Cannot perform ; they disappoint us.
Or, if they do perform what they promise, still (so it is)
they do not satisfy us. We still crave for something, we
do not well know what ; but we are sure it is something
which this world has not given us. And then its changes
are so many, so sudden, so silent, so continual. It never
leaves changing; it goes on to change till we are quite
sick at heart: then it is that our reliance on it is broken.
It is plain we cannot continue to depend upon it unless
I44 M OR A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
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we keep pace with it, and go on changing too; but this
we cannot do. We feel that while it changes we are one
and the same ; and thus under God’s blessing we come
to have some glimpse of the meaning of our independence
of things temporal, and Our immortality. And should it
so happen that misfortunes come upon us (as they often
do), then still more are we led to understand the nothing-
ness of this world; then still more are we led to distrust
it, and are weaned from the love of it, till at length it
floats before our eyes merely as Some idle veil, which,
notwithstanding its many tints, Cannot hide the view of
what is beyond it; and we begin by degrees to perceive
that there are but two beings in the whole universe, our
own soul, and the God who made it.
+ Sublime, unlooked-for doctrine, yet most true ! To
every one of us there are but two beings in the whole
world, himself and God; for, as to this outward scene,
its pleasures and pursuits, its honours and Cares, its con-
trivances, its personages, its kingdoms, its multitude of
busy slaves—what are they to us? Nothing—no more
than a show. “The world passeth away, and the lust
thereof.” And as to those others nearer us, who are not
to be classed with the vain world, I mean our friends and
relations, whom we are right in loving, these too, after all,
are nothing to us here. They cannot really help or profit
us; we see them and they act upon us, only (as it were)
IM M O R T A LITY OF T H E S O U L. I45
Ó
o
*- -
at a distance, through the medium of Sense. They can-
not get at Our Souls; they cannot enter into our thoughts
or really be companions to us. In the next world it will,
through God's mercy, be otherwise ; but here we enjoy
not their presence, but the anticipation of what one day
shall be ; so that, after all, they vanish before the clear
vision we have, first of our own existence, next of the
presence of the great God in us and over us, as our
Governor and Judge, who dwells in us by Our Conscience,
which is His representative.
And now consider what a revolution will take place in
the mind that is not utterly reprobate, in proportion as it
realizes this relation between itself and the most high God.
We never in this life can fully understand what is meant
by living for ever; but we can understand what is meant
by this world's not living for ever, by its dying never to
rise again. And learning this we learn that we owe it no
service, no allegiance ; it has no claim over us, and can
do us no material good or harm. On the other hand,
the law of God written on our hearts bids us serve Him,
and Scripture completes the precepts which Nature began.
And both Scripture and conscience tell us we are
answerable for what we do, and that God is a righteous
judge; and above all, our Saviour, as our visible Lord
God, takes the place of the world as the only-begotten
of the Father, having shown Himself openly that we may
L
I46 MOR A L A N D PRACTIC A. L.
^:
3)
not say that God is hidden. And thus a man is drawn
forward by all sorts of powerful influences to turn from
things temporal to things eternal, to deny himself, and to
take up his cross and follow Christ. For there are
Christ's awful threats and warnings to make him serious,
His precepts to attract and elevate him, His promises to
cheer Him, His gracious deeds and Sufferings to humble
him to the dust, and to bind his heart Once and for ever
in gratitude to Him who is so surpassing in mercy. All
these things act upon him ; and as truly as St. Matthew
rose from the receipt of custom when Christ called,
heedless what bystanders would say of him, so they who
through grace obey the secret voice of God, move
onward contrary to the world's ways, and careless what
mankind may say of them, as understanding that they
have souls, which is the one thing they have to care
about.
Let us then seriously question ourselves, and beg of
God grace to do so honestly, whether we are loosened
from the world, or whether, living as dependent on it,
and not on the Eternal Author of our being, we are in
fact taking our portion with this perishing outward scene,
and ignorant of our having Souls. Let it be well under-
stood, that to realize our own individual accountableness
and immortality is not required of a person all at once.
I never said a person was not in a hopeful way who did
IM M O R T ALITY OF T H E S O U L. I47
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\-
not thus fully discern the world's vanity and the worth
of his soul. But a man is truly in a very desperate way
who does not wish, who does not try to discern and
feel all this. I want a man, on the one hand, to
confess his immortality with his lips, and on the
other, to live as if he tried to understand his own
words, and then he is in the way of Salvation ; he is
in the way towards heaven, even though he has not
yet fully emancipated himself from the fetters of this
world, Indeed, none of us (of course) are entirely
loosened from this world. We all use words in speak-
ing of our duties, higher and fuller than we really
understand.
Oh, that there were such a heart in us, to put aside
this visible world, to desire to look at it as a mere screen
between us and God, and think of Him who has entered
in beyond the veil, and who is watching us, trying us
yet, and blessing, and influencing, and encouraging us
towards good, day by day. And Oh what a blessed
discovery it is to those who make it, that this world is
but vanity, and without substance, and that really they
are ever in their Saviour's presence. He knows his
blessedness, and needs not another to tell it him. He
knows in whom he has believed ; and in the hour of
danger or trouble he knows what is meant by that peace
which Christ did not explain when He gave it to His
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148 M OR A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
apostles, but merely said it was not as the world could
give.
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye
in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlast-
ing strength” (Isaiah xxvi. 3, 4).
THE /W/D/V/D UAZ/7 V OAP 7 AA. SOUL.
“The spirit shall return unto God, who gave it.”—ECCLES. xii. 7.
ERE we are told that upon death the spirit of man
returns to God. The sacred writer is not speaking
of good men only, or of God's chosen people, but of men
generally. In the case of all men, the soul, when severed
from the body, returns to God. God gave it ; He made
it; He sent it into the body, and He upholds it there.
He upholds it in distinct existence wherever it is. It
animates the body while life lasts ; it returns again—it
relapses into the unseen state upon death. Let us
steadily contemplate this truth, which at first sight we
may fancy we altogether enter into. The point to be Con-
sidered is this : that every soul of man, which is or has
been on earth, has a separate existence ; and that in
eternity, not in time merely—in the unseen world, not
merely in this—not only during its mortal life, but even
from the hour of its creation, whether joined to a body
of flesh or not.
I5O M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
Nothing is more difficult than to realise that every
man has a distinct soul—that every one of all the millions
who live or have lived, is as whole and independent a
being in himself as if there were no one else in the whole
world but he. To explain what I mean. Do you think
that a commander of an army realises it when he sends
a body of men on some dangerous service P I am not
speaking as if he were wrong in so sending them ; I only
ask, in matter of fact, does he, think you, commonly
understand that each of those poor men has a soul, as
dear to himself, as precious in its nature, as his own P
Or does he not rather look on the body of men collec-
tively, as one mass, as parts of a whole, as but the
wheels or springs of some great machine to which he
assigns the individuality, not to each Soul that goes to
make it up P -
This instance will show what I mean, and how open
we all lie to the remark that we do not understand the
doctrine of the distinct individuality of the human Soul.
We class men in masses, as we might Connect the stones
of a building. Consider our common way of regarding
history, politics, commerce, and the like, and you will
own that I speak truly. We generalize and lay down
laws, and then contemplate these Creations of our own
minds, and act upon and towards them as if they were
real beings, dropping what are more truly such, Take
IN DIVID U A. LITY OF T H E S O U L. ISI
another instance. When we talk of national greatness,
what does it mean P Why, it really means that a certain
distinct definite number of immortal individual beings
happen for a few years to be in circumstances to act
together and one upon another in such a way as to be
able to act upon the world at large, to gain an ascen-
dancy over the world, to gain power and wealth, and to
look like one, and to be talked of and to be looked up
to as one. They seem for a short time to be some one
thing; and we, from our habit of living by sight, regard
them as one, and drop the notion of their being anything
else. And when this one dies, and that one dies, we
forget that it is the passage of separate immortal beings
into an unseen state, that the whole which appears is
but appearance, and that the Component parts are the
realities. No, we think nothing of this ; but though
fresh and fresh men die, and fresh and fresh men are
born, so that the whole is ever shifting, yet we forget all
that drop away, and are insensible to all that are added ;
and we still think that this whole, which we call the
nation, is one and the same, and that the individuals
which come and go exist only in it and for it, and are
but as the grains of a husk or the leaves of a tree.
Or, again, survey Some populous town. Crowds are
pouring through the Streets, Some on foot, some in
carriages; while the shops are full, and the houses, too,
I52 MO R. A. L. A. N. D. P R A CT I CA. L.
could we see into them. Every part of it is full of life.
Hence we gain a general idea of Splendour, magnificence,
opulence, and energy. But what is the truth P Why,
that every being in that great concourse is his own
centre, and all things about him are but shades, but a
“vain shadow,” in which he “walketh and disquieteth
himself in vain.” He has his own hopes and fears,
desires, judgments, and aims; he is everything to hirn-
self, and no one else is really anything. No one outside
of him can really touch him—can touch his soul, his
immortality; he must live with himself for ever. He
has a depth within him unfathomable, an infinite abyss
of existence, and the scene in which he bears part for
the moment is but like a gleam of Sunshine upon its
Surface.
Again : when we read history, we meet with accounts
of great slaughters and massacres, great pestilences,
famines, Conflagrations, and so on; and here again we
are accustomed in an especial way to regard collections
of people as single individuals. We cannot understand
that a multitude is a Collection of immortal souls.
I say immortal Souls. Each of those multitudes not
only had, while he was upon earth, but has a soul, which
did in its own time but return to God who gave it, and
not perish, and which now lives unto Him. All those
millions upon millions of human beings who ever trod
IN DIVID U A LITY OF T H E S O U L. I53
the earth, and saw the Sun Successively, are at this
moment in existence all together. This, I think, you
will grant we do not duly realize. All those Canaanites
whom the children of Israel slew, every one of them is
somewhere in the universe now at this moment, where
God has assigned him a place. We read: “They utterly
destroyed all that was in Jericho, young and old.” Again,
as to Ai: “So it was, that all that fell that day, both of
men and women, were twelve thousand.” Again : “Joshua
took Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Egon, Hebron, Debir,
and smote them with the edge of the Sword, and utterly
destroyed all the souls that were therein.” Every one of
those souls still lives. They had their separate thoughts
and feelings when on earth; they have them now.
They had their likings and pursuits, they gained what
they thought good, and enjoyed it; and they still some-
where or other live, and what they then did in the flesh
surely has its influence upon their present destiny. They
live, reserved for a day which is to come, when all nations
shall stand before God.
But why should I speak of the devoted nations of
Canaan, when Scripture speaks of a wider, more com-
prehensive judgment, and in one place appears to hint at
the present state of awful waiting in which they are who
were involved in it P What an Overwhelming judgment
was the Flood All human beings on the earth but eight
I54 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
were cut off by it. That old world of souls still lives,
though its material tabernacle was drowned. Scripture,
I say, signifies this ; obscurely indeed, yet still, as it
appears, certainly. St. Peter speaks of “the spirits in
prison,” that is, then in prison, who had been “dis-
obedient,” “when once the long-suffering of God waited
in the days of Noah.” Those many, many souls, who
were violently expelled from their bodies by the waters of
the deluge, were alive two thousand years afterwards,
when St. Peter wrote. Surely they are alive still. And
so of all the other multitudes we may read of. All the
Jews who perished in the siege of Jerusalem still live.
Sennacherib's army still lives; Sennacherib himself still
lives; all the persecutors of the Church that ever were
are still alive. The kings of Babylon are still alive; they
are still as they are described by the prophet; weak indeed
now, and in “hell beneath,” but having an account to
give, and waiting for the day of summons. All who have
ever gained a name in the world, all the mighty men of
war that ever were, all the scheming aspirants, all the
reckless adventurers, all the covetous traders, all the
proud voluptuaries, are still in being, though helpless
and unprofitable. Balaam, Saul, Joab, Ahithophel, good
and bad, wise and ignorant, rich and poor, each has his
separate place, each dwells by himself in that sphere of
light or darkness which he has provided for himself here -
IN DIVIDUALITY OF THE SOUL. I55
…’}
What a view this sheds upon history ! We are accustomed
to read it as a tale of fiction, and we forget that it con-
cerns immortal beings, who cannot be swept away, who
are what they were, however this earth may change.
And so again, all the names we see written on monu-
ments in churches or churchyards. All the writers whose
name and works we see in libraries; all the workmen
who raised the great buildings, far and near, which are
the wonder of the world, they are all in God's remem-
brance—they all live.
It is the same with those whom we ourselves have
seen, who are now departed. I do not now speak of
those whom we have known and loved. These we
cannot forget, we cannot rid our memory of them; but
I speak of all whom we have ever seen : it is also true
that they live; where, we know not, but live they do.
We may recollect when children, perhaps, once seeing
a person ; and it is almost like a dream to us now that
we did. It seems like an accident, which goes and is all
over, like some creature of the moment, which has no
existence beyond it. The rain falls, and the wind blows,
and showers and storms have no existence beyond the
time when we felt them ; they are nothing in themselves.
But if we have but once seen any child of Adam, we have
seen an immortal soul. It has not passed away as a
breeze or sunshine, but it lives; it lives at this moment
156 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
^)
in one of those many places, whether of bliss or misery,
in which all souls are reserved unto the end.
Or, again, let us call to mind those whom we knew a
little better, though not intimately ; all who died suddenly
or before their time; all whom we have seen in high
health and spirits; all whom we have seen in circum-
stances which, in any way, brought out their characters
and gave them some place in our memories. They are
gone from our sight, but they all live still, each with his
, own thoughts; they are but waiting for the judgment.
I think we shall say that these thoughts concerning
others are not familiar to us, yet no one can say they are
not just. And I think, too, that the thoughts Concerning
others, which are familiar to us are not those which
become believers in the Gospel; whereas these which I
have been tracing do become us, as tending to make us
think less of this world, with its hopes and fears, its plans,
successes, and enjoyments.
Moreover, every one of all the souls which have ever
been on earth, is, as I have already implied, in One of two
spiritual states, so distinct from one another, that one is
the subject of God's favour, and the other under His
wrath; the one in the way to etermal happiness, the other
to eternal misery. This is true of the dead, and is true
of the living also. All are tending one way or the other;
there is no middle or neutral state for any one, though as
IN DIVID UALITY OF THIE SO U L. I 57
far as the sight of the external world goes, all men seem
to be in a middle state common to one and all. Yet,
much as men look the same, and impossible as it is for
us to say where each man stands in God's sight, there
are two, and but two, classes of men, and these have
characters and destinies as far apart in their tendencies
as light and darkness. This is the case even of those who
are in the body, and it is much more true of those who
have passed into the unseen state.
(ºl. No thought, of course, is more overpowering than that
every one who lives or has lived is destined for endless
bliss or torment. It is far too vast for us to realize.
But what especially increases the mind's confusion, when
it attempts to do so, is just this very thing which I have
been mentioning, that there are but these two states, that
every individual among us is either in one or the other.
It is certainly quite beyond our understandings, that all
men should now be living together as relatives, friends,
associates, neighbours ; that we should be familiar or
intimate with each other; that there should be among us
a general intercourse, circulation of thought, interchange
of good offices, the action of mind upon mind, and will
upon will, and conduct upon conduct; and yet, after all,
that there should be a bottomless gulf between us, running
among us invisibly, and Cutting us off into two parties; !
not, indeed, a gulf impassable here, God be praised — !
158 MO R.A. L. A N D PRACTICAL.
-**===
not impassable till we pass into the next world—Still
really existing, so that every person we meet is in God's
unerring eye either on the one side or the other; and did
He please to take him hence at once, would find himself
either in Paradise or in the place of torment. Our Lord
observes this concerning the Day of Judgment: “Two
women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be
taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field;
the one shall be taken, and the other left.”
What makes this thought still more solemn is that we
have reason to suppose that Souls on the wrong side of
the line are far more numerous than those on the right.
It is wrong to speculate, but it is safe to be alarmed.
This much we know, that Christ says expressly, “Many
are called, few are chosen.” “Broad is the way that
leadeth to destruction, and many fliere be who go in
thereat ;” whereas, “Narrow is the way that leadeth to
life, and few there be who find it.”
If, then, it is difficult, as I have said it is, to realize
that all who ever lived still live, it is as difficult, at least,
to believe that they are in a state either of eternal rest or
eternal woe ; that all whom we have known, and who are
gone, are, and that we who still live, were we now to die,
should then at once be either in the one state or the
other. Nay, I will say more. When we think seriously
on the subject, it is almost impossible to comprehend, I
IN DIVIDUALITY OF THE SO U L. I 59
do not say that a great number, but that any person
whom we see before us, however unsatisfactory appearances
may be, is really under God’s displeasure, and in a state
of reprobation. So hard is it to live by faith ! . . . . .
How blessed would it be if we really understood this what
a change it would produce in our thoughts, unless we
were utterly reprobate, to understand what and where we
are—accountable beings on their trial, with God for their
friend and the devil for their enemy, and advanced a
certain way on their road either to heaven or to hell !
No truths, indeed, ever so awful, ever so fully brought
home to the mind, will change it, if the love of God and
of holiness be not there; but none among us, as we may
humbly trust, is in this reprobate state. One wishes to
think that no one has so done despite to the Spirit of
grace, and so sinned against the blood of the Covenant,
as to have nothing of his regenerate nature left to him ;
no one among us, but if he shut his eyes to the external
world, and opened them to the world within him, Con-
templated his real state and prospects, and called to mind
his past life, would be brought to repentance and amend-
Iment.
Endeavour then, my brethren, to realize that you
have souls, and pray God to enable you to do so.
Endeavour to disengage your thoughts and opinions from
the things that are seen ; look at things as God looks at
I6O M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
them, and judge of them as He judges. Pass a very few
years, and you will actually experience what as yet you
are called on to believe. There will be no need of the
effort of mind to which I invite you. When you have
passed into the unseen state, there will be no need of
shutting your eyes to this world, when this world has
vanished from you, and you have nothing before you but
the throne of God, and the slow but continual movements
about it in preparation of the Judgment. In that interval,
when you are in that vast receptacle of disembodied souls,
what will be your thoughts about the world which you
have left? How poor will then seem to you its highest
aims, how faint its keenest pleasures, compared with the
infinite aims, the infinite pleasures, of which you will at
length feel your souls to be capable ! O, my brethren
ief the thought be upon you day by day, especially when
you are tempted to sin. Avoid sin as a serpent ; it
looks and promises well ; it bites afterwards. It is
dreadful in memory, dreadful even on earth; but in that
awful period, when the fever of life is over, and you are
waiting in silence for the Judgment, with nothing to
distract your thoughts, who can say how dreadful may be
the memory of sins done in the body ? Then the very
apprehension of their punishment, when Christ shall
suddenly visit, will doubtless Outweigh a thousandfold
their gratification, such as it was, which you felt in Com-
IN DIVID UALITY OF T H E S O U L. I6I
mitting them ; and if so, what will be the proportion
between it and that punishment, if, after all, it be actually
inflicted? Let us lay to heart our Saviour's own most
merciful words. “Be not afraid,” He says, “ of them
that kill the body, and after that have no more that they
can do, But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear.
Fear Him which, after He hath killed, hath power to
cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear Him.”
7A/AS /AV I//S//3/. A. WOAZAL/D.
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen : for the things which are seen are temporal;
but the things which are not seen are eternal.”—2 COR. iv. 18.
THERE are two worlds, “the visible and the invisible,”
as the Creed speaks—the world we see, and the
world we do not see ; and the world we do not see as
really exists as the world we do see. It really exists,
though we see it not. The world we see we know to
exist, because we see it. We have but to lift up our eyes
and look around us, and we have proof of it: our eyes
tell us. We see the Sun, moon, and stars, earth and sky,
hills and valleys, woods and plains, Seas and rivers. And
again, we see men, and the works of men; we see cities
and stately buildings, and their inhabitants, men running
to and fro, and busying themselves to provide for them-
selves and their families, or to accomplish great designs,
or for the very business' sake. All that meets our eyes
forms one world. It is an immense world ; it reaches to
T H E IN VISIBLE WORLD. I63
the stars. Thousands on thousands of years might we
Speed up to the sky, and, though we were swifter than the
light itself, we should not reach them all. They are at
distances from us greater than any that is assignable. So
high, so wide, so deep is the world; and yet it also comes
near and close to us. It is everywhere ; and it seems to
have no room for any other world.
And yet, in spite of this universal world which we see,
there is another world quite as far-spreading, quite as
close to us, and more wonderful ; another world all
around us, though we see it not, and more wonderful
than the world we see, for this reason, if for no other,
that we do not see it. All around us are numberless
objects, coming and going, watching, working, or waiting,
which we see not. This is that other world, which the
eyes reach not unto, but faith only.
Let us dwell upon this thought. We are born into a
world of sense; that is, of the real things which lie round
about us one great department Comes to us, accosts us
through our bodily Organs, and eyes, ears, and fingers.
We feel, hear, and see them ; and we know they exist
because we do thus perceive them. Things innumerable
lie about us, animate and inanimate ; but One particular
class of these innumerable things is thus brought home to
us through our senses. Only, moreover, while they act
upon us, they make their presence known. We are
I64 MORAL AND PR A CT I CA. L.
Sensible of them at the time, or are conscious that we
perceive them. We not only see, but know that we see
them ; we not only hold intercourse, but know that we
do. We are among men, and we know that we are. We
feel cold and hunger; we know what sensible things
remove them. We eat, drink, clothe ourselves, dwell in
houses, converse and act with others, and perform the
duties of social life ; and we feel vividly that we are
doing so while we do so. Such is our relation towards
one part of the innumerable beings which lie around us.
They act upon us, and we know it : we act upon them in
turn, and know we do.
But all this does not interfere with the existence of
that other world which I speak of acting upon us, yet not
impressing us with the consciousness that it does so. It
may as really be present and exert an influence as that
which reveals itself to us. And that such a world there
is, Scripture tells us. Do you ask what it is, and what it
contains P I will not say that all that belongs to it is
vastly more important than what we see, for among
things visible are our fellow-men, and nothing created is
more precious and noble than a son of man. But still,
taking the things which we see altogether, the world we
do not see is on the whole a much higher world than
that which we do see. For, first of all, He is there who
is above all things, who has created all, before whom
T H E IN VISIBLE WORLD. I65
they all are as nothing, and with whom nothing can be
Compared. Almighty God, we know, exists more really
and absolutely than any of those fellow-men whose exist-
ence is conveyed to us through the senses. Yet we see
Him not, hear Him not, we do but “feel after Him,” yet
without finding Him. It appears, then, that the things
which are seen are but a part, but a secondary part of
the beings around us, were it only on this ground, that
Almighty God, the Being of Beings, is not in their
number, but among “the things which are not seen.”
Once, and once only, for three-and-thirty years, has He
condescended to become one of the beings which are
seen, when the Second Person of the ever-blessed Trinity
was, by an unspeakable mercy, born of the Virgin Mary
into this sensible world. And then He was seen, heard,
handled; He ate, He drank, He slept, He conversed, He
went about, He acted as other men; but excepting this
brief period His presence has never been perceptible;
He has never made us conscious of His existence by
means of our senses. He came, and He retired beyond
the veil; and to us individually it is as if He had never
showed Himself; we have as little sensible experience of
His presence. Yet “He liveth evermore.”
And in that other world are the souls also of the dead.
They, too, when they depart hence, do not cease to exist,
but they retire from this visible scene of things, or, in
I66 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
º
other words, they cease to act towards us and before us
through our senses. They live as they lived before; but
that outward frame, through which they were able to
hold communion with other men, is in some way, we
know not how, Separated from them, and dries away and
shrivels up as leaves may drop off a tree. They remain,
but without the usual means of approach towards us, and
correspondence with us. As when a man loses his voice
or hand, he still exists as before, but cannot any longer
talk or write, or otherwise hold intercourse with us. So
when he loses not voice and hand only, but his whole
frame, or is said to die, there is nothing to show that he
is gone ; but we have lost our means of apprehending
him. -
Again : angels also are inhabitants of the world in-
visible, and concerning them much more is told us than
concerning the souls of the faithful departed, because
the latter “rest from their labours,” but the angels are
actively employed among us in the Church. They are
said to be “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for
them who shall be heirs of salvation.” No Christian
is so humble but he has angels to attend on him, if he
lives by faith and love. Though they are so glorious, so
pure, so wonderful, that the very sight of them (if we were
allowed to see them) would strike us to the earth, as it
did the prophet Daniel, holy and righteous as he was ;
\
THE IN VISIB LE WORLD. I67
yet they are our “fellow-servants,” and our fellow-workers,
and they carefully watch over and defend even the
humblest of us, if we be Christ's. That they form part of
Our unseen world appears from the vision seen by the
patriarch Jacob. We are told that when he fled from
his brother Esau, “he lighted upon a certain place, and
tarried there all night, because the sun had set ; and he
took of the stones of that place, and put them for his
pillow, and lay down in that place to sleep.” How little
did he think that there was anything very wonderful in
this spot It looked like any other spot. It was a lone,
uncomfortable place ; there was no house there ; night
was coming on ; and he had to sleep upon the bare rock.
Yet how different was the truth ! He saw but the world
that is seen ; he saw not the world that is not seen ; yet
the world that is not seen was there. It was there,
though it did not at once make known its presence, but
needed to be supernaturally displayed to him. He saw
it in his sleep. “He dreamed, and behold, a ladder set
up on the earth, and the top of it reached up to heaven :
and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending
on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it.” This was
the other world. Now let this be observed. Persons
commonly speak as if the other world did not exist now,
but would after death. No ; it exists now, though we
see it not. It is among us and around us. Jacob was
I68 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
Shozºm this in his dream. Angels were all about him,
though he knew it not. And what Jacob saw in his
sleep, that Elisha's servant saw as if with his eyes; and
the shepherds, at the time of the Nativity, not only saw,
but heard. They heard the voices of those blessed spirits
who praise God night and day, whom we, in our lower
state of being, are allowed to copy and assist.
We are, then, in a world of spirits, as well as in a world
of sense, and we hold communion with it, and take part
in it, though we are not conscious of doing so. If this
seems strange to any one, let him reflect that we are
undeniably taking part in a third world, which we do
indeed see, but about which we do not know more than
about the angelic hosts—the world of brute animals.
Can anything be more marvellous or startling, unless we
were used to it, than that we should have a race of beings
about us whom we do see, and as little know their state,
or can describe their interests or their destiny, as we can
tell of the inhabitants of the sun and moon? It is, indeed,
a very overpowering thought, when we get to fix our
minds on it, that we familiarly use—I may say, hold
intercourse with—Creatures who are as much strangers to
us, as mysterious, as if they were the fabulous, unearthly
beings, more powerful than man, and yet his slaves,
which eastern superstitions have invented. We have
more real knowledge about the angels than about the
T H E IN VIS I B L E W OR L D. I69
*
brutes. They have, apparently, passions, habits, and a
certain accountableness; but all is mystery about them.
We do not know whether they can sin or not, whether
they are under punishment, whether they are to live after
this life. We inflict very great sufferings on a portion of
them, and they, in turn, every now and then seem to
retaliate upon us, as if by a wonderful law. We depend
on them in various important ways; we use their labour,
we eat their flesh. This, however, relates to such of
them as come near us. Cast your thoughts abroad on
the whole number of them, large and small, in vast
forests, or in the water, or in the air; and then say
whether the presence of such countless multitudes, so
various in their natures, so strange and wild in their
shapes, living on the earth without ascertainable object,
is not as mysterious as anything which Scripture says
about angels? Is it not plain to our senses that there is
a world inferior to us in the scale of beings, with which
we are connected, without understanding what it is P
And is it difficult to faith to admit the word of Scripture
concerning our connection with a world Superior to us? . . .
Men think they are lords of this world, and may do as
they will. They think this earth their property, and its
movements in their power; whereas it has other lords
besides them, and is the scene of a higher conflict than
they are capable of conceiving. It contains Christ's
17o M OR A L A N D PR A CT I CA. L.
º *
little ones, whom they despise, and His angels, whom
they disbelieve ; and these at length shall take possession
of it, and be manifested. At present, “all things,” to
appearance, “Continue as they were from the beginning
of the creation ;” and scoffers ask, “Where is the promise
of His coming P’ but at the appointed time there will be
a “manifestation of the Sons of God,” and the hidden
saints “shall shine out as the Sun in the kingdom of their
Father.” When the angels appeared to the shepherds it
was a sudden appearance—“Suddenly there was with the
angel a multitude of the heavenly host.” How wonderful
a sight ! The night had before that seemed just like any
other night, as the evening on which Jacob saw the vision
seemed like any other evening. They were keeping
watch over their sheep ; they were watching the night as
it passed. The stars moved on. It was midnight.
They had no idea of Such a thing when the angel
appeared. Such are the power and virtue hidden in
things which are seen, and at God's will they are mani-
fested. They were manifested for a moment to Jacob,
for a moment to Elisha's servant, for a moment to the
shepherds. They will be manifested for ever when Christ
comes at the Last Day, “in the glory of His Father, with
the holy angels;” then this world will fade away, and
the other world will shine forth.
Let these be your thoughts, my brethren, especially in
T H E IN VIS I B L E W OR L D. I7 I
the Spring season, when the whole face of Nature is so
rich and beautiful. Once only in the year, yet once, does
the world which we see show forth its hidden powers,
and in a manner manifest itself. Then the leaves come
out, and the blossoms on the fruit trees and flowers, and
the grass and corn spring up. There is a sudden rush
and burst outwardly of that hidden life which God has
lodged in the material world.
Well, that shows, as by a sample, what it can do at
God's command, when He gives the word. This earth,
which now buds forth in leaves and blossoms, will one
day burst forth into a new world of light and glory, in
which we shall see Saints and angels dwelling. Who
would think, except from his experience of former springs
all through his life—who could conceive two or three
months before, that it was possible that the face of Nature,
which then seemed so lifeless, should become so splendid
and varied ? How different is a tree, how different is a
prospect, when leaves are on it and off it ! How unlikely
it would seem, before the event, that the dry and naked
branches should suddenly be clothed with what is so bright
and so refreshing ! Yet in God’s good time leaves come
on the trees. The season may delay, but Come it will at last.
So it is with the coming of that eternal spring for which
all Christians are waiting. Come it will, though it delay;
yet, though it tarry, let us wait for it, “because it will
172 M O R.A. L. A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
surely come, it will not tarry.” Therefore we say day by
t day, “Thy kingdom come,” which means: O Lord, show
Thyself; manifest Thyself; Thou that sittest between
the cherubim, show Thyself; stir up Thy strength, and
come and help us ! The earth that we see does not
Satisfy us; it is but a beginning ; it is but a promise of
something beyond it—even when it is gayest, with all its
blossoms on, and shows most touchingly what lies in it ;
yet it is not enough. We know much more lies hid in it
than we see. A world of Saints and angels, a glorious
world, the palace of God, the mountain of the Lord of
Hosts, the heavenly Jerusalem, the throne of God and
Christ—all these wonders, everlasting, all-precious, myste-
rious, and incomprehensible, lie hid in what we see.
What we see is the outward shell of an eternal kingdom ;
and on that kingdom we fix the eyes of our faith. Shine
forth, O Lord, as when on Thy Nativity Thine angels
visited the shepherds: let Thy glory blossom forth as
bloom and foliage on the trees. Change with Thy mighty
power this visible world into that diviner world, which as
yet we see not. Destroy what we see, that it may pass
and be transformed into what we believe. Bright as is the
sun, and the sky, and the clouds; green as are the leaves
and the fields; sweet as is the singing of the birds, we
know that they are not all; and we will not take up with
a part for the whole. They proceed from a centre of
THE IN VIS I B L E W OR L D, I73
love and goodness, which is God Himself; but they are
not His fulness; they speak of heaven, but they are not
heaven ; they are but as Stray beams and dim reflections
of His image ; they are but Crumbs from the table.
We are looking for the coming of the day of God, when
all the outward world, fair though it be, shall perish ;
when the heavens shall be burnt, and the earth melt
away. We can bear the loss, for we know it will be but
the removal of an evil. We know that to remove the world
which is seen will be the manifestation of the world which
is not seen. We know that what we see is as a screen hiding
from us God and Christ, and His saints and angels. And
we earnestly desire and pray for the dissolution of all that
we see, from our longing after that which we do not see.
O blessed they, indeed, who are destined for a sight of
those wonders in which they now stand, at which they
now look, but which they do not recognize. Those
wonderful things of the new world are even now as they
shall be then. They are immortal and eternal ; and the
souls who shall then be made conscious of them will see
them in their calmness and their majesty where they
ever have been. But who can express the surprise and
rapture which will come upon those who, having died in
faith, wake up to enjoyment. The life then begun we know
will last for ever : yet surely if memory be to us then
what it is now, that will be a day much to be observed
* - - - -
{
I 74. M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.,
unto the Lord through all the ages of eternity. We may
increase indeed for ever in knowledge and in love ; still
that first waking from the dead, the day at once of our
birth and our espousals, will ever be endeared and hal-
lowed in our thoughts. When we find ourselves after
long rest gifted with fresh powers; vigorous with the seed
... of eternal life within us ; able to love God as we wish ;
conscious that all trouble, Sorrow, pain, anxiety, and
bereavement, is over for ever; blessed in the full affection
of those earthly friends whom we loved so poorly and
could protect so feebly, while they were with us in the
flesh; and above all, visited by the immediate, visible, in-
effable presence of God Almighty, with His only begotten
Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and His co-equal, co-eternal
Spirit, that great sight in which is the fulness of joy and
pleasure for evermore ; what deep, incommunicable, un-
innaginable thoughts will be then upon us! What depths
will be stirred up within us! What secret harmonies
awakened, of which human nature seemed incapable
Earthly words are indeed all worthless to minister to such
high anticipations. Let us close our eyes and keep
silence. “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness there-
of is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the
flower fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon
it. Surely the people is grass; the grass withereth, the
flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”
THE LAPSE OF TIME.
WE naturally shrink from the thought of death, and of
its attendant circumstances but all that is hateful
about it will be fulfilled in our case, one by one. But all
this is nothing compared with the consequences implied
in it. . Death stops us ; it stops our race. Men are
engaged about their work, or about their pleasure; they
are in the city, or the field; anyhow they are stopped ;
their deeds are suddenly gathered in—a reckoning is
made—all is sealed up till the great day. What a change
is this In the words used familiarly in speaking of the
dead, they are no more. They were full of schemes and
projects ; whether in a greater or humbler rank, they
had their hopes and fears, their prospects, their pursuits,
their rivalries ; all these are now come to an end. One
builds a house, and its roof is not finished ; another buys
merchandize, and yet it is not sold. And all their
virtues and pleasing qualities which endeared them to
their friends are, as far as this world is concerned,
176 MOR A L A N D PRA CT I CA. L.
vanished. Where are they who were so active, so
sanguine, so generous P the amiable, the modest, the
kind? We are told they are dead; they suddenly dis-
appeared ; that is all we know about it. They were
silently taken from us; they are not met in the seat of
the elders, nor in the assemblies of the people; in the
mixed concourse of men, nor in the domestic retirement
which they prized. As Scripture describes it, “The wind
has passed over them, and they are gone, and their place
shall know them no more.” And they have burst the
many ties which held them ; they were parents, brothers,
sisters, children, and friends; but the bond of kindred is
broken, and the silver cord of love is loosed. They have
been followed by the vehement grief of tears, and the
long sorrow of aching hearts; but they make no return,
they answer not ; they do not even satisfy our wish to
know that they sorrow for us as we for them. We talk
about them thenceforth as if they were persons we do
not know ; we talk about them as third persons; whereas
they used to be always with us, and every other thought
which was within us was shared by them. Or perhaps,
if our grief is too deep, we do not mention their names
at all. And their possessions, too, all fall to others.
The world goes on without them ; it forgets them. Yes,
so it is ; the world contrives to forget that men have
souls, it looks upon them all as mere parts of some great
T H E L A P S E OF TIM E. 177
visible system. This continues to move on ; to this the
world ascribes a sort of life and personality. When one
or other of its members die, it considers them only as
falling out of the system, and as come to nought. For a
minute, perhaps, it thinks of them in Sorrow, then leaves
them—leaves them for ever. It keeps its eye on things
seen and temporal. Truly whenever a man dies, rich or
poor, an immortal soul passes to judgment; but some-
how we read of the deaths of persons we have seen or
heard of, and this reflection never comes across us.
Thus does the world really cast off men's souls, and
recognizing only their bodies, it makes it appear as if
“that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts,
even one thing befalleth them ; as the one dieth so dieth
the other; yea, they have all One breath, so that a man
hath no pre-eminence over a beast, for all is vanity.”
But let us follow the course of a soul thus casting off
the world, and Cast off by it. It goes forth as a stranger
on a journey. Man seems to die and to be no more,
when he is but quitting us, and is really beginning to
live. Then he sees sights which before it did not even
enter into his mind to conceive, and the world is even
less to him than he to the world. Just now he was lying
on the bed of sickness, but in that moment of death what
an awful change has come over him What a crisis for
him . There is stillness in the room that lately held him ;
N
178 M O R A L AND P R A CT I CAL.
nothing is doing there, for he is gone, he now belongs to
others; he now belongs entirely to the Lord who bought
him; to Him he returns; but whether to be lodged
safely in His place of hope, or to be imprisoned against
the great Day, that is another matter, that depends on
the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. And
now what are his thoughts P How infinitely important
now appears the value of time, now when it is nothing to
him | Nothing; for though he spend centuries waiting
for Christ, he cannot now alter his state from bad to
good, or from good to bad. What he dieth that he must
be for ever; as the tree falleth so must it lie. This is
the comfort of the true servant of God, and the misery
of the transgressor. His lot is cast once and for all, and
he can but wait in hope or in dread. Men on their
death-beds have declared that no one could form a right
idea of the value of time till he came to die ; but if this
has truth in it, how much more truly can it be said after
death What an estimate shall we form of time while
we are waiting for judgment | Yes, it is we—all this, I
repeat, belongs to us most intimately. It is not to be
looked at as a picture, as a man might read a light book
in a leisure hour. We must die, the youngest, the healthiest,
the most thoughtless; Zwe must be thus unnaturally torn in
two, soul from body; and only united again to be made
more thoroughly happy or to be miserable for ever.
T H E L A P S E OF T I IM E. I79
Such is death considered in its inevitable necessity,
and its unspeakable importance—nor can we ensure to
ourselves any certain interval before its coming. The
time may be long; but it may also be short. It is plain
a man may die any day ; all we can say is, that it is
unlikely he will die. But of this, at least, we are certain,
that, come it sooner or later, death is continually on the
move towards us. We are ever nearer and nearer to it.
Every morning we rise we are nearer that grave in which
there is no work, nor device, than we were. Thus life is
ever crumbling away under us. What should we say to
a man, who was placed on Some precipitous ground,
which was ever Crumbling under his feet, and affording
less and less secure footing, yet was careless about it?
Or what should we say to one who suffered some
precious liquor to run from its receptacle into the
thoroughfares of men, without a thought to stop it P who
carelessly looked on and saw the waste of it becoming
greater and greater every minute P But what treasure
can equal time? It is the seed of eternity : yet we suffer
ourselves to go on, year after year, hardly using it at all
in God's service, or thinking it enough to give Him at
most a tithe or a seventh of it, while we strenuously
and heartily sow to the flesh, that from the flesh we may
reap corruption. We try how little we can safely give
to religion, instead of having the grace to give abundantly.
18o MORAL AND PRACT I CA. L.
“Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because men keep
not Thy law;” so says the Psalmist. Doubtless an
inspired prophet saw far more clearly than we can see,
the madness of men in squandering their treasure upon
sin, which is meant to buy their chief good; but if so,
what must this madness appear in God's sight ! What an
inveterate, malignant evil is it in the hearts of the sons
of men, that this leads them to sit down to eat, and
drink, and rise up to play, when time is hurrying on and
judgment Coming P. We have been told what He thinks
of man's unbelief, though we cannot enter into the depth
of His thoughts. He showed it to us in act and deed, as
far as we could receive it, when He even sent His only-
begotten Son into the world as at this time, to redeem us
from the world,—which, most surely, was not lightly
done; and we also learn His thoughts about it from the
words of that most merciful Son, which most surely
were not lightly spoken. “The wicked,” He says, “shall
go into everlasting punishment.”
Oh that there were such a heart in us that we would
fear God, and keep His commandments always But
it is of no use to speak; men know their duty—they will
not do it. They say they do not need or wish to be told
it, that it is an intrusion, and a rudeness, to tell them of
death and judgment. So it must be, and we, who
have to speak to them, must submit to them. Speak we
T H E LA PSE OF TIM E. I81
must, as an act of duty to God, whether they will hear,
or not, and then must leave our words as a witness.
Other means for rousing them we have none. We speak
from Christ our gracious Lord, their Redeemer, who has
9 already pardoned them freely, yet they will not follow
Him with a true heart; and what can be done more ?
A E/L/G/O US AA’ſ V//. EG F.S.
CHRISTIAN ITY, considered as a moral system, is
made up of two eiements, beauty and severity;
whenever either is indulged to the loss or disparagement
Of the other, evil ensues. In heathen times, Greek and
Barbarian in some sense divided these two between them ;
the latter were the slaves of dreary and cruel superstitions,
and the former abandoned themselves to a joyous poly-
theism. And so again in these latter times, the two chief
forms of heresy into which opposition to primitive truth
has developed, were remarkable, at least in their origin,
three hundred years ago, and at times since, the one for
an unrefined and self-indulgent religiousness, the other for
a stern, dark, cruel spirit, very unamiable, yet still inspir-
ing more respect than the other.
Even the Jews, to whom this earth was especially
given, and who might be supposed to be at liberty without
offence to satiate themselves in its gifts, were not allowed
to enjoy it without restraint. Even the paschal lamb,
RELIGIO U S P R IV ILE G E S. 183
their great typical feast, was eaten “with bitter herbs”
(Exod. xii. 8). And, as time went on, the Prophets were
given, who were more or less moulded after the pattern
of Elijah, in “suffering affliction and in patience,” and
were typical of the one great Prophet of the Church who
was to come. Much more are Christians to recollect, and
to rejoice, that “the brother of low degree” is to be
“exalted,” and “the rich" to be “made low ;" and that
the Apostles, whose steps we are to follow, hungered and
thirsted, and were naked, and were buffeted, and had no
certain dwelling-place, and were accounted the filth of the
world and the offscouring of all things.
Let us thus enter upon the rich and happy months
which lie before us, when the earth puts forth all her ex-
cellence, and robes herself in her bright garments, and
scatters her most precious gifts. Thus let us hallow
Rogation Sunday, which is to-day, suitably to the Church's
intention, which has made these days of abstinence attend
upon it, by way of warning us that we must not enjoy
our Father's temporal blessings without reserve. “He
visiteth the earth and blesseth it ; He maketh it very
plenteous. . . He provideth for the earth; He watereth
her furrows. He crowneth the year with His goodness,
and His clouds drop fatness” (Psalm lxv. 9-12). And
we acknowledge His bountifulness, we commemorate His
providence, we enter upon His gifts, by abstaining from
I84 M O R AL AN ID P R A CT I CA. L.
£
land in a basket (Deut. xxvi. I-II) and left it in the
them. As the Israelites brought the first-fruits of their
priest's hand before the altar of the Lord their God, so
do we in another way, but in the same spirit, begin our
thankful use of God's blessings by a prudent delay and a
lowly prayer. We deprecate wrath, we intreat mercy; as
Job sacrificed for his sons, so we for ourselves. We
remind ourselves, that though “every creature of God is
good,” we ourselves, God's Creatures, are the one excep-
tion to that rule; that though His gifts are holy and
innocent, our hearts are frail and wayward; that they are
good in the sending, yet dangerous in the taking—good
in the use, but harmful in the enjoyment. As before
meat, day by day, we say a grace and then begin, so now
do we ask a blessing on the whole year, by pausing ere
we enter upon it.
This is to feed ourselves with fear. Thus let us pro-
ceed in the use of all our privileges, and all will be
benefits. Let us not keep festivals without keeping
vigils; let us not keep Eastertide without observing
Lent ; let us not approach the Sunday feast without
keeping the Friday abstinence; let us not adorn churches
without studying personal simplicity and austereness; let
us not cultivate the accomplishments of taste and litera-
ture without the corrective of personal discomfort; let us
not attempt to advance the power of the Church, to
RELIGIO U S P R IVIL E G E S. 185
©
enthrone her rulers, to rear her palaces, and to ennoble
her name, without recollecting that she must be mortified
within while she is in honour in the world, and wear the
Baptist's hair shirt and leathern girdle under the purple
ephod and the jewelled breastplate.
And let us beware, on the other hand, of dishonouring
and rudely rejecting God’s gifts, out of gloominess or
sternness; let us beware of fearing without feasting.
“Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be
refused.” Let us beware, though it must be a sad perver-
sion of mind which admits of it, let us beware of afflict-
ing ourselves for sin, without first coming to the Gospel
for strength to do so. And let us not so plunge Ourselves
in the sense of our offences, as not withal to take delight
in the contemplation of our privileges. Let us rejoice
while we mourn. Let us look up to our Lord and
Saviour the more we shrink from the sight of ourselves ;
let us have the more faith and love the more we exercise
repentance. Let us, in our penitence, not substitute the
Law for the Gospel, but add the Law ſo the Gospel.
Those who do despite to baptismal grace fall under the
Law; but they do not fall from the Gospel, if they are
repentant; they fall under the Law without the Gospel, if
they continue in sin; they receive the Law with the
Gospel, if they return. The Law which once introduced
the Gospel, in such cases becomes its instrument. They
186 MORAL AND PR A CT I CA. L.
fall indeed under bondage, but they have the power of
Christ's grace to enable them to bear it.
And in like manner, as they must not defraud them-
selves of Christian privileges, neither need they give up
God's temporal blessings. All the beauty of nature, the
kind influences of the Seasons, the gifts of Sun and moon,
and the fruits of the earth, the advantages of civilized
life, and the presence of friends and intimates; all these
good things are but one extended and wonderful type of
God’s benefits in the Gospel. Those who aim at per-
fection will not reject the gift, but add a corrective ; they
will add the bitter herbs to the fatted calf and the music
and dancing ; they will not refuse the flowers of earth,
but they will toil in plucking up the weeds. Or if they
reſtain from one temporal blessing, it will be to reserve
another ; for this is one great mercy of God, that while
He allows us a discretionary use of His temporal gifts, He
allows a discretionary abstinence also ; and He almost
enjoins upon us the use of Some, lest we should forget
that this earth is His creation, and not of the evil one.
CUA’/OS/TV. A 7TP MP7A 7TWOAV 7TO S/AV.
NE chief cause of the wickedness which is every-
where seen in the world, and in which, alas ! each
of us has more or less his share, is our Curiosity to
have some fellowship with darkness, some experience of
sin, to know what the pleasures of sin are like. I believe
it is even thought unmanly by many persons (though
they may not like to say so in plain words), unmanly
and a thing to be ashamed of, to have no knowledge of
sin by personal experience, as if it argued a strange
seclusion from the world, a childish ignorance of life, a
singleness and narrowness of mind, and a Superstitious,
slavish fear. Not to know sin by experience brings
upon a man the laughter and jest of his companions :
nor is it wonderful this should be the Case in the
descendants of that guilty pair to whom Satan in the
beginning held out admittance into a strange world of
knowledge and enjoyment, as the reward of disobedience
to God's commandment. “When the woman saw that
188 M O R. A. L. A N D PR A CT I CA. L.
the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave unto her
husband with her, and he did eat.” A discontent with
the abundance of blessings which were given, because
something was withheld, was the sin of our first
parents : in like manner, a wanton roving after things
forbidden, a curiosity to know what it was to be as the
heathen, was the chief source of the idolatries of the
Jews; and we at this day inherit with them a like nature
from Adam.
I say curiosity strangely moves us to disobedience, in
order that we may have experience of the pleasure of
disobedience. Thus we “rejoice in our youth, and let
our hearts cheer us in the days of our youth, and walk in
the ways of our heart, and in the sight of our eyes.”
And we thus intrude into things forbidden, in various
ways; in reading what we should not read, in hearing
what we should not hear, in seeing what we should not
see, in going into Company whither we should not go, in
presumptuous reasonings and arguings when we should
have faith, in acting as if we were our own masters when
we should obey. We indulge Our reason, we indulge
our passions, we indulge our ambition, Our vanity, our
love of power; we throw ourselves into the society of
bad, worldly, or careless men ; and all the while we think
*-*
CURIOSITY A TEMPTATION To SIN. 189
that, after having acquired this miserable knowledge of
good and evil, we can return to our duty, and continue
where we left off; merely going aside a moment to shake
ourselves, as Samson did, and with an ignorance like his,
that our true heavenly strength is departed from us. -
Now this delusion arises from Satan's Craft, the father
of lies, who knows well that if he can get us once to sin,
he can easily make us sin twice and thrice, till at length
we are taken captive at his will. He sees that curiosity
is man's great and first Snare, as it was in Paradise; and
he knows that if he can but force a way into his heart by
this chief and exciting temptation, those temptations of
other kinds, which follow in life, will easily prevail over
us; and, on the other hand, that if we resist the begin-
nings of sin, there is every prospect through God's grace
that we shall continue in a religious way. His plan of
action, then, lies plain before him—to tempt us violently,
while the world is new to us, and our hopes and feelings
x
are eager and restless. | Hence is seen the Divine wisdom,
as well as the merciful consideration of the advice con-
tained in so many parts of Scripture, as in the text,
“Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not into
the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from
it, and pass away.”
jºy .
TATAE A2 RA/S E OF MEM.
O seek the praise of good men is not wrong, any
more than to love and to reverence good men ;
only wrong when it is in excess, when it interferes
with exercise of love and reverence towards God. Not
wrong while we look on good men singly as instruments
and servants of God ; or, in the words of Scripture, while
“we glorify God in them.” But to seek the praise of
bad men, is in itself as wrong as to love the company
of bad men, or to admire them. It is not, I say, merely
the love of praise that is a sin, but love of the corrupt
world's praise. This is the case with all our natural
feelings and affections; they are all in themselves good,
and implanted by God; they are sinful, because we have
in us by nature a Something more than them, namely,
an evil principle which perverts them to a bad end.
Adam, before his fall, felt, we may suppose, love, fear,
hope, joy, dislike, as we do now ; but then he felt them
Only when he ought, and as he ought ; always harmo-
T H E P R A IS E OF ME N. I9 I
niously attempered and rightly adjusted in his soul, which
was at unity with itself. But, at the fall, this beautiful
order and peace was broken up ; the same passions
remained, but their use and action were changed; they
rushed into extremes, sometimes excessive, sometimes
the reverse. Indignation was corrupted into wrath, self-
love became selfishness, Self-respect became pride, and
emulation envy and jealousy. They were at variance
with each other ; pride struggled with self-interest, fear
with desire. Thus his soul became a chaos, and needed
a new creation. Moreover, his affections were set upon
unsuitable objects. The natural man looks to this
world, the world is his god ; faith, love, hope, joy, are
not excited in his mind by things spiritual and divine,
but by things seen and temporal.
Considering, then, that love of praise is not a bad
principle in itself, it is plain that a parent may very
properly teach his child to love his praise, and fear his
blame, when that praise, and blame are given in accord-
ance with God’s praise and blame, and made subservient
to them. And, in like manner, if the world at large
took a correct and religious view of things, then its
praise and blame would in its place be valuable too.
Did the world admire what God admires; did it account
humility, for instance, a great virtue, and pride a great
sin; did it condemn that Spirit of Self-importance and
I92 MORAL AND PRACTICAL,
sensitiveness of disgrace, which calls itself a love of
honour ; did it think little of temporal prosperity, wealth,
rank, grandeur, and power ; did it Condemn arrogant
and irreverent disputing, the noisy, turbulent spirit of
ambition, the love of war and Conquest, and the perverse
temper which leads to jealousy and hatred; did it prefer
goodness and truth to gifts of the intellect; did it think
little of quickness, wit, shrewdness, power of speech and
general acquirements, and much of patience, meekness,
gentleness, firmness, faith, Conscientiousness, purity, for-
giveness of injuries, then there would be no sin in our
seeking the world's praise ; and though we still ought
to love God’s praise above all, yet we might love the
praise of the world in its degree, for it would be nothing
more nor less than the praise of good men. But since,
alas ! the contrary is the case, since the world (as Scrip-
ture tells us) “lieth in wickedness,” and the principles
and practice which prevail on all sides of us are not
those which the all-holy God Sanctions, we cannot
lawfully seek the world's praise. We cannot serve two
masters who are enemies the One to the other. We are
forbidden to love the world or anything that is of the
world, for it is not of the Father, but passeth away.
TEMPORAL ADVAN 7A GA.S.
ET me ask any one who has succeeded in any
object of his desire, has he experienced in his
Success that full, that lasting satisfaction which he anti-
cipated P Did not some feeling of disappointment, of
weariness, of Satiety, of disquietude, after a short time,
steal over his mind P I think it did ; and if so, what
reason has he to suppose that that greater share of
reputation, Opulence, and influence, which he has not,
and which he desires, would, if granted him, suffice to
make him happy P No ; the fact is certain, however
slow and unwilling we may be to believe it, none of
these things bring the pleasure which we beforehand
suppose they will bring. Watch narrowly the persons
who possess them, and you will at length discover the
same uneasiness and occasional restlessness which others
have ; you will find that there is just a something
beyond, which they are striving after, or just some one
thing which annoys and distresses them. The good
O
I94 M OR A l A N D PR A CT I CA. L.
things you admire please for the most part only while
they are new ; now those who have them are accustomed
to them, so they care little for them, and find no allevia-
tion in them of the anxieties and cares which still
remain. It is fine, in prospect and imagination, to be
looked up to, admired, applauded, courted, feared, to
have a name among men, to rule their opinions or their
actions by our word, to Create a stir by our movements,
while men cry, “Bow the knee,” before us, but none
know so well how vain is the world's praise as he who
has it. And why is this P. It is in a word, because the
soul was made for religious employments and pleasures;
and hence, that no temporal blessings, however exalted
or refined, can satisfy it. As well might we attempt to
sustain the body on chaff, as to feed and nourish the
immortal soul with the pleasures and occupations of
the world.
Much intercourse with the world, which eminence and
station render a duty, has a tendency to draw off the
mind from God, and deaden it to the force of religious
motives and considerations. There is a want of sympathy
between much business and calm devotion, great splen-
dour and a simple faith, which will be to no one more
painful than to the Christian to whom God has assigned
Some part of special responsibility and distinction. To
maintain a religious spirit in the midst of engagements
T E M POR A L ADVANT A.G. E. S. I95
and excitements of this world is possible only to a saint;
nay, the case is the same though our business be one of
a charitable and religious nature, and though our chief
intercourse is with those whom we believe to have their
minds set upon religion, and whose principles and Con-
duct are not likely to withdraw our feet from the narrow
way of life. For here we are likely to be deceived from
the very circumstance that our enjoyments are religious ;
and Our end, as being a right One, will engross us, and
continually tempt us to be inattentive to the means and
to the spirit in which we pursue it. Our Lord alludes to
the danger of multiplied occupations in the parable of
the sower : “He that received seed among thorns, is he
that heareth the word, and the cares of this world and
the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he
becometh unfruitful.”
Again, these worldly advantages, as they are called,
will seduce us into an excessive love of them. We are
too well inclined by nature to live by sight, rather than
by faith; and besides the immediate enjoyment, there is
something so agreeable to Our natural tastes in the
honours and emoluments of the world, that it requires
an especially strong mind, and a large measure of grace,
not to be gradually corrupted by them. We are led to
set our hearts upon them, and in the same degree to
withdraw them from God. We become unwilling to
196 MI O R. A. L. A. N. D. P R A CT I CA. L.
3)
leave this visible state of things, and to be reduced to a
level with those multitudes who are at present inferior to
ourselves. Prosperity is sufficient to seduce, although
not to satisfy. Hence death and judgment are unwel-
come subjects of reflection to the rich and powerful;
for death takes them from those comforts which habit has
made necessary to them, and throws them adrift on a new
order of things, of which they know nothing, save that in
it there is no respect of persons.
A SOBER MIND.
SOBER mind never enjoys God's blessings to the
full; it draws back and refuses a portion to show
its Command over itself. It denies itself in trivial cir-
cumstances, even if nothing is gained by denying but an
evidence of its own sincerity. It makes trial of its own
professions; and if it has been tempted to say anything
noble and great, or to blame another for sloth or
cowardice, it takes itself at its word, and resolves to
make some sacrifice (if possible) in little things as a price
for the indulgence of fine speaking, or as a penalty on its
censoriousness. Much would be gained if we adopted
this rule even in our professions of friendship and service
one towards another, and never said a word which we
were not willing to do.
There is only one place where the Christian allows
himself to profess openly, and that is in church. Here,
under the guidance of Apostles and Prophets, he says
many things boldly, as Speaking after them, and as
198 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
before Him who searcheth the reins. There can be no
harm in professing much directly to God, because, while
we speak, we know He sees through our professions, and
takes them for what they really are—ffrayers. How
much, for instance, do we profess when we say the
creed P and in the collects we put on the full character of
a Christian. We desire and seek the best gifts, and
declare our strong purpose to serve God with our whole
hearts. By doing this, we remind ourselves of our duty;
and withal, we humble ourselves by the taunt (so to call it)
of putting upon our dwindled and unhealthy forms those
ample and glorious garments which befit the “upright.”
and full-grown believer.
MORA / E FRECTS OF CO////UAV/OM
& W/TA GO/D.
‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require, even
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his
temple.”—PSALM xxvii. 4.
PROPOSE to make some remarks on communion
with God, or prayer in a large sense of the word :
not as regards its external consequences, but as it may
be considered to affect our own minds and hearts.
What, then, is prayer P It is (if it may be said re-
verently) conversing with God. We converse with our
fellow men, and then we use familiar language, because
they are our fellows. We converse with God, and then
we use the lowliest, awfullest, calmest, concisest lan-
guage we can, because He is God. Prayer, then, is
divine converse, differing from human as God differs from
man. Thus St. Paul says: “Our conversation is in
heaven;” not, indeed, thereby meaning converse of
words only, but intercourse and manner of living
2OO M OR A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
generally ; yet still, in an especial way, converse of
words or prayer, because language is the special means
of all intercourse. Our intercourse with our fellow men
goes on, not by sight, but by sound; not by eyes, but by
ears. Hearing is the Social sense, and language is the
social bond. In like manner, as the Christian's con-
versation is in heaven, as it is his duty, with Enoch and
other saints, to Zwalk zeyiſh God, so his voice is in heaven,
his heart “inditing of a good matter’ of prayers and
praises. Prayers and praises are the mode of his inter-
course with the next world, as the converse of business
or recreation is the mode in which this world is carried
on in all its separate courses. He who does not pray,
does not claim his citizenship with heaven, but lives,
though an heir of the kingdom, as if he were a child of
earth.
Now, it is not surprising if that duty or privilege,
which is the characteristic token of Our heavenly in-
heritance, should also have an especial influence upon
our fitness for claiming it. He who does not use a gift,
loses it ; the man who does not use his voice or limbs
loses power over them, and becomes disqualified for the
state of life to which he is called. In like manner, he
who neglects to pray, not only suspends the enjoyment,
but he is in the way to lose the possession of his divine
citizenship. We are members of another world ; we
C O M M U N I O N WIT H G O D. 2O I
have been severed from the companionship of devils,
and brought into that invisible kingdom of Christ which
faith alone discerns—that mysterious presence of God
which encompasses us, which is in us, and around us ;
which is in our heart, which enfolds us as though with a
robe of light, hiding our scarred and discoloured souls
from the sight of Divine Purity, and making them
shining as the angels; and which flows in upon us too by
means of all forms of beauty and grace which this visible
world contains, in a starry host, or, if I may so say, a
Milky Way of divine companions, the inhabitants of
Mount Zion, where we dwell. Faith, I say, alone
apprehends all this ; and yet there is something which is
not left to faith—our own tastes, likings, motives, and
habits. Of these we are Conscious in one degree, and
we can make ourselves more and more conscious ; and
as consciousness tells us what they are, reason tells us
whether they are such as become, as correspond with,
that heavenly world into which we have been translated.
I say, then, it is plain to common sense that the man
who has not accustomed himself to the language of
heaven will be no fit inhabitant of it when, on the Last
Day, it is perceptibly revealed. The case is like that of
a language, or style of Speaking, in this world ; we know
well a foreigner from a native. Again, we know those
who have been used to king's Courts or educated society
2O2 M OR AL AND PR A CT I CA. L.
from others. By their voice, accent, and language, and
not only so, by their gestures and gait, by their usages,
by their mode of conducting themselves, and their prin-
ciples of conduct, we know well what a vast difference
there is between those who have lived in good Society
and those who have not. What, indeed, is called “good
society,” is often very worthless society. I am not
speaking of it to praise it. I only mean, that as what
men call refined or courtly manners are gained only by
intercourse with courts and polished circles, and as the
influence of the words there used (that is, of the ideas
which those words, striking again and again on the ear,
convey to the mind) extends in a most subtle way over
all that men do—over the tone of their sentences, and
the tone of their questions and replies, and their general
bearing, and the spontaneous flow of their thoughts, and
their mode of viewing things, and the general maxims or
heads to which they refer them, and the motives which
determine them and their likings and dislikings, hopes
and fears, and their relative estimate of persons, and the
intensity of their perceptions towards particular objects;
so a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and
the unseen world in every season, in every place, in
every emergency (let alone its supernatural effect of pre-
vailing with God)—prayer, I say, has what may be called
a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the Soul.
C O M M UNION WITH G O D. 2O3
A man is no longer what he was before. Gradually—
imperceptibly to himself—he has imbibed a new set of
ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles. He is
as one coming from kings' Courts, with a grace, a deli-
cacy, a dignity, a propriety, a justness of thought and taste,
a clearness and firmness of principle, all his own. Such
is the power of God's secret grace acting through those
ordinances which he has enjoined us; such the evident
fitness of those ordinances to produce the results which
they set before us. As speech is the Organ of human
society, and the means of human civilization, so is prayer
the instrument of divine fellowship and divine training.
THE MIAWD OF L/TT/A2 CHILDREAV.
“Except ye be converted, and become as little children, yeshall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven.”—MATT. xviii. 3.
HE longer we live in the world, and the further
removed we are from the feelings and remembrances
of childhood (and especially if removed from the sight of
children), the more reason have we to recollect our
Lord's impressive action and words when He called a
little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of His
disciples, and said, “Verily, I say unto you, Except ye
be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And in order to
remind us of this our Saviour's judgment, the Church,
like a careful teacher, calls us back, year by year, upon
this day, from the bustle and fever of the world. She takes
advantage of the Massacre of the Innocents, recorded in
St. Matthew's Gospel, to bring before us a truth which
else we might think little of ; to sober our wishes and
hopes of this world, our high ambitious thoughts, or
T H E M I N ID OF LIT T L E C H I L ID R. E. N. 205
S.
º
\
our anxious fears, jealousies, and cares, by the picture of
the purity, peace, and contentment which are the cha-
racteristics of little children.
And independently of the benefit thus accruing to us,
it is surely right and meet thus to celebrate the death of
the Holy Innocents; for it was a blessed one. To be
brought near to Christ, and to suffer for Christ, is surely
an unspeakable privilege ; to suffer anyhow, even uncon-
sciously. The little children whom He took up in His
arms were not conscious of His loving condescension,
but was it no privilege when He blessed them P Surely
this massacre had in it the nature of a sacrament; it was
a pledge of the love of the Son of God towards those who
were encompassed by it. All who came near Him more
or less suffered by approaching Him—just as if earthly
pain and trouble went out of Him as some precious
virtue for the good of their souls—and these infants in
the number. Surely His very presence was a Sacrament;
every motion, look, and word of His Conveying grace to
those who would receive it; and much more was fellow-
A ship with Him. And hence in ancient times such bar-
\- e
barous murders and martyrdoms were considered as a
kind of baptism, a baptism of blood with a Sacramental
charm in it which stood in the place of the appointed
laver of regeneration. Let us, then, take these little
children as in some sense martyrs, and see what
2O6 M OR AL AND PR A CT I CA. L.
© .
Y
instruction we may gain from the pattern of their in-
In OCenCe. -
There is very great danger of our becoming cold-
hearted as life goes on ; afflictions which happen to us,
Cares, disappointments, all tend to blunt our affections
and make our feelings callous. That necessary self.
discipline, too, which St. Paul enjoins Timothy to practise,
tends the same way. And, again, the pursuit of wealth
especially; and much more if men so far openly transgress
the word of Almighty God, as to yield to the temptations
of sensuality. The glutton and the drunkard brutalize
their minds, as is evident. And then, further, we are
often smit with the notion of our having become greater
and more considerable persons than we were. If we are
prosperous, for instance, in worldly matters; if we rise in
the scale of (what is called) Society; if we gain a name ; if
we change our state by marriage, or in any other way, so
as to create a secret envy in the minds of our Companions;
in all these cases we shall be exposed to the temptation
of pride. The deference paid to wealth or talent com-
monly makes the possessor artificial and difficult to reach,
glossing over his mind with a spurious refinement, which
deadens feeling and heartiness. Now, after all, there is
in most men's minds a secret instinct of reverence and
affection for the days of their childhood. They cannot
help sighing with regret and tenderness when they think
T H E M I N D OF LIT T L E CHILD RE N. 2O7
of it ; and it is graciously done by Our Lord and Saviour
to avail Himself (so to say) of this principle of our nature,
and, as He employs all that belongs to it, so to turn this
also to the real health of the soul. And it is dutifully
done on the part of the Church to follow the intimation
given her by her Redeemer, and to hallow one day every
year, as if for the contemplation of His word and deed.
If we wish to affect a person, and (if so be) humble
him, what can we do better than appeal to the memory
of times past, and, above all, to his childhood? Then it
was that he came out of the hands of God, with all
lessons and thoughts of heaven freshly marked upon him.
Who can tell how God makes the soul, or how He new
makes it P. We know not. We know that, besides His
Tart in the work, it comes into the world with the taint
of sin upon it; and that even regeneration, which removes
the curse, does not extirpate the root of evil. Whether
it is created in heaven or hell, how Adam's sin is breathed
into it together with the breath of life, and how the Spirit
dwells in it, who shall inform us P But this we know full
well—we know it from our own recollection of ourselves,
and our experience of children--that there is in the
infant soul, in the first years of its regenerate state, a
discernment of the unseen world in the things that are
seen, a realization of what is sovereign and adorable, and
an incredulity and ignorance about what is transient
208 M O R A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
and changeable, which mark it as the fit emblem of the
matured Christian when weaned from things temporal,
and living in the intimate conviction of the Divine
Presence. I do not mean, of course, that a child has
any formed principle in his heart, any habits of obedience,
any true discrimination between the visible and the
unseen, such as God promises to reward, for Christ's
sake, in those who come to years of discretion. Never
must we forget that, in spite of his new birth, evil is
within him, though in its seed only; but he has this one
3 great gift, that he seems to have lately come from God's
ſu
presence, and not to understand the language of this
visible scene, or how it is a temptation, how it is a veil
interposing itself between the soul and God. The sim-
plicity of a child's ways and motions, his ready belief of
everything he is told, his artless love, his frank confidence,
his confession of helplessness, his ignorance of evil, his
inability to conceal his thoughts, his admiring without
coveting, and, above all, his reverential spirit, looking at
all things about him as wonderful, as tokens and types of
the One Invisible, are all evidence of his being lately (as
it were) a visitant in a higher state of things. I would
only have a person reflect on the earnestness and awe
with which a child listens to any description or tale ; or,
again, his freedom from that spirit of proud independence
which discovers itself in the Soul as time goes on. And
T H E M I N D OF LIT T LE CHILDREN. 209
though, doubtless, children are generally of a weak and
irritable nature, and all are not equally amiable, yet their
passions go and are over like a shower, not interfering
with the lesson we may gain to our own profit from their
ready faith and guilelessness.
The distinctness with ,which the conscience of a child
tells him the difference between right and wrong should
also be mentioned. As persons advance in life, and yield
to the temptations which come upon them, they lose this
original endowment, and are obliged to grope about by
the mere reason. If they debate whether they should
act in this way or that, and there are many considerations
of duty and interest involved in the decision, they feel
altogether perplexed. Really and truly, not from self-
deception, but really, they do not know how they ought
to act ; and they are obliged to draw out arguments and
take a great deal of pains to Come to a Conclusion. And
all this, in many cases at least, because they have lost
through sinning a guide which they originally had from
God. Hence it is that St. John, in the Epistle for the
day, speaks of Christ's undefiled servants as “following
the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” They have the
minds of children, and are able by the light within them
to decide questions of duty at Once, undisturbed by the
perplexity of discordant arguments.
In conclusion, I shall but remind you of the difference
P
2 IO M OR A L A N D P R A CT I CA. L.
on the other hand between the state of a child and that
of a matured Christian, though this difference is almost
too obvious to be noticed. St. John says, “He that
doeſh righteousness, is righteous, even as He is righteous;”
and again, “Every one that doeth righteousness is born
of Him.” Now it is plain a child’s innocence has no
share in this higher blessedness. He is but a type of
what at length is to be fulfilled in him. The chief beauty
of his mind is on its mere surface; and when, as time
goes On, he attempts to act (as is his duty to do), instantly
it disappears. It is only while he is still that he is like a
tranquil water reflecting heaven. Therefore we must not
lament that our youthful days are gone, or sigh over the
remembrance of pure pleasures and contemplations which
we cannot recall. Rather, what we were when children is a
blessed intimation, given for Our Comfort, of what God
will make us if we surrender our hearts to the guidance
of His Holy Spirit—a prophecy of good to come—a fore-
taste of what will be fulfilled in heaven. And thus it is
that a child is a pledge of immortality, for he bears upon
him in figure those high and eternal excellences in which
the joy of heaven Consists, and which would not be thus
shadowed forth by the all-gracious Creator, were they
not one day to be realized.
D O C T R IN A. L.
()
TATE WORD OAP CO/D.
“THE Voice of the Lord” is mighty in operation, the
Voice of the Lord is a glorious Voice. It is not
like some idle Sound, or a vague rumour coming at
random, and tending nowhither, but it is “the word
which goeth out of His mouth ;” it has a sacramental
power, being the instrument as well as the sign of His
will. It never can “return unto Him void,” “but it
accomplishes that which He pleases, and prospers in the
thing whereto He sends it.” Imputed righteousness
is the coming in of actual righteousness. They whom
God's sovereign voice pronounces just, forthwith become
just. He declares a fact, and makes it a fact by declar-
ing it. He imputes, not a name, but a substantial word,
which being “ingrafted ” in our own hearts, “is able to
save our souls.”
God's word, I say, effects what it announces. This is
its characteristic all through Scripture. Thus in the
beginning He said, “Let there be light, and there was
2I4. DOCTR IN A L.
light.” Word and deed went together in creation; and
so again “in the regeneration,” “The JCord gave the
Word, great was the company of the preachers.” So
again in His miracles: He called Lazarus from the grave,
and the dead arose ; He said, “Be thou cleansed,” and
the leprosy departed; He rebuked the winds and waves,
and they were still ; He commanded the evil spirits, and
they fled away; He said to St. Peter and St. Andrew,
St. John, St. James, and St. Matthew, “Follow me,” and
they arose, for “His word was with power ;" and so
again in the Sacraments His word is the consecrating
principle. As He “blessed” the loaves and fishes, and
they multiplied, so He “blessed and brake’ and the
bread became His body. Further, His voice is the
instrument of destruction as well as of creation. As He
- “upholds all things by the word of His power,” so “at
the voice of the archangel and the trump of God,” the
visible world will dissolve ; and as His “voice” formerly
“shook the earth,” so once more “the Lord shall roar
out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem, and the
heaven and the earth shall shake.”
It would seem, then, in all cases, that God's word is
the instrument of His deed. When, then, He solemnly
utters the command, “Let the soul be just,” it becomes
just. By what medium or in what manner, is a further
question not now to be discussed. Here it will be more
T H E W ORD OF GO D. 215
in place to mention another analogy in God's dealings
with us, which is instanced in the process of justification;
I mean the mode in which prophecy is introduced in
Scripture, and the purposes it is made answer in sacred
history. It has been noticed before now, as a cha-
racteristic of Scripture prophecy, that it precedes and
introduces into the world the great providences of God’s
mercy. When He would set apart a family or people
for some extraordinary end, He reveals His purposes in
the case of the first father of the line. He puts His
word upon it in its origin, and seals up for it its destinies
in that word, which, like some potent charm, works
secretly towards the proposed end. Thus when the
chosen people were to be formed, Almighty God not
only chose Abraham, but spoke over him the promises
which in due time were to be accomplished. The
twelve tribes had each its own character and history
stamped on it from the first. When the royal line of the
Messiah was to be begun in Judah and renewed in
David, on each patriarch in turn did Providence inscribe
a prediction of what was to be. Such as this is justifica-
tion as regards an individual. It is a sort of prophecy,
recognising God's hidden election, announcing His pur-
poses before the event, and mysteriously working towards
their fulfilment; even “the oath which He sware * to us,
“more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the
2I6 D O C T R IN A L.
immutability of His counsel,” “that we might have a
strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold
upon the hope set before us.” And in thus openly
setting forth what is secretly in course of Operation, it is
an appointment especially characteristic of that Super-
natural system which we called revealed religion. As
God conducts His Scripture dispensations by prophecy,
and anticipates nature by miracle, so does He in a
parallel way operate upon our hearts through justifica-
tion.
THE 7TA/O UGAZT OF GO/D THAE STA Y OF
TAZA, SO OZ.
“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye
have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father.”—ROM. viii. 15.
HEN Adam fell, his soul lost its true strength ,
he forfeited the inward light of God's presence,
and became the wayward, fretful, excitable, and miser-
able being which his history has shown him to be ever
since ; with alternate strength and feebleness, nobleness
and meanness, energy in the beginning and failure in the
end. Such was the state of his soul in itself, not to
speak of the Divine wrath upon it which followed, or was
involved in the Divine withdrawal. It lost its spiritual
life and health which was necessary to complete its
nature, and to enable it to fulfil the ends for which it was
created—which was necessary both for its moral in-
tegrity and its happiness; and as if faint, hungry, or sick,
it could no longer stand upright, but Sank on the
ground ! Such is the state in which every one of us lies
218 D O C T R IN A L.
\.
as born into the world; and Christ has come to reverse
this state, and restore us the great gift which Adam lost
in the beginning. Adam fell from his Creator's favour
to be a bond-servant; and Christ has come to set us free
again, to impart to us the Spirit of adoption, whereby we
become God's children, and again approach Him as our
Father.
I say, by birth we are in a state of defect and want;
we have not all that is necessary for the perfection of
our nature. As the body is not complete in itself, but
requires the Soul to give it a meaning, so again the soul,
till God is present with it and manifested in it, has
faculties and affections without a ruling principle, object,
or purpose. Such it is by birth, and this, Scripture
signifies to us by many figures; Sometimes calling human
nature blind, sometimes hungry, sometimes unclothed ; and
calling the gift of the Spirit light, health, food, warmth,
and raiment; all by way of teaching us what our real state
is, and what our gratitude should be to Him who has
brought us into a new state. For instance : “Because
thou Sayest, I am rich and increased in goods, and have
need of nothing; and knowest not that thou artwretched,
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I
counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou
mayest be rich ; and white raiment, that thou mayest be
clothed, . . . and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that
T H E S T A Y O F T H E S O U L. 2 I9
thou mayest see.” Again : “God who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts,
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in
the face of Jesus Christ.” Again : “Awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee light.”
Now the doctrine which these passages contain is
often truly expressed thus: that the soul of man is made
for the Contemplation of its Maker, and that nothing
short of that high Contemplation is its happiness; that
whatever it may possess besides, it is dissatisfied till it is
vouchsafed God’s presence, and lives in the light of it.
I say, then, that the happiness of the soul consists in the
exercise of the affections; not in sensual pleasures; not
in activity; not in excitement; not in self-esteem ; not in
the Consciousness of power; not in knowledge. In none
of these things lies our happiness, but in our affections
being elicited, employed, supplied. As hunger and thirst,
as taste, sound, and Smell are the channels through
which this bodily frame receives pleasure, so the affections
are the instruments by which the soul has pleasure.
When they are exercised duly, they are happy; when
they are undeveloped, restrained, or thwarted, it is not
happy. This is our real and true bliss—not to know,
or to affect, or to pursue ; but to love, to hope, to joy, to
admire, to revere, to adore. Our real and true bliss
22O D O C T R IN A L.
º
iies in the possession of those objects on which our
hearts may rest and be satisfied.
Now, if this be so, here is at once a reason for saying
that the thought of God, and nothing short of it, is the
happiness of man; for though there is much besides to
serve as subject of excitement, yet the affections require
a Something more vast and more enduring than anything
created. What is novel and sudden, exalts, but does not
influence. What is pleasurable or useful raises no awe;
self moves no reverence, and mere knowledge kindles no
love. He alone is sufficient for the heart who made it.
I do not say, of Course, that nothing short of the
Almighty Creator can awaken and answer to our love,
reverence, and trust ; man can do this for man. Man
doubtless is an object to rouse his brother's love, and
repays it in his measure. Nay, it is a great duty, one of
the two chief duties of religion, thus to be minded
towards our neighbour. But I am not speaking here of
what we can do, or Ought to do, but what it is our hap
piness to do ; and Surely it may be said that though the
love of the brethren, the love of all men, be one half of
our obedience, yet exercised by itself, were that possible,
which it is not, it were no part of our reward. And for
this reason, if for no other, that our hearts require some-
thing more permanent and uniform than man can be.
We gain much for a time from fellowship with each
T H E STAY OF T H E S O U L. 22 I
*º-º-º:
other. It is a relief to us, as fresh air to the fainting, or
meat and drink to the hungry, or a flood of tears to the
heavy in mind. It is a Soothing comfort to have those
whom we may make Our Confidants; a Comfort to have
those to whom we may confess our faults ; a comfort to
have those to whom we may look for sympathy. Love
of home and family in these and other ways is sufficient
to make this life tolerable to the multitude of men,
which otherwise it would not be ; but still, after all, our
affections exceed such exercise of them, and demand
what is more stable. Do not all men die P Are they
not taken from us? Are they not as uncertain as the
grass of the field P. We do not give our hearts to things
inanimate, because these have no permanence in them.
We do not place our affections in Sun, moon, and stars,
or this rich and fair earth, because all things material
come to nought, and vanish like day and night. Man,
too, though he has an intelligence within him, yet in his
best estate is altogether vanity. If our happiness Con-
sists in our affections being employed and recompensed,
“man that is born of a woman’ cannot be our happiness;
for how can he stay another who continueth not in One
stay himself?
But there is another reason why God alone is the
happiness of our souls, to which I wish rather to direct
attention. The contemplation of Him, and nothing but
222 D O C T R IN A L.
Q
it, is able fully to open and relieve the mind, to unlock,
occupy, and fix our affections. We may indeed love
things created with great intenseness; but such affection,
when disjoined from the love of the Creator, is like a
stream running in a narrow channel, impetuous, ve-
hement, turbid. The heart runs out, as it were, only at
One door ; it is not an expanding of the whole man.
Created natures cannot open us, or elicit the ten
thousand mental senses which belong to us, and through
which we really live. None but the presence of our Maker
can enter us; for to none besides can the whole heart in
- all its thoughts and feelings be unlocked and subjected.
“Behold,” He says, “I stand at the door and knock; if
any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in
to him and sup with him, and he with Me.” “My Father
will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our
abode with him.” “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into your hearts.” “God is greater than our heart,
and knoweth all things.” It is this feeling of simple
and absolute Confidence and Communion which soothes
and satisfies those to whom it is vouchsafed. We
know that even our nearest friends enter into us but par-
tially, and hold intercourse with us only at times : where-
as the consciousness of a perfect and enduring Presence,
and it alone, keeps the heart open, Withdraw the object
on which it rests, and it will relapse again into its state
T H E STAY OF T H E S O U L. 223
tº)
of Confinement and Constraint; and in proportion as it is
limited either to certain seasons or to certain affections
the heart is straitened and distressed. If it be not over
bold to say it, He who is infinite can alone be its
measure ; He alone can answer to the mysterious as-
Semblage of feelings and thoughts which it has within it.
“There is no creature which is not manifest in His sight,
but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him
with whom we have to do.”
I have been saying that our happiness consists in the
Contemplation of God;—-only such a Contemplation is
capable of accompanying the mind always and every-
where, for God alone can be always and everywhere
present; and that what is commonly said about the
happiness of a good conscience confirms this. For what is
it to have a good conscience, when we examine the force
of our words, but to be ever reminded of God by our own
hearts, to have our hearts in Such a state as to be led
thereby to look up to Him, and to desire His eye to be
upon us through the day ? It is the feeling attendant in the
case of holy men on the contemplation of Almighty God.
But, again, this sense of God's presence is not only the
ground of the peace of a good conscience, but of the peace
of repentance also. At first sight it may seem strange how
repentance can have in it anything of comfort and peace.
The Gospel, indeed, promises to turn all sorrow into joy.
t
ſ
*-i-º-º-º-º-º: sº *-m-m-sº-sº-sº - -
*
224 D O C T R IN A. L.
It makes us take pleasure in desolateness, weakness, and
Contempt. “We glory in tribulations also,” says the
Apostle, “ because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” It
destroys anxiety: “Take no thought for the morrow, for
the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”
It bids us take comfort under bereavement : “I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, Concerning them which
are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have
no hope.” But if there be one sorrow which might seem
to be unmixed misery, if there be one misery left under
the Gospel, the awakened sense of having abused the
Gospel might have been considered that one. And,
again, if there be a time when the presence of the Most
High would at first sight seem to be intolerable, it would
be then, when the consciousness vividly bursts upon us,
that we had ungratefully rebelled against Him. Yet so
it is that true repentance cannot be without the thought
of God. It has the thought of God, for it seeks Him;
and it seeks Him because it is quickened with love, and
even sorrow must have a sweetness if love be in it. For
what is it to repent, but to surrender ourselves to God for
pardon or punishment; as loving His presence for its
own sake, and accounting Chastisement from Him better
than rest and peace from the world P. While the prodigal
son remained among the Swine he had sorrow enough,
T H E STAY OF THE SO U L. 225
but no repentance, remorse only; but repentance led
him to rise and go to his father, and to confess his sins.
Thus he relieved his heart of its misery, which before was
like some hard and fretful tumour weighing upon it. .
On the other hand, remorse, or what the apostle calls
“the sorrow of the world,” worketh death. Instead of
coming to the Fount of Life, to the God of all consola-
tion, remorseful men feed on their own thoughts, without
any confidant of their sorrow. They disburthen them-
selves to no one ; to God they will not, to the world they
cannot confess; the world will not attend to their con-
fession; it is a good associate, but it cannot be an inti-
mate. It cannot approach us or stand by us in trouble ;
it is no paraclete; it leaves all our feelings buried within
us, either tumultuous, or at best dead; it leaves us
gloomy or obdurate. Such is our state while we live in
the world, whether we be in sorrow or in joy. We are
pent up within ourselves, and are therefore miserable.
Perhaps we may not be able to analyze our misery, or
even to realise it, as persons oftentimes who are in bodily
sicknesses. We do not know, perhaps, what or where
our pain is ; we are so used to it that we do not call it
pain. Still it is so ; we need a relief to our hearts, that
they may be dark and sullen no longer, or that they may
not go on feeding upon themselves. We need to escape
from ourselves to something beyond; and much as we
Q
226 D O C T R IN A L.
may wish it otherwise, and may try to make idols to our-
selves, nothing short of God's presence is our true refuge;
everything else is either a mockery, or but an expedient
useful for its season or in its measure.
How miserable then is he who does not practically
know this great truth ! Year aſter year he will be a more
unhappy man, or at least he will emerge into a maturity
of misery at Once when he passes out of this world of
shadows into that kingdom where all is real. He is at
present attempting to Satisfy his soul with that which is
not bread, or he thinks the soul can thrive without
nourishment. He fancies he can live without an object.
He fancies that he is sufficient for himselſ; or he sup-
poses that knowledge is sufficient for his happiness; or
that exertion, or that the good opinion of others, or
what is called fame, or that the comforts and luxuries
of wealth are sufficient for him. What a truly wretched
state is that Coldness and dryness of soul in which so
many live and die, high and low, learned and unlearned
Many a great man, many a peasant, many a busy man
lives and dies with closed heart, with affections unde-
veloped, unexercised. You see the poor man passing
day after day, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, with-
out a thought in his mind, to appearance almost like a
stone. You see the educated man, full of thought, full of
intelligence, full of action, but still with a stone heart as
T H E STAY OF T H E S O U L. 227
Þ
Cold and dead as regards his affections as if he were the
poor ignorant Countryman. You see others, with warm
affections, perhaps, for their families, with benevolent
feelings towards their fellow-men, yet stopping there,
Centering their heart on what is sure to fail them, as
being perishable. Life passes, riches fly away, popularity
is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes, friends die.
One alone is constant; One alone is true to us; One alone
can be true; One alone can be all things to us ; One alone
Can Supply our needs ; One alone can train us up to our
full perfection ; One alone can give a meaning to our
Complex and intricate nature ; One alone can give us tune
and harmony; One alone can form and possess us. Are
we allowed to put ourselves under His guidance P This
Surely is the only question. Has He really made us His
children, and taken possession of us by His Holy Spirit?
Are we still in His kingdom of grace, in spite of our sins P
The question is not whether we should go, but whether
He will receive. And we trust that, in spite of our sins,
He will receive us still, every one of us, if we seek His
face in love unfeigned and holy fear. Let us then
do our part, as He has done His, and much more. Let
us say with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but
Thee? and there is none upon earth I desire in Com-
parison of Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but
God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
AO/D// V S UAEA'Aº R//VG.
“I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh,
for His body's sake, which is the Church.”—COL. i. 24-
HE gospel which has shed light in so many ways
upon the state of the world has aided especially our
view of the sufferings to which human nature is subjected ;
turning a punishment into a privilege, in the case of all
pain, and especially of bodily pain, which is the most
mysterious of all. Sorrow, anxiety, and disappointment
are more or less connected with sin and sinners ; but
bodily pain is involuntary for the most part, stretching
over the world by some external irresistible law, reaching
to children who have never actually sinned, and to the
brute animals, who are strangers to Adam's nature; while
in its manifestations it is far more piteous and distressing
than any other suffering. It is the lot of all of us sooner
or later ; and that perhaps in a measure which it
would be appalling and wrong to anticipate, whether
from disease or from the casualties of life. And all of us
B O DI LY SU FF ER IN G. 229
()
ſº
at length must die; and death is generally ushered in by
disease, and ends in that separation of Soul and body
which itself may, in Some cases, involve peculiar pain.
Worldly men put such thoughts aside as gloomy: they
can neither deny nor avert the prospect before them :
and they are wise, on their own principles, not to
embitter the present by anticipating it. But Christians
may bear to look at it without undue apprehension; for
this very infliction, which most touches the heart and
imagination, has (as I have said) been invested by
Almighty God with a new and comfortable light, as
being the medium of His choicest mercies towards us.
Pain is no longer a Curse, a necessary evil to be under-
gone with a dry submission or a passive endurance. It
may be considered even as a blessing of the Gospel, and
being a blessing, admits of being met either well or ill.
In the way of nature, indeed, it seems to shut out the
notion of duty, as if so masterful a discipline from without
superseded the necessity or opportunity of Self-mastery.
But now that “Christ hath suffered in the flesh,” we are
bound “to arm ourselves with the same mind,” and to
obey, as He did, amid suffering.
Now, as to the effect of pain upon the mind, let it be
well understood that it has no Sanctifying influence in
itself. Bad men are made worse by it. This should be
borne in mind, lest we deceive ourselves; for sometimes
23O D O C T R IN A L.
we speak (at least the poor often so speak) as though
present hardship or suffering were in some sense a ground
of Confidence in ourselves as to our future prospects,
whether as expiating our sins or bringing our hearts
nearer to God. Nay, even the more religious among us
may be misled to think that pain makes them better
than it really does ; for the effect of it at length, on any
but very proud or ungovernable tempers, is to cause a
languor and composure of mind, which looks like resig-
nation, while it necessarily throws our reason upon the
especial thought of God, our only stay in Such times of
trial. Doubtless it does really benefit the Christian, and
in no scanty measure ; and he may thank God who thus
blesses it. Only let him be cautious of measuring his
spiritual state by the particular exercise of faith and love
in his heart at the time, especially if that exercise be
limited to the affections themselves, and have no oppor-
tunity of showing itself in work. St. Paul speaks of chas-
tisement “yielding afterwards the peaceable fruit of right-
eousness,” formed indeed, and ripened at the moment, but
manifested in due season. This may be the real fruit of
the suffering of a death-bed, even though it may not
have time to show itself to others before the Christian
departs hence. Surely we may humbly hope that it
perfects habits hitherto but partially formed, and blends
the several graces of the spirit more entirely. Such is
B O DILY SU F FE RIN G. 23 I
)
the issue of it in established Christians; but it may
probably effect nothing so blessed. Nay, in the case of
those who have followed Christ with but a half heart, it
may be a trial too strong for their feebleness, and may
overpower them. This is a dreadful reflection for those
who put off the day of repentance. Well does our
Church pray for us: “Suffer us not, at our last hour, for
any pains of death to fall from Thee l’ As for unbe-
lievers, we know how it affects them, from such serious
passages of Scripture as the following : “They gnawed
their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of
heaven because of their pains and their sores, and
repented not of their deeds” (Rev. xvi. Io, II).
Nay, I would go so far as to say, not only that pain
does not commonly improve us, but that without care it
has a strong tendency to do Our Souls harm ; viz., by making
us selfish, an effect produced even when it does us good
in other ways. Weak health, for instance, instead of
opening the heart, often makes a man Supremely careful
of his bodily ease and well-being. Men find an excuse
in their infirmities for some extraordinary attention to
their comforts ; they consider they may fairly consult, on
all occasions, their own convenience rather than that
of another ; they indulge their wayward wishes, allow
themselves in indolence when they really might exert
themselves, and think they may be fretful because they
232 D O CT R IN A L,
-
are weak; they become querulous, self-willed, fastidious,
and egotistical. Bystanders, indeed, should be very
Cautious of thinking any particular sufferer to be thus
minded, because, after all, sick people have a multitude of
feelings which they cannot explain to any one else, and
are often in the right in those matters in which they
appear to others most fanciful or unreasonable. Yet
this does not interfere with the correctness of my remark
on the whole.
The natural effect then, of pain and fear, is to indivi.
dualize us in Our Own minds, to fix our thoughts on our-
selves, to make us selfish. It is through pain, chiefly, that
we realize to ourselves even our bodily organs; a frame
entirely without painful sensations is (as it were) one whole
without parts, and prefigures that future spiritual body which
shall be the portion of the Saints. And to this we most
approximate in our youth, when we are not sensible that
we are compacted of gross terrestrial matter, as advancing
years convince us. The young reflect little upon them-
selves, they gaze around them, and live out of doors,
and say they have Souls, little understanding their words.
“They rejoice in their youth.” This, then, is the effect
of suffering, that it arrests us ; that it, as it were, puts a
finger upon us to ascertain for us our own individuality.
But it does no more than this. If such a warning does
not lead us, through the stirrings of our conscience,
TX O DILY SU FFE RIN G. 233
heavenwards, it does but imprison us in ourselves and
make us selfish.
Here then it is that the gospel finds us. Heirs to a
visitation which, Sooner or later, Comes upon us, turning
our thoughts from outward objects, and so tempting us
to idolize self, to the dishonour of that God whom we
ought to worship, and the neglect of man, whom we
should love as ourselves. Thus it finds us, and it
obviates this danger, not by removing pain, but by
giving it new associations. Pain, which by nature
leads us only to ourselves, Carries on the Christian mind
from the thought of self to the contemplation of Christ,
His passion, His merits, and His pattern ; and thence,
further to that united company of Sufferers who follow
Him, and “are what He is in this world.” He is the
great object of our faith ; and while we gaze upon
Him we learn to forget ourselves.
No one chooses evil for its own sake, but for the
greater good wrought out through it. Jesus underwent
it for ends greater than the immediate removal of it.
“Not grudgingly or of necessity,” but cheerfully doing
God’s will, as the Gospel history sets before us. When
His time was come, we are told, “He steadfastly set His
face to go to Jerusalem.” His disciples said, “Master,
the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou
thither again P’’ but He persisted. Again, He said to
234 D O C T R IN A L.
Judas, “What thou doest, do quickly.” He proceeded
to the garden beyond Cedron, though Judas knew the
place ; and when the band of officers came to seize Him,
“He went forth and said unto them, I am He.” And
with what calmness and majesty did He bear His suffer-
ings when they came upon Him, though by His agony
in the garden. He showed He fully felt their keenness
The Psalmist, in his prediction of them, says, “I am
poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax, it is melted ;” describing, as it
would seem, that sinking of spirit and enfeebling of nerve
which severe pain causes. Yet, in the midst of distress
which seemed to preclude the opportunity of obedience,
He asked questions of the doctors in the Temple; not
thinking to be merely passive under the trial, but ac-
counting it as if a great occasion for a noble and severe
Surrender of Himself to His Father's will. Thus He
“learned obedience by the things that He suffered.”
Consider the deep and serene compassion which led Him
to pray for those who crucified Him; His solicitous care
of His mother ; and His pardoning words addressed to
the robber who suffered with Him. And so, when He
said, “It is finished,” He showed that He was still con-
a templating with a clear intellect “the travail of His soul,
and was satisfied ;” and in the solemn surrender of Him-
self into His Father's hand He showed where His mind
B O DILY SU FF ER IN G. 235
rested in the midst of its darkness. Even when He
seemed to be thinking of Himself, and said, “I thirst,”
He really was regarding the words of prophecy, and was
bent on vindicating, to the very letter, the divine an-
nouncements concerning Him. Thus, upon the cross
itself, we discern in Him the mercy of a divine Messenger
from heaven, the love and grace of a Saviour, the dutiful-
ness of a son, the faith of a created nature, and the zeal
of a servant of God. His mind was stayed upon His
Father's sovereign will and infinite perfections, yet could
pass, without effort, to the claim of filial duty or the
need of an individual sinner. Six out of His seven last
words were words of faith and love. For one instant a
horrible dread overwhelmed Him, when He seemed to
ask why God had forsaken Him. Doubtless “that voice
was for our sakes,” as when He made mention of His
thirst; and, like the other, was taken from inspired
prophecy. Perhaps it was intended to set before us an
example of a special trial to which human nature is
subject, whatever was the real and inscrutable manner of
it in Him, who was all along supported by an inherent
divinity; I mean the trial of sharp agony hurrying the
mind on to vague terrors, and strange, inexplicable
thoughts, and is, therefore, graciously recorded for our
benefit in the history of His death, “Who was tempted
in all points, like as we are, yet without sin.”
236 D O C T R IN A. L.
Such, then, were our Lord's sufferings, voluntarily
undergone, and ennobled by an active obedience ; them-
selves the centre of our hopes and worship, yet borne,
without thought of self, towards God and for man. And
who among us habitually dwells upon them but is led,
without deliberate purpose, by the very warmth of grati-
tude and of adoring love, to attempt bearing his own
inferior trials in the same heavenly mind? Who does
not see, that to bear pain well is to meet it courageously ;
not to shrink or waver, but to pray for God's help, then
to look at it steadfastly, to summon what nerve we have
of mind or body to receive its attack, and to bear up
against it (while strength is given us) as against some
visible enemy in close combat? Who will not acknow-
ledge that when sent to us we must make its presence (as
s it were) our own voluntary act, by the cheerful and ready
concurrence of our own will with the will of God? N ay,
who is there but must own, with Christ's sufferings before
us, pain and tribulation are after all not only the most
blessed, but even the most congruous attendants upon
those who are called to inherit the benefit of them P
Most congruous, I Say; not as though necessary, but as
most natural and befitting, harmonizing most fully with
the main object in the group of sacred wonders on which
the Church is called to gaze. Who, on the other hand,
does not at least perceive that all the glare and gaudiness
B O DILY SU FF ER IN G. 237
of this world, its excitements, its keenly-pursued goods,
its successes and its transports, its pomp and its luxuries,
are not in character with that pale and solemn scene
which faith must ever have in its eye P What Christian
will not own that to “ reign as kings,” and to be “full,”
is not his calling ; so as to derive comfort in the hour of
sickness, or bereavement, or other affliction, from the
thought that he is now in his own place, if he be Christ's,
in his true home, the sepulchre in which his Lord was
laid. So deeply have His saints felt this, that, when
times were peaceful and the Church was in Safety, they
could not rest in the lap of ease, and have secured to
themselves hardnesses, lest the world should corrupt
them. They could not bear to see the much-enduring
Paul adding to his necessary tribulations a self-inflicted
chastisement of the flesh, and yet allow themselves to live
delicately and fare sumptuously every day. They saw
the image of Christ reflected in tears and blood in the
glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship
of the prophets, and the noble army of martyrs. They
read in prophecy of the doom of the Church, as “a
woman fed by God in the wilderness,” and her wit-
nesses as “clothed in sackcloth ;” and they could not
believe they were meant for nothing more but to enjoy
the pleasures of this life, however innocent and moderate
might be their use of them. Without deciding about their
238 D O C T R IN A. L.
neighbours, they felt themselves called to higher things;
their own sense of the duty became the sanction and
witness of it. They considered that God at least would
afflict them in His love, if they spared themselves ever
so much. The thorn in the flesh, the buffetings of Satan,
the bereavement of their eyes, these were their portion ;
and in common prudence, were there no higher thought,
they could not live out of time and measure with these
expected visitations. With no superstitious alarms, or
cowardly imagination, or senseless hurrying into diffi-
culty or trial, but calmly, and in faith, they surrendered
themselves into His hands who had told them in His
inspired Word that affliction was to be their familiar
food; till at length they gained that distaste for the
luxuries of life as to be impatient of them from their
very fulness of grace. It was the temper too of such of
the apostles as were removed more than their brethren
from the world's buffetings, as if the prospect of suffer-
ing afterwards were no dispensation for a present self-
inflicted discipline, or rather demanded it. St. James the
Less was Bishop of Jerusalem, and was highly venerated
for his uprightness by the unbelieving Jews, among whom
he lived unmolested. We are told that he drank no
wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat any animal food,
nor indulge in the luxury of the bath. “So often was
he in the Temple on his knees, that they were thin and
BODILY SUFFER IN G. 239
hard by his continual supplication.” Thus he kept his
“loins girded about, and his lamp burning,” for the
blessed martyrdom which was to end his course. Could
it be otherwise P. How could the great apostle, sitting
at home by his Lord's decree, “nourish his heart,” as he
calls it, “as for the slaughter.” How could he eat and
drink and live as other men, when “the Ark, and
Israel, and Judah, were in tents,” encamped in the open
fields, and one by one God’s chosen warriors were
falling before the brief triumph of Satan . How could
he be “delicate on the earth, and wanton,” when Paul
and Barnabas, Peter too, and John, were in stripes and
prisons, in labours and perils, in hunger and thirst, in
cold and nakedness | Stephen had led the army of
martyrs in Jerusalem itself, which was his own post of
service. James, the brother of John, had followed him in
the same city ; he first of the apostles tasting Our Lord's
cup who had unwittingly asked to drink it. And if this
was the feeling of the apostles when in temporary Safety,
why is it not ours, who altogether live at ease, except
that we have not faith enough to realize what is past P
Could we see the cross upon Calvary, and the list of
sufferers who resisted unto blood in the times that
followed it, is it possible that we should feel surprised
when pain overtook us, or impatience at its continuance?
Is it strange though we are Smitten by ever so new a
24O D O C T R IN A L.
*-*.
plague P Is it grievous that the Cross presses on One
nerve or limb ever so many years, till hope of relief is
gone? Is it indeed not possible, with the apostle, to
rejoice in “bearing in our body the marks of the Lord
Jesus?” And much more can we, for very shame's sake,
suffer ourselves to be troubled at what is but ordinary
pain, to be irritated or saddened, made gloomy or
anxious, by inconveniences which never could surprise or
unsettle those who had studied and understood their
place as servants of a crucified Lord P
Let us then determine with cheerful hearts to sacrifice
unto the Lord Our God our comforts, and pleasures,
however innocent, when He calls for them, whether for
the purpose of His Church, or in His own inscrutable
Providence. Let us lend to Him a few short hours of
present ease, and we shall receive our own with abundant
usury in the day of His coming. There is a treasury in
heaven stored with such offerings as the natural man
abhors ; with sighs and tears, wounds and blood, torture
and death. The martyrs first began the contribution,
and we all may follow them—all of us; for every suffering,
great or little, may, like the widow's mite, be sacrificed in
faith to Him who sent it. Christ gave us the words of
consecration, when He for an ensample said, “Thy will
be done.” Henceforth, as the apostle speaks, we may
“glory in tribulation,” as the Seed of future glory.
B O DILY SU F FE RIN G. 24I
Meanwhile, let us never forget in all we suffer, that,
properly speaking, our own sin is the cause of it, and it
is only by Christ's mercy that we are allowed to range
ourselves at His side. We who are children of wrath,
are made through Him children of grace ; and Our pains,
which are in themselves but foretastes of hell, are changed
by the sprinkling of His blood into a preparation for
heaven. ...
i{
TAZAZ ////V/STA’ V OA. AAVG EZ S.
“Who maketh His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire.”—
PSALM civ. 4.
HERE have been ages of the world in which men
have thought too much of angels, and paid them
excessive honour ; honoured them so perversely as to
forget the supreme worship due to Almighty God. This
is the sin of a dark age. But the sin of what is called an
º, educated age, such as Our Own, is just the reverse : to ac-
count slightly of them, or not at all ; to ascribe all we see
around us, not to their agency, but to certain assumed
laws of nature. This, I say, is likely to be our sin in
proportion as we are initiated into the learning of this
world; and this is the danger of many (so called) phi-
losophical pursuits, now in fashion, and recommended
zealously to the notice of large portions of the community
hitherto strangers to them—chemistry, geology, and the
like ; the danger, that is, of resting in things seen and
forgetting unseen things, and an ignorance about them.
T H E M IN IS T R Y O F A N G E L S. 243
T
I will attempt to say what I mean more at length.
The text informs us that Almighty God makes His
angels spirits or winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.
Let us consider what is implied in this.
What a number of beautiful and wonderful objects
does nature present on every side of us, and how
little we know concerning them | In some, indeed
we see symptoms of intelligence, and we get to form
some idea of what they are. For instance, the brute
animals we know little, but still we see they have sense,
and we understand that their bodily form which meets
the eye is but the index—the outside token of something
we do not see. Much more in the case of men. We see
them move, speak, and act, and we know that all we see
takes place in consequence of their will, because they
have a spirit within them, though we do not see it. But
why do rivers flow P Why does rain fall? Why does
the sun warm us? And the wind, why does it blow
Here our natural reason is at fault. We know, I Say, that
it is the spirit in man and in beast that makes man and
beast move; but reason tells us of no spirit abiding in
what is commonly called the natural world, to make it
perform its ordinary duties. Of course it is Goa's will
which sustains it all; so does God's will enable us to move
also. Yet this does not hinder that, in One sense, we
may be truly said to move ourselves. But how do the wind
244 D O CT R IN A. L.
and water, earth and fire, move P Now here Scripture
interposes, and seems to tell us that all this wonderful
harmony is the work of angels. Those events which we
ascribe to chance, as the weather, or to Nature, as the
seasons, are duties done to that God who maketh His
angels to be winds and His ministers a flame of fire, For
example, it was an angel which gave to the pool at
Bethesda its medicinal quality; and there is no reason
why we should doubt that other health-Springs in this and
other countries are made such by a like unseen ministry.
The fires on Mount Sinai, the thunders and lightnings,
were the work of angels; and in the Apocalypse we read
of the angels restraining the four winds. Works of
vengeance are likewise attributed to them. The fiery
lava of the volcanoes, which (as it appears) was the
cause of Sodom and Gomorrah's ruin, was caused by the
two angels who rescued Lot. The hosts of Sennacherib
were destroyed by an angel, by means (it is supposed) of
a suffocating wind. The pestilence in Israel, when
David numbered the people, was the work of an angel.
The earthquake at the resurrection was the work of an
angel. And in the Apocalypse the earth is smitten in
various ways by angels of vengeance.
Thus, as far as the Scripture communications go, we
learn that the course of Nature, which is so wonderful,
so beautiful, and so fearful, is effected by the ministry
T H E M IN IS T R Y OF A N G E L S. 245
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of these unseen beings. Nature is not inanimate ; its
daily toil is intelligent; its works are duties. Accordingly,
the Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament showeth His handywork.” “O Lord,
Thy word endureth for ever in heaven. Thy truth also
remaineth from one generation to another. Thou hast
laid the foundation of the earth, and it abideth. They
continue this day according to Thine ordinance, for all
things serve Thee.”
I do not pretend to say that we are told in Scripture
what Matter is; but I affirm, that as our souls move our
bodies, be our bodies what they may, so there are
spiritual intelligences which move those wonderful and
vast portions of the natural world which seem to be
inanimate ; and as the gestures, Speech, and expressive
countenance of our friends around us enable us to hold
intercourse with them, so in the motions of universal
Nature, in the interchange of day and night, Summer
and winter, wind and storm, fulfilling His word, we are
reminded of the blessed and dutiful angels. Well, then,
may we on this, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels,
sing the hymn of those three holy children whom
Nebuchadnezzar cast into the fiery furnace. The angels
were bid to change the nature of the flame, and make it
harmless unto them ; and they in turn called on all crea-
tures of God, on the angels especially, to glorify Him.
246 D O C T R IN A. L.
Though many hundreds of years have passed since that
time, and the world now vainly thinks it knows more
than it did, and that it has found the real causes of the
things it sees, still may we say, with grateful and simple
hearts, “O all ye works of the Lord, O ye angels of the
Lord, O ye sun and moon, stars of heaven, showers and
dew, winds of God, light and darkness, mountains and
hills, green things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord,
praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.” Thus, when-
ever we look abroad, we are reminded of those most
gracious and holy beings, the servants of the Holiest,
who deign to minister to the heirs of Salvation. Every
breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful
prospect is, as it were, the skirts of their garments,
the waving of the robes of those whose faces see
God in heaven. And I put it to any one, whether it
is not as philosophical, and as full of intellectual enjoy-
ment, to refer the movements of the natural world to
them, as to attempt to explain them by certain theories
of science, useful as these theories certainly are for
particular purposes, and capable (in subordination to that
higher view) of a religious application.
Suppose an inquirer into Nature, when examining a
flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a ray of light, which he
treats as something SO beneath him in the scale of
existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the
T H E M IN IS T R Y OF A N G E L S. 247
presence of some powerful being who was hidden behind
the visible things he was inspecting, who, though con-
cealing his wise hand, was giving them their beauty,
grace, and perfection, as being God's instrument for the
purpose; nay, whose robe and ornaments those wondrous
objects were which he was so eager to analyse ; what
would be his thoughts? Should we but accidentally show
a rudeness of manner towards our fellow man, tread on
the hem of his garment, or brush roughly against him,
are we not vexed, not as if we had hurt him, but from
the fear we may have been disrespectful P David had
watched the awful pestilence three days, not with curious
eyes, but doubtless with indescribable terror and remorse;
but when at length he lifted up his eyes and saw the
angel of the Lord (who caused the pestilence) stand be-
tween the earth and the heaven, having a drawn Sword
in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, then David
and the elders, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon
their faces. The mysterious irresistible pestilence be-
came still more fearful when its cause was known ; and
what is true of the painful, is true on the other hand of
the pleasant and attractive operations of Nature. When,
then, when we walk abroad, and “meditate in the field
at eventide,” how much has every herb and flower in
it to surprise and overwhelm us ! For even, did we
know as much about them as the wisest of men, yet there
248 Doct RINAL.
are those around us, though unseen, to whom our greatest
knowledge is as ignorance ; and when we converse on
Subjects of Nature Scientifically, repeating the names of
plants and earths, and describing their properties, we
should do so religiously, as in the hearing of the great
servants of God, with the sort of diffidence which we
always feel when speaking before the learned and wise of
Our Own mortal race, as poor beginners in intellectual
knowledge as well as in moral attainments.
Now I can Conceive persons saying that all this is fan-
ciful. But if it appears So, it is only because we are not
accustomed to such thoughts. Surely we are not told in
Scripture about the angels for nothing, but for practical
purposes. Nor Can I conceive a use of our knowledge
more practical than to make it connect the sight of this
world with the thought of another; nor one more con-
solatory, for Surely it is a great comfort to reflect that
wherever we go, we have those about us who are
ministering to all the heirs of Salvation, though we see
them not. In the Communion Service our Church
teaches us to join our praises with that of “angels and
archangels, and all the Company of heaven,” and the
early Christians even hoped that they waited on the
Church's seasons of worship, and glorified God with her.
Nor are these thoughts without their direct influence on
our faith in God and in His Son ; for the more we can
T H E M IN IS T R Y OF A N G E L S. 249
enlarge our view of the next world the better. When
we survey Almighty God surrounded by His Holy
Angels, His thousand thousands of ministering spirits,
and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before
Him, the idea of His awful majesty rises before us more
powerfully and impressively. We begin to see how little
we are, how altogether mean and worthless in ourselves,
and how high He is, and fearful. The very lowest of His
angels is indefinitely above us in this our present state ;
how high then must be the Lord of angels . The very
Seraphim hide their faces before His glory, while they
praise Him; how shamefaced, then, should sinners be,
when they come into His presence
Lastly, it is a motive to our exertions in doing
the will of God, to think that, if we attain to heaven,
we shall become the fellows of the blessed angels.
Indeed, what do we know of the courts of heaven,
but as peopled by them P And therefore doubtless
they are revealed to us that we may have something to
fix our thoughts on when we look heavenwards. Heaven
indeed is the palace of Almighty God, and of Him
doubtless we must think in the first place ; and again of
His Son, our Saviour, who died for us, and who is
manifested in the Gospels, in order that we may have
something definite to look forward to. For the same
cause also surely the angels are revealed to us, that
25O D O CT R IN A L,
heaven may be as little as possible an unknown place in
Our imaginations.
Let us then entertain such thoughts as these of the
angels of God; and while we try to think of them
worthily, let us beware lest we make the contemplation
of them a mere feeling, a sort of luxury of the imagina-
tion. This world is to be a world of practice and
labour; God reveals to us glimpses of the third heaven
for our comfort; but if we indulge in these as the end of
Our present being, not trying day by day to purify Ol]I-
selves for the future enjoyment of the realities, they
become but a snare of the enemy. The services of
religion day by day; obedience to God in Our Calling and
in ordinary matters; endeavours to imitate Our Saviour
Christ in word and deed; constant prayer to Him and
dependence on Him—these are the due preparations for
receiving and profiting by His revelations.
WAA’AºA RAE 7THAE COND/T/OAW OF
V/CTOR V.
“And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great
joy ; and were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing
God.”—LUKE xxiv. 52.
OR forty days after His resurrection did our Saviour
Christ continue to remain below, at a distance from
that glory which He had purchased. The glory was now
His—He might have entered into it. Had he not had
enough of earth? What should detain him here, instead
of returning to His Father, and taking possession of His
throne? He delayed in order to comfort and instruct
those who had forsaken Him in the hour of trial. A
time had just passed when their faith had all but failed,
even while they had His pattern before their eyes; and
a time, or rather a long period, was in prospect, when
far heavier trials were to come upon them. Yet He was
to be withdrawn. They hitherto understood not that
suffering is the path to glory, and that none sit down
upon Christ's throne who do not first overcome as He
252 DOCTR IN A L.
overcame. He stayed to impress upon them this lesson,
lest they should still misunderstand the Gospel and fail
a second time. “Ought not Christ,” He said, “to suffer
these things, and to enter into His glory?” And having
taught them fully, after forty days, at length He rose
above the troubles of this world. He rose above the
atmosphere of sin, Sorrow, and remorse, which broods
over it. He entered into the region of peace and joy,
into the pure light, the dwelling-place of angels, the
courts of the Most High, through which resound con-
tinually the chants of blessed spirits and the praises of
the Seraphim. There He entered, leaving His brethren
in due season to come after Him, by the light of His
example and the grace of His Spirit.
Yet, though the forty days was a long season for Him
to stay, it was but a short time for the apostles to have
Him among them. What feelings must have been theirs
when He parted from them? So late found, so early
lost again; hardly recognized, and then Snatched away.
The history of the two disciples at Emmaus was a figure
or picture of the condition of the eleven. Their eyes were
holden that they should not know Him while He talked
with them for three years; then suddenly they were
opened, and he forthwith vanished away. So had it been,
I say, with all of them. “Have I been so long time
with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip P’ had
W A R FAR E THE CON DITION OF VI C T ORY. 253
already been His expostulation with one of them. They
had not known Him all through His ministry. Peter,
indeed, had confessed Him to be the Christ, the Son of
the living God ; but even he showed inconsistency and
change of mind in his comprehension of this great truth.
They did not understand at that time who and what He
was. But after His resurrection it was otherwise. Thomas
touched His hands and His side, and said, “My Lord
and my God ſ” In like manner they all began to know
Him. At length they recognized Him as the Living
Bread which came down from heaven, and was the life
of the world. But hardly had they recognized Him,
when He withdrew Himself once for all from their sight,
never to see them again or to be seen by them on earth;
never to visit earth again, till He comes at the last day
to receive all saints unto Himself, and to take them to
their rest. “So then, after the Lord had spoken unto
them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the
right hand of God.”
Late found, early lost. This perhaps was the Apostles' .
first feeling on His parting from them. And the like often
happens here below. We understand our blessings just
when about to forfeit them; prospects are most hopeful
just when they are most hopelessly clouded. Years upon
years we have had great privileges, the light of truth, the
presence of holy men, opportunities of religious improve-
254 D O C T R IN A L.
ment, kind and tender parents. Yet we knew not, or
thought not of our happiness; we valued not our gift ;
and then it is taken away just when we have begun to
value it. 4.
What a time must that forty days have been, during
which, while He taught them, all His past teaching must
have risen in their minds, and their thoughts then must
have recurred in overpowering contrast to their thoughts
now : His manner of life, His ministry, His discourses.
His parables, His miracles, His meekness, gravity,
incomprehensible majesty, the mystery of His thoughts
and feelings; the agony, the Scourge, the Cross, the
crown of thorns, the spear, the tomb; their despair, their
unbelief, their perplexity, their amazement, their sudden
joy, their triumph. All this was in their minds, and
surely not the least at that awful hour when He Jed His
breathless followers out to Bethany on the fortieth day.
“He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted
up His hands and blessed them. And it came to pass
while He blessed them, He was parted from them and
carried up into heaven.” Surely all His history, all His
dealings with them, came before them, gathered up in
that moment. Then, as they gazed upon that divine
countenance and that dreadful form, every thought and
feeling which they ever had had about Him, came upon
them at once. He had gone through His work ; theirs
W A R F A R E T H E CON DITION OF VI CTO R. Y. 255
,- -—
was to come—their work and their sufferings. He was
leaving them just at the most critical time. When
Elijah went up, Elisha said, “My father, my father, the
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof * With a
like feeling might the apostles now gaze up into heaven,
as if with the hope of arresting His ascent. Their Lord
and their God, the light of their eyes, the stay of their
hearts, the guide of their feet, was taken away. “My
beloved had withdrawn Himself and was gone : my soul
failed when He spake. I sought Him, but I could not
find Him : I called Him, but He gave me no answer.”
Well might they use the Church's words, as now : “We
beseech Thee, leave us not comfortless.” O Thou who
wast so gentle and familiar with us, who didst converse
with us by the way, and sit at meat with us, and didst
2 enter the vessel with us, and teach us on the Mount, and
hear the malice of the Pharisees, and feast with Martha,
and raise Lazarus, art Thou gone, and shall we see Thee
no more? Yet so it was determined. Privileges they
were to have, but not the same ; and their thoughts
henceforth were to be of another kind than heretofore.
It was in vain wishing back what was past and over.
They were but told, as they gazed, “This same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come
in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”
Such are some of the feelings which the apostles may
256 D O C T R IN A TL.
* = &
have experienced on our Lord's ascension ; but these are
after all but human and ordinary, and of a kind which all
of us can enter into. But other than these were Sovereign
with them at that solemn time ; for upon the glorious
ascension of their Lord, “they worshipped Him,” says
the text, “and returned to Jerusalem with greaf joy, and
were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing
God.” Now, how was it, that when Nature would have
wept, the apostles rejoiced P. There was no sorrow in
the apostles in spite of their loss, in spite of the prospect
before them, but “great joy,” and “continued praise and
blessing.” May we venture to Surmise that this rejoicing
was the high temper of the brave and noble-minded, who
have faced danger in idea, and are prepared for it P
Christ in forty days trains His apostles to be bold and
patient, instead of cowards. “They mourned and wept”
at the beginning of the season, but at the end they are
full of courage for the good fight ; their spirits mount
high with their Lord, and when He is received out of
their sight, and their own trial begins, “they return to
Jerusalem with great joy, and are continually in the
Temple, praising and blessing God.”
For Christ surely had taught them what it was to have
their treasure in heaven ; and they rejoiced not that their
Lord was gone, but that their hearts had gone with Him.
Their hearts were no longer on earth, they were risen
W A R F A R E T H E CON DIT I O N OF VICTO R. Y. 257
aloft. Before He was seized they had said to Him,
“Lord, whither goest Thou? Lord, we know not whither
Thou goest.” They could but follow Him to the grave,
and there mourn, for they knew no better; but now they
saw Him ascend on high, and in Spirit they ascended
with Him. Mary wept at the grave because she thought
enemies had taken Him away, and she knew not where
they had laid Him. “Where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also.” Strengthened, them, with this know-
ledge, they were able to face those trials which Christ
had first undergone Himself, and had foretold as their
portion. “Whither I go,” He had said to St. Peter,
“ thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me
afterwards.” And He told them, “They shall put you
out of the synagogues. Yea, the time Cometh that who-
soever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”
That time was now coming, and they were able to rejoice
in what so troubled them forty days before. For they
understood the promise, “To him that overcometh, will
I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also over-
came, and am sat down with My Father in His throne.”
It will be well if we take this lesson to ourselves, and
learn that great truth which the apostles shrank from at
first, but at length rejoiced in. Christ suffered, and
entered into joy ; SO did they, in their measure, after
Him ; and in our measure, so do we. It is written, that
S
258 D O C T R IN A L.
-º-
“ through much tribulation we must enter into the
Kingdom of God.” God has all things in His own
hands. He can spare, He can inflict : He often spares
(may He spare us still ), but He often tries us—in one
way or another He tries every one. At some time or
other of the life of every one there is pain, and sorrow,
and trouble. So it is, and the Sooner, perhaps, we can
look upon it as a law of Our Christian condition, the
better. One generation comes, and then another. They
issue forth and succeed like leaves in Spring ; and in all,
this law is observable. They are tried, and then they
triumph ; they are humbled, and then are exalted ; they
overcome the world, and then they sit down on Christ's
throne. . . . . Let us try to accustom ourselves to this
view of the subject. The whole church, all elect souls, each
in its turn is called to this necessary work. Once it was the
turn of others, and now it is our turn. Once it was the
apostles' turn. It was St. Paul's turn once. He had all
cares on him at Once—Covered from head to foot with
Cares, as Job was with Sores. And, as if all this were not
enough, he had a thorn in his flesh added—some personal
discomfort ever with him. Yet he did his part well: he
was as a strong and bold wrestler in his day, and at the
close of it was able to say, “I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my Course, I have kept the faith.” And
after him, the excellent of the earth, the white-robed
WAR FARE THE CONDITION of VI C T OR Y. *
*
259
army of martyrs and the cheerful company of confessors,
each in his turn, each in his day, likewise played the
man. And So down to this very time, when faith has
well-nigh failed, first one and then another have been
called out to exhibit before the Great King. It is as
though all of us were allowed to stand around His throne
at once, and He called on first this man, and then that,
to take up the chant by himself, each in his turn having
to repeat the melody which his brethren have before gone
through ; or as if He held a solemn dance to His honour
in the courts of heaven, and each had by himself to
perform some one and the same solemn and graceful
movement at a signal given ; or as if it were some trial of
strength, or of agility, and, while the ring of bystanders
beheld and applauded, we in succession, one by one,
were actors in the pageant. Such is our state. Angels
are looking on. Christ has gone before. Christ has
given us an example, that we may follow His steps. He
went through far more, infinitely more, than we can be
called to suffer. Our brethren have gone through much
more, and they seem to encourage us by their success,
and to sympathise in Our essay. Now it is our turn, and
all ministering spirits keep silence and look On. Oh, let
not your foot slip, or your eye be false, or your ear dull,
or your attention flagging ! Be not dispirited ; be mot
9 afraid; keep a good heart; be bold; draw not back ; you
26o ID O C T R IN A L,
will be carried through. Whatever troubles come on
you, of mind, body, or estate ; from within or from
without ; from chance or from intent ; from friends or
foes; whatever your trouble be ; though you be lonely, O
4 children of a heavenly Father, be not afraid Quit you
like men in your day; and when it is over Christ will
receive you to Himself, and your heart shall rejoice, and
your joy no man taketh from you. Christ is already in
that place of peace which is all in all. He is on the
right hand of God—He is hidden in the brightness of the
radiance which issues from the everlasting throne—He is
in the very abyss of peace, where there is no voice of
tumult or distress, but a deep stillness—stillness, that
greatest and most awful of all goods which we can fancy—
that most perfect of joys, the utter, profound ineffable
tranquillity of the divine essence. He has entered
into His rest. Oh, how great a good will it be, if, when
this troublesome life is over, we in our turn also enter
ſº into that same rest ; if the time shall one day come
when we shall enter into His tabernacle above, and hide
ourselves under the shadow of His wings | Here we are
tossing upon the Sea, and the wind is contrary. All
through the day we are tried and tempted in various
ways. We cannot speak, think, or act, but infirmity
and sin are at hand. But in the unseen world, where
Christ has entered, all is peace. “There is no more
W A R F A RE T H E CO N DIT ION OF VI C T O R Y. 26 I
\ſ
-º-º-º:
death, neither sorrow nor Crying, neither any more pain;
for the former things are passed away.” Nor any more
sin ; nor any more guilt ; no more remorse; no more
punishment; no more penitence ; no more trial ; no
infirmity to depress us ; no affection to mislead us ; no
passion to transport us ; no prejudice to blind us ; no
sloth, no pride, no envy, no strife ; but the light of God’s
countenance, and a pure river of water of life, clear as
crystal, proceeding out of the throne. That is our home.
Here we are but on pilgrimage, and Christ is calling us
home. He calls us to His many mansions, which He
has prepared. And the Spirit and the Bride call us too,
and all things will be ready for us by the time of our
coming. “Seeing, then, that we have a great High
Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of
God, let us hold fast our profession ;” seeing we have
“so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight;” “let us labour to enter into our rest;” “let us
come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain
mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
SAE CRAECY A/V/D S Ü/D/D/ZAVAVESS OF
JD/ V/AWAE V/S/TA TVOAVS.
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.”—
LUKE xvii. 20.
HE event in our Saviour's infancy which we this day
celebrate, is His presentation in the Temple, when
His Virgin Mother was ceremonially purified. It was
made memorable at the time by the hymns and praises of
Simeon and Anna, to whom He was then revealed. And
there were others besides these, who had been “looking
for redemption in Jerusalem,” who were also vouchsafed
a sight of the Infant Saviour. But the chief importance
of this event consists in its being a fulfilment of pro-
phecy. Malachi had announced the Lord's visitation of
His Temple in these words: “The Lord, whom ye seek,
shall suddenly come to His Temple ;” words which,
though variously fulfilled during His ministry, had their
first accomplishment in the humble ceremony com-
memorated on this day. And when we consider the
grandeur of the prediction, and how unostentatious this
I) IV IN E VISIT AT I O N S. 263
accomplishment was, we are led to muse upon God's
ways, and to draw useful lessons for ourselves.
I say, we are to-day reminded of the noiseless course
of God's providence; His tranquil accomplishment in the
Course of nature of great events, long designed ; and again,
the suddenness and stillness of His visitations. Consider
what the occurrence in question consists in. A little
child is brought to the Temple, as all first-born children
were brought. There is nothing here uncommon or
striking, so far. His parents are with Him, poor people,
bringing the offering of pigeons or doves, for the purifi-
cation of the mother. They are met in the Temple by
an old man, who takes the child in his arms, offers a
thanksgiving to God, and blesses the parents; and next
are joined by a woman of a great age, a widow of eighty-
four years, who had exceeded the time of useful service,
and seemed to be but a fit prey for death. She gives
thanks also, and Speaks concerning the child to other per-
sons who are present. Then all retire.
Now there is evidently nothing great or impressive
in this ; nothing to excite the feelings or interest the
imagination. We know what the world thinks of such a
group as I have described. The weak and helpless,
whether from age or infancy, it looks upon negligently
and passes by. Yet all this that happened was really the
solemn fulfilment of an ancient and emphatic prophecy.
264 D C C T R IN A L.
The infant in arms was the Saviour of the world, the
rightful heir come in the guise of a stranger to visit
His own house. The Scripture had said : “The Lord,
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple; but
who may abide the day of His coming? and who may
stand when He appeareth P’’ He had now taken posses-
Sion. And further, the old man who took the child in
his arms had upon him gifts of the Holy Ghost; had
been promised the blessed sight of his Lord before his
death ; came into the Temple by heavenly guidance, and
now had within him thoughts unutterable, of joy, thank-
fulness, and hope, Strangely mixed with awe, fear, painful
wonder, and “bitterness of spirit.” Anna too, the woman
of four score and four years, was a prophetess; and the
bystanders to whom she spoke were the true Israel, who
were looking out in faith for the predicted redemption of
mankind, those who (in the words of the prophecy)
“sought,” and in prospect “delighted" in the “mes-
senger” of God's covenant of mercy. “The glory of this
latter house shall be greater than of the former,” was the
announcement of another prophecy. Behold the glory !
A little child and his parents, two aged persons, and a
congregation without name or memorial. “The kingdom
of God cometh not with observation.”
Such has ever been the manner of His visitations, in
the destruction of His enemies as well as in the deliver-
D IV IN E VISITATION S. 265
Č
ance of His own people ; Silent, Sudden, unforeseen, as
regards the world, though predicted in the face of all
men, and in their measure comprehended and waited for
by His true Church. Such a visitation was the flood.
Noah, a preacher of righteousness, but the multitude of
sinners judicially blinded. “They did eat, they drank,
they married wives, they were given in marriage, until
the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood
came and destroyed them all.” Such was the overthrow
of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Likewise as it was in the
days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they
sold, they planted, they builded ; but the same day that
Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone
from heaven, and destroyed them all.” Again : “The
horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his
horsemen into the Sea ; and the Lord brought again the
waters of the sea upon them.” The overthrow of Senna-
cherib was also silent and sudden, when his vast army
least expected it. “The angel of the Lord went forth
and smote in the Camp of the Assyrians a hundred four
score and five thousand.” Belshazzar and Babylon were
surprised in the midst of the king's great feast to his
thousand lords. While Nebuchadnezzar boasted, his
reason was suddenly taken from him. While the multi-
tude shouted with impious flattery at Herod's speech,
then “the angel of the Lord Smote him, because he gave
•- A
266 D O C T R IN A L.
not God the glory.” Whether we take the first or the
final judgment upon Jerusalem, both visitations were
foretold as sudden. Of the former, Isaiah had declared
it should come “Suddenly — at an instant.” Of the
latter, Malachi : “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly
come to His Temple.” And such too will be His final
visitation of the whole earth. Men will be at their work,
in the city and in the field, and it will overtake them like
a thunder-cloud. “Two women shall be grinding to-
gether; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two
men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and
the Other left.”
And it is impossible that it should be otherwise, in
spite of warnings ever so clear, considering how the
world goes on in every age. Men who are plunged in
the pursuits of active life are no judges of its course and
tendency on the whole. They confuse great events with
little, and measure the importance of objects as in per-
spective, by the mere standard of nearness or remoteness.
It is only at a distance that one can take in the out-
lines and features of a whole Country. It is but holy
Daniel, solitary among princes, or Elijah, the recluse of
Mount Carmel, who can withstand Baal, or forecast the
time of God's providences among the nations. To the
multitude all things continue to the end as they were from
the beginning of the creation, The business of state
DIW IN E VIS IT AT I O N S. 267
affairs, the movements of Society, the course of nature,
proceed as ever, till the moment of Christ's coming.
“The Sun was risen upon the earth,” bright as usual, on
that very day of wrath on which Sodom was destroyed.
Men cannot believe their own time is an especially
wicked time; for with Scripture unstudied, and hearts
untrained in holiness, they have no standard to compare
it with. They take warning from no troubles or per-
plexities, which rather carry them away to search out
the earthly causes of them, and the possible remedies.
When the power of Assyria became great (we might sup-
pose), the Jews had a plain call to repentance. Far
from it ; they were led to set power against power, they
took refuge against Assyria in Egypt, their old enemy.
Probably they reasoned themselves into what they con-
sidered a temperate, enlightened, cheerful view of national
affairs; perhaps they might Consider the growth of As-
syria an advantage rather than otherwise, as balancing
the power of Egypt, and so tending to their own security.
Certain it is, we find them connecting themselves first
with one kingdom and then with the other, as men who
could read (as they thought) “the signs of the times,”
and made some pretence to political wisdom. Thus the
world proceeds till wrath comes upon it, and there is no
escape. “To-morrow,” they say, “shall be as this day,
and much more abundant.”
268 D O C T R IN A L.
And in the midst of this their revel, whether of sensual
pleasure, or of ambition, or of Covetousness, or of pride
and self-esteem, the decree goes forth to destroy. The
decree goes forth in secret; angels hear it, and the
favoured few on earth; but no public event takes place
to give the world warning. The earth was doomed to
the flood one hundred and twenty years before “the
decree brought forth,” or men heard of it (Zeph. ii. 2).
The waters of Babylon had been turned, and the con-
queror was marching into the city when Belshazzar made
his great feast. Pride infatuates man, and self-indulgence
and luxury work their way unseen—like some smoulder-
ing fire, which for a while leaves the outward forms of
things unaltered. At length the decayed mass cannot
hold together, and breaks by its own weight, or on some
slight and accidental external violence.
Thoughts such as the foregoing are profitable at all
times; for in every age the world is profane and blind,
and God hides His Providence, yet carries it forward.
Let us then turn this festival to account by taking it as
the memorial-day of His visitations. Let us, from the
events it celebrates, lay up deep in our hearts the
recollection how mysteriously little things.are in this
world Connected with great; how single moments, im-
proved or wasted, are the salvation or ruin of all-
important interests. I.et us bear the thought upon us
D IV IN E VIS IT AT I O N S. 269
when we come to worship in God's house, that any such
season of service may, for what we know, be wonderfully
connected with some ancient purpose of His, announced
before we were born, and have its determinate bearing
on our eternal welfare. Let us fear to miss the Saviour,
while Simeon and Anna find Him. Let us remember
that He was not manifested again in the Temple, except
once, for thirty years, while a whole generation who were
alive at His first visitation died off in the interval. Let
us carry this thought into our daily Conduct, Considering
that, for what we know, our hope of Salvation may in the
event materially depend on our avoiding this or that
momentary sin. And further, from the occurrences of
this day, let us take comfort when we despond about the
state of the Church. Perhaps we see not God’s tokens;
we see neither prophet nor teacher remaining to His
people; darkness falls over the earth, and no protesting
voice is heard. Yet, granting things to be at the very
worst, yet, when Christ was presented in the Temple,
the age knew as little of it as it knows of His Providence
now. Rather, the worse our condition is, the nearer to
us is the Advent of our Deliverer. Even though He is
silent, doubt not that His army is on the march towards
us. He is coming through the sky, and has even now His
camp upon the outskirts of our own world.
Nay, though He still for a while keep His seat at His
27o D O C T R IN A. L.
Father's right hand, yet surely He sees all that is going
on, and waits, and will not fail His hour of vengeance.
Shall. He not hear His own elect, when they cry day and
night to Him? His services of prayer and praise con-
tinue, and are scorned by the multitude. Day by day,
festival by festival, fast after fast, season by season, they
Continue according to His ordinance, and are scorned.
But the greater His delay, the heavier will be His
vengeance, and the more complete the deliverance of
His people.
ſº
!
TA/AE V/S/P/A 7TP MAX/. F.
“Whether is the greater, the gold, or the Temple that sanctifieth
the gold 7"—MATT. xxiii. 17.
TEMPLE there has been upon earth, a Spiritual
Temple, made up of living stones; a Temple, as I
may say, composed of Souls; a Temple with God for its
Light, and Christ for the High Priest; with wings of
angels for its arches, with Saints and teachers for its
pillars, and with worshippers for its pavement. Such a
Temple has been on earth ever since the Gospel was first
preached. This unseen, Secret, mysterious, Spiritual
Temple exists everywhere throughout the Kingdom of
Christ, in all places, as perfect in One place as if it were
not in another. Wherever there is faith and love, this
Temple is ; faith and love, with the name of Christ, are as
heavenly charms and spells to make present to us this
Divine Temple in every part of Christ's kingdom. This
Temple is invisible, but it is perfect and real because
it is invisible, and gains nothing in perfection by pos-
272 D O C T R IN A Le
sessing visible tokens. There needs no outward building
to meet the eye in order to make it more of a Temple
than it is in itself. God, and Christ, and angels, and
souls—are not these a heavenly Court, all perfect, to
which this world can add nothing? Though faithful
Christians worship without splendour, without show, in a
homely and rude way, still their worship is as acceptable
to God, as excellent, as holy, as though they worshipped
in the public view of men, and with all the glory and
riches of the world.
Such was the Church in its beginning, “built upon the
foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Gºsſiim-
self being the chief corner stone;” “builded together
for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” In the
apostles' lifetime it was poor and persecuted, and the
Holy Temple was all but invisible. There were no
edifying rites, no various ceremonies, no rich music, no
high Cathedrals, no mystic vestments, no solemn altars,
no stone, or marble, or metals, or j ewels, or woods of COst,
or fine linen, to signify outwardly, and to honour duly
the Heavenly Temple in which we stand and serve. The
place where our Lord and Saviour first celebrated T.
Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist was the upper room of
a house, hired too, or used for the occasion. That in
which the apostles and the holy women waited for the
promised coming of the Comforter was also “an upper
T H E W I SI B L E T E M P L E. 273
room; and that also in which St. Paul preached at
Troas was an upper chamber, “where they were gathered
together.” What other places of worship do we hear of P
The water-side, out in the open air ; as at Philippi, where,
we are told, “on the Sabbath,” St. Paul and his com-
panions “went out of the city by a river-side, where
prayer was wont to be made.” And the sea-shore :
“They all brought us on our way, with wives and
children, till we were out of the city; and we kneeled
down on the shore, and prayed.” And St. Peter was in
prayer on the house-top ; and St. Paul and St. Silas sang
their hymns and praises in prison, with their feet in the
stocks; and St. Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in
the desert. Yet, wherever they were, whether in prison,
or on the house-top, or in the wilderness, or by the
river-side, or on the sea-shore, or in a private room, God
and Christ were with them. The Spirit of Grace was
there, the Temple of God was around them. They were
come into the mystical Sion, and to the Heavenly Jeru-
Salem, and to an innumerable Company of angels, and to
the spirits of the just. There needed not gold, nor
jewels, nor costly array for those who had what, accord-
ing to the text, was greater—who had the Temple. It
might be right and fitting, if possible, to have these
precious things also, but it was not necessary; for which
was the greater P Such things did not make the Temple
T
274 D O C T R IN A. L.
more holy, but became themselves holy by being used
for the Temple. The gold did not sanctify the Temple,
for the Temple was greater, and Sanctified the gold.
Gold is a thing of nought without Christ's presence; and
with His presence, as in the days of His earthly ministry,
it might be dispensed with.
The Case is the same as regards the immediate suc-
cessors of the apostles, who were in still more forlorn
circumstances, as regards worship, than the apostles
themselves. The Christians who came after them
were obliged to worship in Caves and tombs, to save
their lives from their persecutors. In the eastern and
southern parts, where the apostles and the first converts
lived, before the glad sound of the Gospel had reached
these northern and distant Countries, they were accus-
tomed to bury in Caves dug out of the rock. Long
galleries there are still remaining, in some places for
miles underground, on each side of which the dead were
placed. There the poor persecuted Christians met for
worship, and that by night. Or the great people of the
time built for themselves high and stately tombs above
ground, as large as houses for the living. Here too, in the
darkness and solitude of the night, did the Saints worship ;
or in the depth of some wood, perhaps, where no one was
likely to discover them. Such were the places in which
the Invisible Temple was revealed in times of heathemism,
T H E VIS I BLE T E M P L E.
2
7
5
and who shall say that it wanted aught of outward show
to make it perfect P
This is true, and ever to be borne in mind; and yet no
one can deny, on the other hand, that a great object of
Christ's coming was to subdue this world, to claim it as
His own, to assert His rights as its Master, to destroy
the usurped dominion of the enemy, to show Himself to
all men, and to take possession. He is that mustard-
tree which was destined silently to spread and to shadow
all lands; He is that leaven which was secretly to make
its way through the mass of human opinions and institu-
tions till the whole was leavened. Heaven and earth
had hitherto been separate. His gracious purpose was
to make them one, and that by making earth like
heaven. He was in the world from the beginning, and
man worshipped other gods; He came into the world in
the flesh, and the world knew Him not ; He came unto
His own, and His own received Him not. But He came
in order to make them receive Him, know Him, worship
Him. He came to absorb this world into Himself; that,
as He was light, so it might be light also. When He came
He had not a place to lay His head; but He came to
make Himself a place, to make Himself a home, to make
Himself houses, to fashion for Himself a glorious dwell-
ing out of this whole world, which the powers of evil had
taken captive. He came in the dark, in the dark night
276 D O C T R IN A. L.
was He born, in a Cave underground; in a cave where
cattle were stabled, there was He housed; in a rude
manger was He laid. There first He laid His head; but
He meant not, blessed be His name ! He meant not
there to remain for ever. He did not resign Himself to
that obscurity; He came into that cave to leave it. The
King of the Jews was born to claim the kingdom—yea,
rather, the Hope of all nations and the King of the whole
earth, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords; and He
gave not “sleep to His eyes, or slumber to His eyelids,”
till He had changed His manger for a royal throne, and
His grot for high palaces. Lift up your eyes, my brethren,
and look round, for it is fulfilled at this day; yea, long ago,
for many ages and in many Countries. “Wisdom hath
builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.”
Where is the grot? Where the stall for cattle P Where
the manger ? Where the grass and straw P. Where the
unseemly furniture of that despised place? Is it pos-
sible that the Eternal Son should have been born in a
hole of the earth? Was the great miracle there wrought,
whereby a pure and spotless virgin brought forth God P
Strange Condescension undergone to secure a strange
triumph He purposed to change the earth, and He
began “in the lowest pit, in a place of darkness, and in
the deep.” All was to be by Him renewed, and He
availed Himself of nothing that was, that out of nothing
º
T H E VIS I B L E T E M P L E. 277
He might make all things. He was not born in the
Temple of Jerusalem ; He abhorred the palace of David.
He laid Himself on the damp earth in the cold night, a
light shining in a dark place; till by the virtue that wen
out of Him He should create a Temple worthy of His
112.1]]6.
And lo! in omen of the future, even in His cradle, the
rich and wise of the earth seek Him with gold, and
frankincense, and myrrh, as an offering. And He puts
aside the swaddling clothes, and takes instead “a coat
without seam, woven from the top throughout.” And
He changes water into wine ; and Levi feasts Him; and
Zaccheus receives Him ; and Mary anoints His head.
• Pass a few generations, and the whole face of things is
changed; the earth is covered with His Temples; as it
has been for ages. Go where you will you will find
the eternal mountains hewn and fashioned into shrines
where He may dwell, who was an outcast in the days of
His flesh. Rivers and mines pay tribute of their richest
jewels; forests are searched for their choicest woods; the
skill of man is put to task to use what Nature furnishes.
Go through the countries where His name is known, and
you will find all that is rarest and most wonderful in
nature or art has been Consecrated to Him. King's palaces
are poor, whether in architecture or in decoration, com-
pared with the shrines which have been reared to Him.
278 D O C T R IN A L.
The invisible Temple has become visible. As on a misty
day the gloom gradually melts and the Sun brightens,
so have the glories of the spiritual world lit up this world
below. The dull and cold earth is penetrated by the
rays. All around we see glimpses of reflections of those
heavenly things which the elect of God shall one day
see face to face. The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
“The Temple has sanctified the gold,” and the prophecies
made to the Church have been fulfilled to the letter.
“The glory of Lebanon” has been “given unto it, the ex-
cellency of Carmel and Sharon.” “The glory of Lebanon,
the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify
the place of His sanctuary, and to make the place of
His feet glorious. The multitude of camels have covered
* it, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah : all they from
Sheba have come ; they have brought gold and incense,
and shown forth the praise of the Lord.” “The labour of
Egypt, and merchandize of Ethiopia, and of the Sabeans,
men of stature, have come over to it, in chains have they
come over; they have fallen down, they have made
Supplication.”
And He has made Him a Temple, not only out of in-
animate things, but of men also as parts of it. Not gold
and silver, jewels and fine linen, and skill of man to use
them, make the House of God; but worshippers, the
T H E VISIBLE T E M P L E. 279
ſº
souls and bodies of men whom He has redeemed. Not
souls alone, He takes possession of the whole man, body
as well as soul; for St. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore,
brethuen, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service.” And He claims us as His own,
not one by One, but altogether, as One great Company.
Our tongues must preach Him, and our voices sing of
Him, and our Countenances beam of Him, and our gait
herald him. And hence arise joint worship, forms of
prayer, ceremonies of devotion, the course of services,
orders of ministers, holy vestments, Solemn music, and
other things of a like nature ; all which are, as it were,
the incoming into this world of the invisible kingdom of
Christ, the fruit of its influence, the sample of its power,
the earnest of its victories, the means of its manifes-
tations.
Things temporal have their visible establishment.
Kings' courts and palaces, Councils and armies, have
dazzled the multitude, and blinded them, till they wor-
shipped them as idols. Such is our nature, we must
have something to look up to. We Cannot help
admiring something, and if there is nothing good to
admire we admire what is bad. When then men see
proud Babel set up on high, with all her show and pomp,
when they see or hear of great cities with their stately
28o D O C T R IN A L.
tnansions, the streets Swarming with chariots and horses
innumerable, and the shops filled with splendid wares, and
great men and women richly dressed, with many at-
tendants, and men crying, “Bow the knee,” and soldiers
in bright array, with the sound of the trumpets and other
military music, and other things which one could mention
were it reverent to be particular, simple men are tempted
to look up to all this as the summit of perfection and
blessedness ; nay, as I have said, to worship what seems
to them, though they do not express it, the presence of
the Unseen. Hence come in servility, coveting, jealousy,
ambition ; men wish to be great in this world, and try to
be great; they aim at riches, or they lie in wait for pro-
motion. Christ, then, in order to counteract this evil,
has mercifully set up His own court and His own polity,
that men might have something to fix their eyes upon
of a more divine and holy character than the world can
supply; that poverty, at least, might divide men's admira-
tion with riches ; that meekness might be set up on high
as well as pride, and Sanctity become our ambition as
well as luxury. Saintly bishops with their clergy, officials
of all kinds, religious bodies, austere Nazarites, prayer and
praise without ceasing—all this hath Christ mercifully
set up, to outshine the fascinations of the world. So
ran the promise, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls,
O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor
T H E V IS I B L E T E M P L E. 2SI
-
night.” “Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise
from the end of the earth; ye that go down to the sea
and all that is therein. . . . Let the wilderness and the
cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar
doth inhabit; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let
them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them
give glory unto the Lord, and declare His praise in the
islands.” And these words began to have their fulfilment
even from the time that Christ came ; for, as I said
when I began, St. Paul and St. Silas sang in the prison;
and when he and his party left Tyre, the men, women,
and children, who accompanied them out, kneeled down
on the shore with them, and prayed. Such were the
forms of worship in the beginning; till, as time went on,
the Church, like some fair tree, put out her branches and
foliage, and stood complete in all manner of holy
symbols and spiritual Ordinances, an outward sign of
that unseen Temple in which Christ had dwelt from
the first.
In conclusion, let me observe, that such a view as has
been taken of the connection of the ritual of religion
with its spiritual and invisible powers, will enable us to
form a right estimate of things external, and keep us both
from a curious and Superstitious use and an arrogant neg-
lect of them. The Temple is greater than the gold ; there-
fore, care not though the gold be away: it Sanctifies it.
282 D O C T R IN A. L.
—º
therefore cherish the gold while it is present. Christ
is with us, though there be no outward show. Suppose
all the Comely appendages of our worship stripped off;
yet, where two or three are gathered together in His
Name, He is in the midst of them. Be it a cottage or
the open fields, or even a prison or a dungeon, Christ
can be there, and will be there if His servants are there.
Stone walls do not make a church. Though they
were in the vastest, noblest, richest building on earth,
still Christ would not be with those who preach another
gospel than that which He delivered once for all. This
is the very point I am insisting on. It is the Temple
which sanctifieth the gold; it is nothing but the invisible
and heavenly Presence which sanctifieth any place or
anything. Magnificent or mean, costly or common, it
alone sanctifies either worshippers or building. As it
avails not to have sumptuous churches without the Spirit
of Christ, so it is but a mockery to have large Congrega-
tions, eloquent preachers, and much excitement, if that
gracious Spirit is away. But where He really places His
AWame, there, be the spot a palace or a Cottage, it is
sacred and glorious. He who once lay in a manger will
still condescend to manifest Himself anywhere, as He did
in primitive times. No indignities can be done to Him
who inhabiteth eternity. “Heaven is His throne, and
earth His footstool.” The very heaven of heavens cannot
T H E V IS I B L E T E M P L E. 283
Contain Him ; much less any house which we can build.
High and low is alike to Him.
They who profane His presence, who treat its resting-
place as a common house, and make free with it, these
men do not hurt Christ, but they hurt themselves. The
Temple is greater than the gold.
And while He is displeased with the profane, He
accepts our offerings made in faith, whether they be
greater or less. He accepts our gold and our silver, not
to honour Himself thereby, but in mercy to us. When
Mary poured the ointment on His head, it was her
advantage, not His. He praised her, and said, “She
hath done what she could.”
Every one must do his best; he must attend his best.
If we did all, it would be little—not worthy of Him. If
we do little, it may suffice to show our faith, and He in
His mercy will accept whatever we can offer. He
will accept what we prefer giving to Him instead of
giving to ourselves. When, instead of spending money
on our own homes, we spend it on His house ; when
we prefer that He should have the gold and silver to
our having it, we do not make our worship more
spiritual, but we bring Christ nearer to us; we show that
we are in earnest—we evidence Our faith. It requires
very little of true faith and love to feel an unwillingness
to spend money on one's self. Fine dresses, fine houses,
284 D O C T R IN A. L.
fine furniture, fine establishments, are painful to a true
Christian ; they create misgivings in his mind whether
his portion is with the saints or with the world. Rather
he will feel it suitable to lay out his money in God's
service—to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to
educate the young, to spread the knowledge of the truth,
and, among other pious objects, to build and to decorate
the visible house of God.
“Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and
wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the
house of my God, and for the offices thereof.” Such was
Nehemiah's prayer when he had been stirred up to
cleanse the sanctuary. May God in His mercy grant
that our outward show does not outstrip our inward
progress; that whatever gift, rare or beautiful, we
introduce here, may be but a figure of inward beauty and
unseen sanctity ornamenting our hearts. Hearts are the
true shrine wherein Christ must dwell. “The King's
daughter is all glorious within ;” and when we are
repenting of past sin, and cleansing Ourselves from all
defilements of flesh and spirit, and perfecting holiness
in the fear of the Lord, then, and then only, may we
safely employ ourselves in brightening, embellishing,
and making glorious the dwelling-place of His invisible
presence, doing it with that severity, gravity, and awe,
which a chastened heart and sober thoughts will teach us,
7A/AE A&AES ÜA’A&AEC7/OAV OA. TAZAZ AO/D V.
‘Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush,
when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead,
but of the living ; for all live unto Him.”—LUKE xx. 37, 38.
HESE words of our Saviour show us how much more
there is in Scripture than at first sight appears.
God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, and called
Himself “the God of Abraham ;" and Christ tells us that
in this simple announcement was contained the promise
that Abraham should rise again from the dead. In truth,
if we may say it with reverence, the All-wise, All-knowing
God, Cannot speak without meaning manythings at Once.
He sees the end from the beginning; He understands
the numberless connexions and relations of all things one
with another. Every word of His is full of instruction,
looking many ways; and though it is not often given to
us to know these various senses, and we are not at liberty
to attempt lightly to imagine them, yet, as far as they are
told us, and as far as we may reasonably infer them, we
286 D O C T R IN A L.
must thankfully accept them. Look at Christ's words,
and this same character of them strikes us: whatever He
says is fruitful in meaning, and refers to many things.
It is well to keep this in mind when we read Scripture,
for it may hinder us from self-conceit, from studying it in
an arrogant, Critical temper, and from giving over reading
it, as if we had got from it all that can be learned.
When God called Himself the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, He implied that those holy patriarchs
were still alive, though they were no more seen on earth.
This may seem evident at first sight; but it may be
asked how the text proves that their bodies would live ;
for, if their souls were still living, that would be enough
to account for their being still called, in the Book of
Exodus, servants of God. This is the point to be con-
sidered. Our blessed Lord seems to tell us that in some
sense or other Abraham's body might be considered still
alive as a pledge of his resurrection, though it was dead
in the common sense in which we apply the word. His
announcement is, Abraham shall rise from the dead,
because in truth he is still alive. He cannot in the end
be held under the power of the grave, more than a sleep.
ing man Can be kept from waking. Abraham is still
alive in the dust, though not risen thence. He is alive,
because all God's Saints live to Him, though they seem
to perish.
T H E R ESU R RECTION OF T H E B O D Y. 287
It may seem a paradox to say that our bodies even
when dead are still alive ; but since our Lord seems to
Countenance us in Saying so, I will say it, though a
Strange Saying, because it has an instructive meaning.
We are apt to talk about our bodies as if we knew how or
what they really were, whereas we only know what our
eyes tell us. They seem to grow, to come to maturity,
to decay; but after all we know no more about them
than meets our senses, and there is doubtless much
which God sees in our material frames which we cannot
see. We have no direct cognizance of what may be
called the substantive existence of the body, only of its
accidents. Again, we are apt to speak of Soul and body
as if we could distinguish between them, and knew much
about them ; but for the most part we use words without
meaning. It is useful indeed to make the distinction,
and Scripture makes it ; but after all, the Gospel speaks
of our nature, in a religious sense, as One. Soul and body
make up one man, which is born Once and never dies.
Philosophers of old time thought the soul indeed might
live for ever, but that the body perished at death ; but
Christ tells us otherwise. He tells us the body will live
for ever. In the text He seems to intimate that it
never really dies; that we lose sight indeed of what we
are accustomed to see ; but that God still sees the elements
of it which are not exposed to Our Senses.
\
28S D O C T R IN A. L.
God graciously called Himself the God of Abraham.
He did not say the God of Abraham's soul, but simply
of Abraham. He blest Abraham, and He gave him
eternal life; not to his soul only without his body, but to
Abraham as one man. And so He is our God, and it is
not given us to distinguish between what He does for Our
different matures, spiritual and material. These are mere
words. Each of us may feel himself to be one, and that
one being, in all its substantial parts and attributes, will
never die. .
Among the wise men of the heathen, as I have said, it
was usual to speak slightingly and Contemptuously of the
mortal body; they knew no better. They thought it
scarcely a part of their real selves, and fancied they
should be in a better Condition without it. Nay, they
considered it to be the Cause of their sinning; that the
soul of man was pure, and the material body was gross,
and defiled the soul. We have been taught the truth,
viz., that sin is a disease of our minds, of ourselves; and
that all of us, not body alone, but Soul and body, is
naturally Corrupt, and that Christ has redeemed and
cleansed whatever we are, sinful soul and body. Ac-
cordingly their chief hope in death was the notion they
should be rid of their body. Feeling they were sinful,
and not knowing how, they laid the charge on their body;
and knowing they were badly circumstanced here, they
T H E R ESU R RECT I O N OF T III, B C, D Y. 289°
thought death perchance might be a change for the
better. Not that they rested on the hope of returning to
a God and Father ; but they thought to be unshackled
from the earth, and able to do what they would. It was
consistent with this slighting of their earthly tabernacle
that they burned the dead bodies of their friends ; not
burying them, as we do, but Consuming them, as a mere
worthless case of what had been precious, and was then
an encumbrance to the ground. Far different is the
temper which the glorious light of the Gospel teaches us.
Our bodies shall rise again and live for ever ; they may
not be irreverently handled. How they will rise we
know not ; but surely, if the word of Scripture be true,
the body from which the soul departed shall come to
life. . . . . We cannot determine in what exact sense our
bodies will be on the resurrection the same as they are
at present, but we cannot harm ourselves by taking God's
declaration simply, and acting upon it. And it is as
believing this comfortable truth that the Christian Church
put aside that old irreverence of the funeral pile, and
4 consecrated the ground for the reception of the Saints
that sleep. We deposit our departed friends calmly and
thoughtfully in faith, not ceasing to love or remember
that which once lived among us, but marking the place
where it lies, as believing that God has set His seal upon
o it, and His angels guard it. His angels Surely guard the
U
290 D O CT R IN A I,
jº)
bodies of His servants; Michael the archangel thinking
it no unworthy task to preserve them from the powers of
evil. .
And in this view what a venerable and fearful place is
a church, in and around which the dead are deposited
Truly it is chiefly sacred as being the spot where God
has for ages manifested Himself to His servants; but
add to this the thought that it is the actual resting-place
of those very servants, through successive times, who still
live unto Him The dust around us will one day become
animate. We may ourselves be dead long before, and
not see it. We ourselves may elsewhere be buried, and
should it be our exceeding blessedness to rise to life eternal,
we may rise in other places, far in the east or west. But
as God's work is sure, what is sown is raised. The earth
to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, shall become glory
to glory, and life to the living God, and a true incor-
ruptible image of the spirit made perfect. Here the
Saints sleep, here they shall rise. A great sight will a
Christian country then be, if earth remains what it is,
when holy places pour out the worshippers who have
for generations kept vigil therein, waiting through the
long night for the bright coming of Christ. And, if this
be so, what pious, composed thoughts should be ours
when we enter churches | God indeed is everywhere,
and His angels go to and fro; yet can they be more
T H E RE SU R R ECTION OF T H E B O D Y. 29I
worthily employed in their condescending care of man,
than where good men sleep? In the service of the Com-
munion we magnify God together with angels and arch-
angels, and all the company of heaven. Surely there is
more meaning in this than we know of What a “dread-
ful” place would this appear if our eyes were opened as
those of Elisha's servant : “This is none other than the
house of God, and this is the gate of heaven "
SCR/PTURAE A R AECORD OF HUMA/V
SOAA’O W.
“There is at Jerusalem by the sheep-market a pool, which is called
in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these
lay a great multitude of impotent ſolk, of blind, halt, withered,
waiting for the moving of the water.”—JOHN v. 2, 3.
HAT a scene of misery this pool of Bethesda must
have presented of pain and sickness triumphing
unto death ; the “blind, halt, withered, and impotent,”
persuaded by the hope of cure to disclose their sufferings
in the eye of day in one large company This pool was
endued at certain times with a wonderful virtue by the
descent of an angel into it, so that its waters effected the
cure of the first who stepped into it, whatever was his
disease. However, I shall not speak of this wonderful
pool, nor of our Saviour's miracle wrought there upon the
man who had no one to put him in before the rest, when
the water was troubled, and had been for thirty-eight
years afflicted with his infirmity. Without entering into
these subjects, let us take the text as it stands, and deduce
a lesson from it.
SCRIPTU R. E. A. R. E. CO R D OF H U M A N S O R. R O W. 293
There lay about the pool “a great multitude of im-
potent folk, of blind, halt, and withered.” This is a
painful picture, such as we do not like to dwell upon,
—a picture of a chief kind of human suffering, bodily
disease; one which suggests to us and typifies all other
Suffering—the most obvious fulfilment of that curse which
Adam's fall brought upon his descendants. Now it must
strike every one, who thinks at all about it, that the Bible
is full of such descriptions of human misery. We know
it also abounds in accounts of human sin; but not to
speak of these, it abounds in accounts of human distress
and sufferings, of our miserable Condition, of the vanity,
unprofitableness, and trials of life. The Bible begins
with the history of the curse pronounced on the earth
and man; it ends with the book of Revelation, a portion
of Scripture fearful for its threats, and its prediction of
judgments. Spite of the peculiar promises made to the
Church in Christ our Saviour, yet as regards the world,
the volume of inspiration is still a dreary record, “written
within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and
woe.” And further, you will observe that it seems to
drop what might be said in favour of this life, and en-
larges on the unpleasant side of it. The history passes
quickly from the garden of Eden, to dwell on the suffer-
ings which followed when our first parents were expelled
thence; and though, in matter of fact, there are traces of
294 D O C T R IN A L.
Paradise still left among us, yet it is evident Scripture
says little of them in comparison of its accounts of human
misery. Little does it say concerning the innocent
pleasures of life ; of those temporal blessings which rest
upon our worldly occupations, and make them easy; of
the blessings which we derive from the sun, and moon,
and the “everlasting hills;” from the succession of the
seasons and the produce of the earth ; little about our
recreations, and our daily domestic comforts ; little about
the ordinary occasions of festivity and mirth which occur
in life; and nothing at all about those various other
enjoyments which it would be going too much into detail
to mention. Human tales and poems are full of pleasant
sights and prospects; they make things better than they
are, and portray a sort of imaginary perfection; but
Scripture (I repeat) seems to abstain even from what
might be said in praise of human life as it is. “Vanity
of vanities, all is vanity;” “Man is born to trouble;”
these are its customary lessons. The text is but a speci-
men of the descriptions repeated again and again through-
out Scripture of human infirmity and misery.
In truth, this view is the ultimate true view of human
life. But this is not all ; it is a view which it concerns
us much to know. It concerns us (I say) much to be told
that this world is, after all, in spite of first appearances
and partial exceptions, a dark world; else we shall be
SCRIPTU R. E. A. R. E. CO R D OF H U M A N S OR R O W. 295
obliged to learn it (and sooner or later we must learn it)
by sad experience; whereas, if we are forewarned, we
shall unlearn false notions of its excellence, and be saved
the disappointment which follows them. And therefore
it is that Scripture omits even what might be said in
praise of this world’s pleasures; not denying their value,
such as it is, or forbidding us to use them religiously, but
knowing that we are sure to find them out for ourselves
without being told of them, and that our danger is on
the side, not of undervaluing, but of Overvaluing them ;
whereas, by being told of the world's vanity at first, we
shall learn (what else we should only attain at last), not
indeed to be gloomy and discontented, but to bear a
ºw sober and calm heart under a smiling cheerful Coun-
tenance. This is one chief reason of the solemn cha-
racter of the Scripture history; and if we keep it in view,
so far from being offended and frightened away by its
notes of sorrow, because they grate on the ear at first,
we shall steadfastly listen to them and get them by heart,
as a gracious gift from God, sent to us as a remedy for
all dangerous overflowing joy in present blessings, in
order to save us far greater pain (if we use the lesson
well), the pain of actual disappointment, such as the over-
throw of vainly-cherished hopes of lasting good upon
earth will certainly occasion.
Do but consider what is the Consequence of ignorance
296 * * ID O C T R IN A. L.
or distrust of God’s warning voice, and you will see
clearly how merciful He is, and how wise it is to listen
to Him. I will not suppose a case of gross sin, or of
open contempt for religion; but let a man have a general
becoming reverence for the law and Church of God, and
an unhesitating faith in his Saviour Christ, yet suppose
him to be so taken with the goods of this world, as
(without his being aware of it) to give his heart to them.
Let him have many good feelings and dispositions, but
let him love his earthly pursuits, amusements, friends, too
well—by which I mean so well as to forget that he is
bound to live in the spirit of Abraham's faith, who gave
up home, kindred, possessions, all his eye ever loved, at
God's word ; in the spirit of St. Paul's faith, who “ counted
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus his Lord,” to win whose favour “he
suffered the loss of all things.” How will the world go
with a man thus forgetful of his real interests P For a
while all will be enjoyment: if at any time weariness
comes, he will be able to change his pleasure, and the
variety will relieve him. His health is good, and his
spirits high, and easily master and bear down all the
accidental troubles of life. So far all is well; but as
years roll on, by little and little he will discover that,
after all, he is not, as he imagined, possessed of any
real substantial good. He will begin to find, and be
SCRIPT U R E A R ECO R D OF H U M A N S OR R O W, 297
startled at finding, that the things which once pleased,
please less and less, or not at all. He will be unable to
recall those lively emotions in which he once indulged;
and he will wonder why thus, by degrees, the delightful
visions which surrounded him will fade away, and in their
stead melancholy forms will haunt him, such as Crowded
round the pool of Bethesda. Then will be fulfilled the
words of the wise man. The days will have come
“when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them ; the
sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars shall be
darkened, and the clouds return after the rain; then they
who look out of the window shall be darkened, the doors
shall be shut in the streets, all the daughters of music
shall be brought low, fears shall be in the way, and desire
shall fail.” Then a man will begin to be restless and
discontented, for he does not know how to amuse himself.
Before, he was cheerful only from the natural flow of his
Spirits, and when such cheerfulness is lost with increasing
years he becomes evil-natured. He has made no effort
to change his heart, to raise, strengthen, and purify his
faith, to subdue his bad passions and tempers. Now
their day is come ; they have sprung up, and begin to
domineer. When he was in health he thought about his
farm or his merchandise, and lived to himself; he laid
out his strength on the world, and the world is nothing
to him, as a worthless bargain (so to say), seeing it is
298 D O C T R IN A L.
nothing worth to one who cannot take pleasure in it.
He had no habitual thought of God in the former time,
however he might have a general reverence for His
name; and now he dreads Him, or (if the truth must be
said) even begins to hate the thought of Him. Where
shall he look for succour? Perhaps, moreover, he is a
burthen to those around him ; they care not for him, he
is in their way. And so he will lie year after year by
the pool of Bethesda, by the waters of health, with no
one helping him ; unable to advance himself towards a
cure, in consequence of his long habits of sin, and others
passing him by, perhaps unable to help One who ob-
stinately refuses to be comforted. Thus he has at length
full, personal, painful experience that this world is really
vanity, or worse, and all this because he would not
believe it from Scripture.
Now should the above description appear overcharged ;
should it be said that it supposes a man to be possessed
of more of the pleasures of life than most men have,
and of keener feelings; should it be said that most men
have little to enjoy, and that most of those who have
much go on in an Ordinary tranquil way, and take and
lose things without much thought, not pleased much in
their vigorous days, and not Caring much about the
change when the world deserts them ; then I must
proceed to a more solemn consideration still, on which
SCRIPTU R E A RECORD OF H U MAN SO R R. O.W. 299
I do not like to dwell, but would rather leave it for your
own private reflection upon it. There is a story in the
Gospel of a man who was taken out of this life before
he had turned his thoughts heavenward, and in another
world he lifted up his eyes, being in torments. Be quite
sure that every one of us, even the poorest and the most
dull and insensible, is far more attached to this world
than he can possibly imagine. We get used to the things
about us, and forget they are necessary for our comfort.
Every one, when taken out of this world, would miss a
great deal that he is used to depend on, and would in
consequence be in great discomfort and Sorrow in his
new abode, as a stranger in an unknown place; every
one, that is, who had not, while on earth, made God his
Father and Protector—that great God who alone will there
be found. We do not then mend the matter at all in
supposing a man not to find out the world's vanity here ;
for even should the world remain his faithful friend, and
please him with its goods to his dying day, still that
world will be burnt up at the day of his resurrection;
and even had he little of its Comforts here, that little
he will then miss. Then all men, Small and great, will
know it to be vanity, and feel their infinite loss if they
have trusted it, when all the dead stand before God.
Let this suffice on the use we must make of the
solemn view which the Scripture takes of this life. Those
3OO D O C T R IN A L.
disclosures are intended to save us pain, by preventing
us enjoying the world unreservedly; that we may use it
as not abusing it.
Nor let it seem as if this view of life must make a
man melancholy and gloomy. The great rule of our
Conduct is to take things as they come. He who goes
out of his way as shrinking from the varieties of human
life which meet him, has weak faith or a strangely.
perverted conscience—he wants elevation of mind. The
true Christian rejoices in those earthly things which
give joy, but in such a way as not to care for them when
they go. For no blessings does he care much, except
those which are immortal, knowing that he shall receive
all such again in the world to come. But the least and
the most fleeting, he is too religious to contemn, con.
sidering them God's gift; and the least and most fleeting,
thus received, yield a purer and deeper, though a less
tumultuous joy. And if he at times refrains, it is lest he
should encroach upon God's bounty, or lest by a constant
use of it he should forget how to do without it.
Our Saviour gives us a pattern which we are bound
to follow. He was a far greater than John the Baptist,
yet He came, not with St. John's outward austerity, con-
demning the display of strictness or gloominess, that we,
His followers, might fast the more in private, and be the
more austere in our secret hearts. True it is that such
S C R. I PT U R E A R ECO R D O Iſ H U M A N S O R. R. O. W. 3OI
Self-Command, composure, and inward faith, are not
learned in a day; but if they were, why should this life
oxſ be given us? It is given us as a very preparation time
for obtaining them. Only look upon the world in this
light. Its sights of Sorrows are to calm you, and its
pleasant sights to try you. There is a bravery in thus
going straight forward, shrinking from no duty little or
great, passing from high to low, from pleasure to pain,
and making your principles strong without their becoming
f
\ 2
among the miseries of Bethesda without losing his
formal. Learn to be as the angel, who could descend
heavenly purity or his perfect happiness. Gain healing
from troubled waters. Make up your mind to the pros-
pect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble
in your passage through life. By the blessing of God
{. this will prepare you for it; it will make you thoughtful
and resigned without interfering with your cheerfulness.
It will connect you in your Own thoughts with the Saints
of Scripture, whose lot it was to be patterns of patient
endurance ; and this association brings to the mind
a peculiar consolation. View yourself and all Christians
as humbly following the steps of Jacob, whose days were
few and evil; and David, who in his best estate was as a
shadow that declineth, and was withered like grass; and
Elijah, who despised soft rainent and sumptuous fare;
and forlorn Daniel, who led an angel's life ; and be light-
3O2 ID O CT R IN A L.
hearted and contented, because you are thus called to be
a member of Christ's pilgrim Church. Realize the
paradox of making merry and rejoicing in the world
because it is not yours. And if you are hard to be
affected (as many men are), and think too little of the
changes of life, going on in a dull way without hope or
fear, feeling neither your need nor the excellence of
religion; then, again, meditate on the mournful histories
recorded in Scripture, in order that your hearts may be
opened thereby and roused. Read the Gospels in par-
ticular; you there find accounts of sick and afflicted
persons in every page as mementoes. Above all, you
there read of Christ's sufferings, which I am not now
called upon to speak of ; but the thought of which is
far more than enough to make the world, bright as it may
be, look dark and miserable in itself to all true believers,
even if the record of them were the only sorrowful part of
the whole Bible.
A/O/L/AWAESS AWAECESSA A' V AſOR AWUTUA’A.
B/L ESSE DAVA. S.S.
“Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”-—
HEB. xii. I4.
N this text it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit
to convey a chief truth of religion in a few words,
It is this circumstance which makes it especially im-
pressive; for the truth itself is declared in one form or
other in every part of Scripture. It is told us again and
again, that to make sinful Creatures holy was the great
end which our Lord had in view in taking upon Him
our nature, and that none but the holy will be accepted
for His sake at the last day. .
To be holy, is in our Church's words, to have “the true
* circumcision of the Spirit;” that is, to be separate from
sin, to hate the works of the world, the flesh, and the
devil; to take pleasure in keeping God's Commandments;
to do things as He would have us do them ; to live
habitually as in the sight of the world to come, as if we
had broken the ties of this life, and were dead already.
3O4. D O C T R IN A. L.
jº
<-2 lº-
Why Cannot we be saved without possessing such a frame
and temper of mind?
I answer as follows: that, even Supposing a man of
unholy life were suffered to enter heaven, he would not be
happy there; so that it would be no mercy to permit him
to enter.
We are apt to deceive ourselves, and to consider
heaven a place like this earth; I mean, a place where
every man may choose and take his own pleasure. We
see that in this world active men have their own enjoy-
ments, and domestic men have theirs; men of literature,
of science, of political talent, have their respective
pursuits and pleasures. Hence we are led to act as if
it will be the same in another world. The only difference
we put between this world and the next, is that here
(as we know well) men are not always sure, but there, we
suppose they will be always sure, of obtaining what they
seek after. And accordingly we conclude that any man,
whatever his habits, tastes, or manner of life, if once
admitted into heaven, would be happy there. Not that
we altogether deny that some preparation is necessary
for the next world; but we do not estimate its real extent
and importance. We think we can reconcile ourselves
to God when we will; as if nothing were required in the
case of men in general but some temporary attention,
more than ordinary, to our religious duties; some strictness,
FIO L IN E S S A N D F UT U R E B L E S S E D N ESS. 305
during our last sickness, to the services of the Church,
as men of business arrange their letters and papers
on taking a journey or balancing an account. But
an opinion like this, though Commonly acted upon, is
refuted as soon as put into words. For heaven, it is
plain from Scripture, is not a place where many different
and discordant pursuits can be Carried on at Once, as
is the case in this world. Here every one can do his
own pleasure, but there he must do God’s pleasure.
It would be presumption to attempt to determine the
employments of that eternal life which good men are
to pass in God's presence, or to deny that that state
which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind
Conceived, may comprise an infinite variety of pursuits
and occupations. Still, So far we are distinctly told, that
that future life will be spent in God's presence, in a sense
which does not apply to our present life ; so that it
may be best described as an endless and uninterrupted
worship of the Eternal Father, Son, and Spirit. “They
serve Him day and night in His temple, and He that
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. . . . The
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed
them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.”
Again : “The city had no need of the Sun, neither of
the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten
it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations
X
306 DOCTR IN A L.
of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it,
and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and
honour into it.” These passages of St. John are sufficient
to remind us of many others.
Heaven, then, is not like this world. I will Say what
it is much more like—a church. For in a place of public
worship no language of this world is heard; there are
no schemes brought forward for temporal objects, great
or small; no information how to strengthen our worldly
interests, extend our influence, or establish our credit.
These things indeed may be right in their way, so that
we do not set our hearts upon them ; still (I repeat),
it is certain that we hear nothing of them in a church.
Here we hear solely and entirely of God. We praise
Him, worship Him, sing to Him, thank Him, Confess
to Him, give ourselves up to Him, and ask His blessing.
And, therefore, a church is like heaven, viz., because
both in the one and the other there is one single
sovereign subject—religion—brought before us.
Supposing, then, instead of its being said that no
irreligious man could serve and love God in heaven
(or see Him, as the text expresses it), we were told that
no irreligious man could worship, of spiritually see Him
in church ; should we not at once perceive the meaning
of the doctrine P namely, that were a man to come hither,
who had suffered his mind to grow up its own way,
H O L IN E S S A. N. D F UT U R E B L E S S E D N ESS. 3O7
{!
*
as nature or chance determined, without any deliberate
habitual effort after truth and purity, he would find no
real pleasure here, but would soon get weary of the
place; because in this house of God he would hear only
of that one subject which he cared little or nothing
about, and nothing at all of those things which excited
his hopes and fears, his sympathies and energies. If,
then, a man without religion (supposing it possible) were
admitted into heaven, doubtless he would sustain a great
disappointment. Before, indeed, he fancied that he
could be happy there; but when he arrived there he
would find no discourse but that which he had shunned
on earth ; no pursuits but those he had disliked or
despised ; nothing which bound him to aught else in
the universe, and made him feel at home; nothing which
he could enter into and rest upon. He would perceive
himself to be an isolated being, cut away by Supreme
Power from those objects which were still entwined
about his heart. Nay, he would be in the presence
of that Supreme Power whom he never on earth could
bring himself steadily to think upon, and whom now
he regarded only as the destroyer of all that was
precious and dear to Him. Ah he could not bear the
face of the Living God; the Holy God would be no
object of joy to him. “Let us alone what have we
to do with Thee?” is the sole thought and desire of
308 D O C T R IN A L.
unclean souls, even while they acknowledge His majesty.
None but the holy can look upon the Holy One: without
holiness no man can endure to see the Lord.
When, then, we think to take part in the joys of
heaven without holiness, we are as inconsiderate as if
we supposed we could take an interest in the worship
of Christians here below without possessing it in our
measure. A Careless, a sensual, an unbelieving mind;
a mind destitute of the love and fear of God; with
narrow views and earthly aims, a low standard of duty,
and a benighted conscience; a mind Contented with
itself, and unresigned to God's will, would not feel
pleasure at the last day at the words, “Enter into the
joy of thy Lord,” more than it does now at the words,
“Let us pray.” Nay, much less; because while we
are in a church we may turn our thoughts to other
subjects, and contrive to forget that God is working
on us; but that will not be possible in heaven.
We see, then, that holiness, or inward separation from
the world, is necessary to our admission into heaven;
because heaven is not heaven, is not a place of happiness,
except to the holy. There are bodily indispositions which
affect the taste, so that the sweetest flavours become
ungrateful to the palate ; and indispositions which impair
the sight, tinging the fair face of nature with some
sickly hue. In like manner there is a moral malady
H O LIN ESS AND F U T U R E B L E S S E D N ESS. 309
which disorders the inward sight and taste; and no man
labouring under it is in a Condition to enjoy what
Scripture calls “the fulness of joy in God’s presence, and
pleasures at His right hand for evermore.”
Nay, I will venture to say more than this—it is fearful,
but it is right to say it—that if we wished to imagine a
punishment for an unholy, reprobate Soul, we perhaps
could not fancy a greater than to summon it to heaven.
Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man. We know
how unhappy we are apt to feel at present, when alone
in the midst of strangers, or of men of different tastes
and habits to ourselves. How miserable, for example,
would it be to have to live in a foreign land, among a
people whose faces we never saw before, and whose lan-
guage we could not learn. And this is but a faint illus-
tration of the loneliness of a man of earthly dispositions
and tastes thrown into the Society of Saints and angels.
How forlorn would he wander through the courts of
heaven He would find no one like himself; he would
see in every direction the marks of God's holiness, and
these would make him shudder. He would feel himself
always in His presence. He could no longer turn his
thoughts another way, as he does now, when Conscience
reproaches him. He would know that the eternal eye
was ever upon him ; and that eye of holiness, which is
joy and life to holy creatures, would seem to him an eye
3IO DOCTR IN A L.
of wrath and punishment. God cannot change His
nature. Holy He must ever be. But while He is holy
no unholy Soul can be happy in heaven. Fire does not
inflame iron, but it inflames straw. It would cease to be
fire if it did not. And so heaven itself would be fire to
a those who would fain escape across the great gulf from
the torments of hell. The finger of Lazarus would but
increase their thirst. The very “heaven that is over
their heads" will be “brass" to them.
I will now mention two important truths which seem
to follow from what has been said.
First, if a Certain character of mind, a certain state
of the heart and affections, be necessary for entering
heaven, our actions will avail for our salvation chiefly as
they tend to produce or evidence this frame of mind,
Good works (as they are called) are required, not as if
they had anything of merit in them, not as if they could
of themselves turn away God's anger for our sins, or
purchase heaven for us, but because they are the means,
under God's grace, of strengthening and showing forth
that holy principle which God implants in the heart, and
without which (as the text tells us) we cannot see Him.
The more numerous are our acts of charity, self-denial,
and forbearance, of Course the more will our minds be
Schooled into a charitable, self-denying, and forbearing
temper. The more frequent are our prayers, the more
HOL IN ESS AN ID F UT U R E B L E S S E D N ESS. 3II
humble, patient, and religious are our daily deeds, this
communion with God, these holy works, will be the
means of making Our hearts holy, and of preparing us for
the future presence of God. Outward acts, done on prin-
ciple, create inward habits. I repeat, the separate acts
of obedience to the will of God, good works as they are
Called, are of Service to us, as gradually severing us from
this world of sense, and impressing our hearts with a
heavenly character. . . . The mere outward acts of
Coming to church and saying prayers, which are of course
duties imperative upon all of us, are really serviceable to
those only who do them in a heavenly spirit, because
such men only use these good deeds to the improvement
of the heart; whereas even the most exact outward
devotion avails not a man if it does not improve it.
Secondly, if holiness be not merely the doing a certain
number of actions, but is an inward character which fol-
lows, under God’s grace, from doing them, how far distant
from that holiness are the multitude of men.
Most men who are living in neglect of God, silence their
consciences when troublesome with the promise of re-
penting some future day. How often are they thus led
on till death surprises them | But we will suppose they
do begin to repent when that future day comes. Nay,
we will even suppose that Almighty God were to forgive
them, and to admit them into His holy heaven. Well,
3 I2 D O C T R IN A L.
but is nothing more requisite P Are they in a fit state to
do Him service in heaven? Is not this the very point
I have been so insisting upon, that they are not in a
fit state P has it not been shown, that even if admitted
there without a change of heart, they would find no
pleasure in heaven? and is a change of heart wrought in
a day ? Which of our tastes or likings can we change at
our will in a moment P Not the most superficial. Can
we then at a word change the whole character and frame
of our minds? Is not holiness the result of many patient,
repeated efforts after obedience gradually working on us,
and first modifying and then changing our hearts? We
dare not, of course, set bounds to God's mercy and power
in cases of repentance late in life, even where He has
revealed to us the general rule of His moral governance;
yet surely it is our duty ever to keep steadily before us
and act upon those general truths which His holy word
has declared. His holy word in various ways warns us
that, as no one will find happiness in heaven who is not
holy, so no one can learn to be so in a short time, and
when he will. It implies it in the text, which names a
qualification, which we know in matter of fact does
- ordinarily take time to gain. It propounds it clearly,
though in figure, in the parable of the wedding garment,
in which inward sanctification is made a condition dis-
tinct from our acceptance of the proffer of mercy, and
H O L IN E S S A N D F U T U R E B L E S S E D N ESS. 3I3
not negligently to be passed over in our thoughts as if a
necessary consequence of it. And it Solemnly assures us
in St. Paul's epistles that it is possible so to presume on
Divine grace as to let slip the accepted time, and be
sealed even before the end of life to a reprobate mind
(Heb. vi. 4-6; x. 26-29). .
To obtain the gift of holiness is the work of a life.
No man will ever be perfect here, so sinful is our nature.
Thus, in putting off the day of repentance, these men are
reserving for a few chance years, when strength and
vigour are gone, that work for which a whole life would
not be enough. That work is great and arduous beyond
expression. There is much of sin remaining even in the
best of men, and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where
shall the ungodly and the sinner appear (1 Peter iv. 18) P
Their doom may be fixed any moment; and though this
thought should not make a man despair to-day, yet it
should ever make him tremble for to-morrow.
Be you content with nothing short of perfection; exert
yourselves day by day to grow in knowledge and grace;
that, if so be, you may at length attain to the presence of
Almighty God.
Lastly, while we thus labour to mould our hearts after
the pattern of the holiness of our heavenly Father, it is
one comfort to know, what I have already implied, that
we are not left to ourselves, but that the Holy Ghost is
3I4. T) O C T R IN A L,
graciously present with us, and enables us to triumph
Over and to change our own minds. It is a comfort and
encouragement, while it is an anxious and an awful thing,
to know that God works in and through us. We are the
instruments, but we are only the instruments, of our own
Salvation. Let no one say that I discourage him, and
propose to him a task beyond his strength. All of us
have the gifts of grace pledged to us from our youth up.
We know this well, but we do not use our privilege.
We form mean ideas of the difficulty of our duties, and
in consequence never enter into the greatness of the gifts
given us to meet it. Then afterwards, if perchance we
gain a deeper insight into the work we have to do, we
think God a hard master, who commands much from a
sinful race. Narrow indeed is the way of life, but infinite
is His love and power who is with the Church, in Christ's
place, to guide us along it.
WA 7TCH/AWG.
“Take ye heed, watch and pray : for ye know not when the
time is.”—MARK xiii. 33.
UR Saviour gave this warning when He was leav-
ing this world—leaving it, that is, as far as His
visible presence is concerned. He looked forward to
the many hundred years which were to pass before He
came again. He knew His own purpose and His Father's
purpose, gradually to leave the world to itself, gradually
to withdraw from it the tokens of His gracious presence.
He contemplated, as contemplating all things, the neglect
of Him which would spread even among His professed
followers; the daring disobedience, and the loud words
which would be ventured against Him and His Father
by many whom He had regenerated ; and the coldness,
cowardice, and tolerance of error which would be dis-
played by others who did not go so far as to speak or
to act against him. He foresaw the state of the world
and the Church, as we see it this day, when His pro-
longed absence has made it practically thought that He
never will come back in visible presence : and in the
316 D O C T R IN A L.
text He mercifully whispers into our ears not to trust in
what we see, not to share in that general unbelief, not to
be carried away by the world; but to “take heed, pray,
watch,” and look out for His coming.
Surely this gracious warning should be ever in our
thoughts, being so precise, so solemn, so earnest. He
foretold His first coming, yet He took His Church by
surprise when He came. Much more will He come
suddenly the second time, and overtake men, now that
He has not measured out the interval before it, as then
He did, but left our watchfulness to the keeping of faith
and love.
Now I consider this word watching, first used by our
Lord, then by the favoured disciple, then by the two
great apostles, Peter and Paul, is a remarkable word;
remarkable because the idea is not so obvious as might
appear at first sight, and next because they all inculcate
it. We are not simply to believe, but to watch , not
simply to love, but to watch ; not simplv to obey, but to
watch. To watch for what? for that great event, Christ's
coming ! Whether then we consider what is the obvious
meaning of the word, or the object towards which it
directs us, such as does not naturally come into our
minds, most of us have a general idea what is meant by
pelieving, fearing, loving, and obeying ; but perhaps we
do not contemplate or apprehend what is meant by
WATCH IN G. 3I 7
watching. I conceive it may be explained as follows.
Do you know the feeling in matters of this life, of
expecting a friend, expecting him to come, and he
delays P Do you know what it is to be in unpleasant
company, and wish for the time to pass away, and the
hour strike when you may be at liberty P Do you know
what it is to be in anxiety lest something should happen,
which may happen or may not ; or to be in suspense
about some important event, which makes your heart
beat when you are reminded of it, and of which you
think the first thing in the morning P Do you know
what it is to have a friend in a distant country, to expect
news of him, and to wonder from day to day what he is
now doing, and whether he is well? Do you know what
it is so to live upon a person who is present with you,
that your eyes follow his, that you read his soul, that you
see all its changes in his countenance, that you anticipate
his wishes, that you smile in his Smile, and are sad in his
adness, and are downcast when he is vexed, and rejoice
in his successes P. To watch for Christ is a feeling such
as all these, as far as feelings of this world are fit to
shadow out those of another.
T He watches for Christ who has a sensitive, eager,
apprehensive mind; who is awake, alive, quick-sighted,
zealous in seeking and honouring Him ; who locks out
for Him in all that happens, and who would not be sur
3.18 D O CT R IN A L.
prised, who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed,
if he found that He was coming at once.
And he watches zenith Christ, who, while he looks on to
the future, looks back on the past, and does not so con-
template what his Saviour has purchased for him as to
forget what He has suffered for him. He watches with
Christ who ever commemorates and renews in his own
person Christ's Cross and agony, and gladly takes up that
mantle of affliction which Christ bore here, and left be-
hind Him when He ascended.
This then is to watch; to be detached from what is
present, and to live in what is unseen; to live in the
thought of Christ as He came once, and as He will come
again; to desire His second coming, from our affectionate
and grateful remembrance of His first. “I will stand
upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will
watch to see what He will say unto me, and what I shall
answer when I am reproved.” When we reflect how
rarely this temper of mind is found among professing
Christians, we shall see why our Lord is so urgent in en-
forcing it; as if He said, “I am not warning you, my
followers, against open apostacy—that will not be ; but I
foresee that very few will keep awake and watch while I
am away. Blessed are the servants who do so; few will
open to Me im mediately when I knock. They will have
something to do first ; they will have to get ready. They
WA. T C H IN G. SI9
A
will have to recover from the surprise and confusion
which overtake them on the first news of my coming, and
will need time to collect themselves, and summon about
them their better thoughts and affections. They feel
themselves very well off as they are, and wish to serve
God as they are. They are satisfied to remain on earth;
they do not wish to move ; they do not wish to change.”
Without denying, then, to these persons the praise of
many religious habits and practices, I would say that they
want the tender and sensitive heart which hangs on the
thought of Christ, and lives in His love. The breath of
the world has a peculiar power in what may be called
rusting the soul. The mirror within them, instead of
reflecting back the Son of God, their Saviour, has become
dim and discoloured; and hence, though (to use a com-
mon expression) they have a good deal of good in them,
it is not through them, around them, and upon them.
An evil crust is on them; they think with the world;
they are full of the world’s notions and modes of speak-
ing ; they appeal to the world, and have a sort of rever-
ence for what the world will say. There is a want of
naturalness, simplicity, and childlike teachableness in
them. It is difficult to touch them, or (what may be
called) get at them, and to persuade them to a straight-
forward course in religion. They start off when you
least expect it; they have reservations, make distinctions,
32O D O C T R IN A. L.
*— -:
take exceptions, indulge in refinements, in questions
where there are really but two sides, a right and a wrong.
Their religious feelings do not flow forth easily; at times
when they ought to flow, either they are diffident and
can say nothing, or else they are affected and strained in
their mode of Conversing. And as a rust preys upon
metal and eats into it, so does this worldly spirit'penetrate
more and more deeply into the soul which once admits
it. And this is one great end, as it would appear, of
afflictions, viz., to rub away and clear off these outward
defilements, and to keep the Soul in a measure of its
baptismal purity and brightness.
Now it cannot surely be doubted that multitudes in
the Church are such as I have been describing, and that
they would not, could not, at once welcome our Lord on
His coming. We cannot indeed apply what has been
said to this or that individual; but on the whole, viewing
the multitude, one cannot be mistaken. There may be
exceptions; but after all conceivable deductions, a large
body must remain thus double-minded, thus attempting
to unite things impossible. This we might be sure of
though Christ had said nothing on the subject; but it is
a most affecting and solemn thought that He has actually
called our attention to this very danger, the danger of a
worldly religiousness, for So it may be called, though it is
religiousness, this mixture of religion and unbelief which
WAT C H IN G.
3
2
I
serves God indeed, but loves the fashions, the distinctions,
the pleasures, the comforts of this life—which feels a
Satisfaction in being prosperous in circumstances, likes
pomps and vanities, is particular about food, raiment,
house, furniture, and domestic matters, courts great
people, and aims at having a position in Society. He
warns His disciples of the danger of having their minds
drawn off from the thought of Him, by whatever cause.
He warns them against all excitements, all allurements
of this world. He solemnly warns them that the world
will not be prepared for His coming, and tenderly
entreats of them not to take their portion with the world.
He warns them by the instance of the rich man whose
Soul was required, of the Servant who ate and drank, and
of the foolish virgins. When He comes, they will one
and all want time; their heads will be confused, their
eyes will swim, their tongues falter, their limbs totter, as
men who are suddenly awakened. They will not all at
once collect their senses and faculties. O fearful
thought ! the bridal train is sweeping by
angels are
there—the just made perfect are there—little children,
and holy teachers, and white-robed Saints, and martyrs
washed in blood; the marriage of the Lamb is come, and
His wife hath made herself ready. She has already
attired herself while we have been sleeping. She has
been robing ; she has been adding jewel to jewel, and
Y
322 D O C T R IN A L.
t
grace to grace; she has been gathering in her chosen
ones one by one, and has been exercising them in holi-
ness, and purifying them for her Lord ; and now her
marriage hour is come. The holy Jerusalem is ascending,
and a loud voice proclaims: “Behold the Bridegroom
cometh, go ye out to meet Him ſ” But we, alas ! are but
dazzled with the blaze of light, and neither welcome the
sound, nor obey it—and all for what? What shall we
have gained then P What will this world have then done
for us? Wretched, deceiving world, which will then be
burnt up, unable not only to profit us, but to save itself.
Miserable hour, indeed, will that be, when the full con-
sciousness breaks on us of what we will not believe now,
that we are at present serving the world. We trifle with
our conscience now ; we deceive our better judgment;
we repel the hints of those who tell us that we are giving
ourselves to this perishing world. We will taste a little
of its pleasures, and follow its ways, and think it no harm
so that we do not altogether neglect religion.
Year passes after year silently; Christ's coming is ever
nearer than it was. O that, as He comes nearer earth, we
may approach nearer heaven Oh, my brethren, pray
Him to give you the heart to seek Him in sincerity | Pray
Him to make you in earnest. You have one work only,
to bear your cross after Him. Resolve, in His strength,
to do so; resolve to be no longer beguiled by “shadows
W.A.T C H IN G.
3
3
of religion,” by words, or by disputings, or by motions, or
by high professions, or by excuses, or by the world’s pro-
mises or threats. Pray Him to give you what Scripture
calls “an honest and good heart,” or “a perfect heart;”
and, without waiting, begin at once to obey Him with
the best heart you have. Any obedience is better than
none—any profession which is disjoined from obedience
is a mere pretence and deceit. Any religion which does
not bring you nearer God is of the world. You have to
seek his face ; obedience is the only way of Seeing Him.
All your duties are obediences. If you are to believe
the truths He has revealed, to regulate yourselves by His
precepts, to be frequent in His Ordinances, to adhere to
His church and people, why is it, except because He has
bid you? and to do what He bids is to obey Him, and to
obey Him is to approach Him. Every act of obedience
is an approach—an approach to Him who is not far off,
though He seems so, but close behind this visible screen
of things which hides Him from us. He is behind this
material framework; earth and sky are but a veil going
between Him and us; the day will come when He will
rend that veil, and show Himself to us. And then,
according as we have waited for Him, will He recompense
us. If we have forgotten Him, He will not know us ;
but “blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He
cometh, shall find watching. . . . . . He shall
324 D O C T R IN A. L.
gird Himself, and make them sit down to meat, and
will come forth and serve them. And if He shall come
in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and
find them so, blessed are those servants.” May this be
the portion of every one of us ! It is hard to attain it,
but it is woful to fail. Life is short ; death is certain ;
and the world to come is everlasting.
|WA/T/AVG FOR CHR/S T.
“He who testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”—REV. xxii. 20.
HEN our Lord was going away, He said He would
quickly come again; yet, knowing that by
“quickly” He did not mean what would be at first sight
understood by the word, He added, “suddenly,” or “as
a thief.” “Behold I come as a thief; blessed is he that
watcheth, and keepeth his garments” (Rev. xvi. 15).
Had His coming been soon, in our sense of the word,
it could not well have been sudden. Servants who are
bid to wait for their master's return from an enter-
tainment, could not, one should think, be overtaken by
that return. It was because to us His coming would not
seem soon, that it Zvas Sudden. What you expect to
come, you wait for ; what fails to come, you give up,
While, then, Christ said that His coming would be soon,
yet by saying it would be sudden, He said that to us it
would seem long.
Is it not something significant that, in the last book of
326 D O C T R IN A. L.
---
Scripture, which more than any other implies a long
Continuance to the Christian Church, that there we
should read such express and repeated assurances that
Christ's coming would be speedy ? Even in the last
chapter we are told it three times. “Behold, I come
quickly; blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the
prophecy of this book.” “Behold, I come quickly, and
My reward is with Me.” And again, in the text, “He
that testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.”
Such is the announcement; and in Consequence we are
commanded to be ever looking out for the great day,
to “wait for His Son from heaven;” to “look and haste
unto the coming of the day of God.”
It is true, indeed, that in one place St. Paul cautions
his brethren against expecting the immediate coming of
Christ, but he does not say more than that Christ will
send a sign immediately before His coming—a certain
dreadful enemy of the truth—which is to be followed by
Himself at once, and therefore does not stand in our
way, or prevent eager eyes from looking out for Him.
And, in truth, St. Paul seems rather to be warning his
brethren against being disappointed if Christ did not
come, than hindering them from expecting Him.
Now it may be objected that this is a kind of paradox.
How is it possible, it may be asked, ever to be expecting
what has so long been delayed P What has been so long
WA. IT IN G F O R C H R IS T. 327
coming, may be longer still. It was possible, indeed,
for the early Christians, who had no experience of the
long period which the Church was to remain on earth,
to look out for Christ, but we cannot help using our
reason. There are no more grounds to expect Christ now
than at those many former times when, as the events
showed, He did not come. Christians have ever been
expecting the last day, and have ever been disappointed.
They have seen what they thought symptoms of His
coming, and peculiarities in their own times, which a
little more knowledge of the world, a more enlarged
experience, would have shown them to be common to
all times. They have been ever frightened without good
reason, fretting in their narrow minds, and building on
their superstitious fancies. What age of the world has
there been in which people did not think the Day of
Judgment coming? Such expectation has but evidenced
and fostered indolence and superstition: it is to be con-
sidered as a mere weakness.
Now I shall attempt to say something in answer to
this objection.
First, considered as an objection to a habit of Con-
tinual waiting, it proves too much, as it is called. If it
is consistently followed up, no age ought ever to expect
the day of Christ; the age in which He shall come (what-
ever it is) ought not to expect him—which is the very
328 DOCTR IN AL,
thing He has warned us against. He nowhere warns
us against what is contemptuously called Superstition ;
but He expressly warns us against highminded
security. If it be true that Christians have expected
Him when He did not come, it is quite as true that when
He does come the world will not expect Him. If it be
true that Christians have fancied signs of His coming
when there were none, it is equally true that the world
will not see the signs of His coming when they are pre-
sent. His signs are not so plain but you have to search
for them ; not so plain but you may be mistaken in your
search ; and your choice lies between the risk of thinking
you see what is not, and of not seeing what is. True it
is, that many times, many ages, have Christians been
mistaken in thinking they discerned Christ's coming;
but better a thousand times think Him coming when he
is not, than once think Him not coming when He is.
Such is the difference between Scripture and the world :
judging by Scripture, you would ever be expecting
Christ; judging by the world, you would never expect
Him. Now He must come one day, sooner or later.
Worldly men have their scoff at our failure of discern-
ment now ; but whose will be the want of discernment,
whose the triumph then P And what does Christ think
of their present scoff? He expressly warns us, by His
apostle, of scoffers, who shall say, “Where is the promise
WAIT IN G F O R C H RIST. 329
of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all
things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation . . . . But, beloved,” continues St. Peter, “be
not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as
one day.”
It should be recollected, too, that the enemies of Christ
have ever been expecting the downfall of His religion
age after age ; and I do not see why the one expectation
is more unreasonable than the other; indeed, they
illustrate each other. So it is, undeterred by the failure
of former anticipations, unbelievers are ever expecting
that the Church and the religion of the Church are
coming to an end. They thought so in the last century;
they think so now. They ever think the light of truth is
going out, and that their hour of victory is come.
Now, when Christians and unbelievers thus unite in
expecting substantially the same thing, though they view
it differently, according to their respective modes of
thought, there cannot be anything very extravagant in
the expectation itself. The Christian has said: “All
looks so full of tumult, that the world is Coming to an
end.” The unbeliever has said: “All is so full of tumult,
that the Church is coming to an end ;” and there is nothing
surely more superstitious in the One opinion than in the
other. Ever since Christianity came into the world, it
33O D O C T R IN A L.
has been, in One sense, going out of it. It is so uncon-
genial to the human mind; it is so spiritual, and man is
so earthly ; it is apparently so defenceless, and has so
many strong enemies, so many false friends, that every
age, as it comes, may be called “the last time.” It has
made great conquests and done great works; but still it
has done all, as the apostle says of himself, “in weakness
and in fear, and in much trembling.” How it is that it
is always failing, yet always continuing, God only knows
who wills it—but so it is ; and it is no paradox to say, on
the one hand, that it has lasted eighteen hundred years,
that it may last many years more, and yet that it draws
to an end, nay, is likely to end any day. And God
would have us give our minds and hearts to the latter
side of the alternative, to open them to impressions from
this side, viz., that the end is coming —it being a whole-
some thing to live as if that will come in our day which
may come any day.
It was different during the ages before Christ came.
Aïe was to come. He was to bring perfection, and
religion was to grow towards that perfection. There
was a system of successive revelations going on, first one
and then another ; each prophet in his turn adding to the
store of divine truth, and gradually tending towards the
full Gospel. Time was measured out for believing minds
before Christ came, by the word of prophecy; so that He
WAIT IN G F O R CHRIST. 33 I
never could be expected in any age before the “fulness
of time” in which He came. The chosen people were not
bidden to expect Him at once ; but after a sojourning in
Canaan, and a Captivity in Egypt, and a wandering in the
wilderness, and judges, and kings, and prophets, at length
seventy long weeks were determined to introduce Him
into the world. Thus His delay was, as I may say,
ſecognized then ; and during His delay, other doctrines,
other rules, were given to fill the interval. But when
once the Christ had come, as the Son over His own
house, and with His perfect Gospel, nothing remained
but to gather in His saints. No higher priest could
come—no truer doctrine. The Light and Life of men
had appeared, and had suffered, and had risen again;
and nothing more was left to do. Earth had had its
most solemn event, and seen its most august sight; and
therefore it was the last time. And hence, though time
intervene between Christ's first and second coming, it
is not recognized (as I may say) in the Gospel Scheme,
but is, as it were, an accident. For so it was, that up to
Christ's coming in the flesh, the Course of things ran
straight towards it, nearing it by every step ; but now,
under the Gospel, that Course has (if I may so speak)
altered its direction as regards His second Coming,
and runs, not towards it, but along it, and on the brink
of it, and is at all times equally near that great event
332 D O C T R IN A. L.
which, did it run towards, it would at once run into.
Christ, then, is ever at our doors; as near eighteen
hundred years ago as now, and not nearer now than then ;
and not nearer when He comes than now. When He
says that He will come soon, “soon” is not a word of
time, but of natural order. This present state of things,
“the present distress,” as St. Paul calls it, is ever close
apon the next world, and resolves itself into it. As when
a man is given over, he may die any moment, yet lingers;
as an implement of war may any moment explode, and
must at some time ; as we listen for a clock to strike,
and at length it surprises us; as a Crumbling arch hangs,
we know not how, yet is not safe to pass under ; so
creeps on this feeble, weary world; and one day, before
we know where we are, it will end.
I observe then, that though Christians might be mis-
taken in what they took to be signs of Christ's coming,
yet they were not wrong in their state of mind; they
were not mistaken in looking out, and that for Christ.
Whether credulous or not, they only acted as one acts
towards some person beloved, or revered, or admired on
earth. Consider the mode in which loyal persons look
up to a good prince. You will find stories current up
and down the Country in his favour; people delight in
believing that they have fallen in with tokens of his bene-
ficence, nobleness, and paternal kindness, Many of these
W A IT IN G F O R C H R IS T. 333
reports are false, yet others are true; and, on the whole,
we should not think highly of that man who, instead of
being touched at this mutual sympathy between sovereign
and people, Occupied himself merely in Carping at what
he called their credulity, and sifting the accuracy of this
or that particular story. A great thing, truly, after all,
to be able to detect a few misstatements, and to expose
a few fictions, and to be without a heart | And, forsooth,
On the other hand, a sad deficiency in that people, I Sup-
pose, merely to be right on the whole, not in every par-
ticular, and to have the heart right ! Who would envy
such a man's knowledge P. Who would not rather have
that people's ignorance P And in like manner, I had
rather be he who, from love of Christ and want of science,
thinks some strange sight in the sky, comet or meteor,
to be the sign of His coming, than the man who, from
more knowledge and from lack of love, laughs at the
mistake.
And you will observe that, in the case of which I am
speaking, persons who are looking out for Christ are not
only in looking out acting in obedience to Him, but are
looking out in the very way they look out, through the
very signs through which they look out, in obedience
to Him. Always since the first, Christians have been
looking out for Christ in the signs of the natural and
moral world. If they have been poor and uneducated,
334 D O C T R IN A. L.
strange sights in the sky, or tremblings in the ground,
storms, failure of harvest, or disease, or anything monstrous
and unnatural, has made them think that He was at
hand. If they were in a way to take a view of the social
and political world, then the troubles of states, wars, revo-
lutions, and the like, have been additional circumstances
which served to impress them, and kept their hearts
awake for Christ. Now all these are nothing else but
those very things which He Himself has told us to dwell
upon, and has given us as signs of His coming. “There
shall be signs,” He says, “in the Sun, and in the moon,
and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with
perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts
failing them for fear, and for looking after those things
which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven
shall be shaken. . . . . And when these things begin
to come to pass,then look up and lift up your heads, for your
redemption draweth nigh.” One day the lights of heaven
zyi/ be signs; one day the affairs of nations also will be
signs. Why, then, is it Superstitious to look towards
them P It is not. We may be wrong in the particulars we
rest upon, and may show our ignorance in doing so; but
there is nothing ridiculous or Contemptible in our igno-
rance, and there is much that is religious in our watch-
ing. It is better to be wrong in our watching, than not
to watch at all.
WAIT IN G F O R C H R IS T. 335
Surely there can be no great harm, and nothing very
ridiculous, where men are religious, in thus thinking the
events of their day more than ordinary ; in fancying that
the world's matters are winding up, and that events are
thickening for a final visitation; for, let it be observed,
Scripture Sanctions us in interpreting all that we see in
the world in a religious sense, and as if all things were
tokens and revelations of Christ, His providence and
will. I mean, that if this lower world, which seems to go
on in its own way, independently of Him, governed by
fixed laws or swayed by lawless hearts, will nevertheless,
in an awful way, herald His coming to judge it, Surely it
is not impossible that the same world, both in its physical
Order and its temporal course, speaks of Him also in other
manners. At first, indeed, one might argue that this
world did but speak a language contrary to him; that in
Scripture it is described as opposed to God, to truth, to
faith, to heaven; that it is said to be a deceitful veil,
misrepresenting things, and keeping the soul from God.
How then, it may be asked, can this world have upon it
tokens of His presence, or bring us near to Him? Yet
certainly so it is, that in spite of the world's evil, after all,
He is in it, and speaks through it, though not loudly.
When He came in the flesh, “He was in the world, and
the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him
}}
o
not.” Nor did He strive nor cry, nor lift up His voice in
336 D O C T R IN A ſ.
the streets. So it is now. He still is here; He still
whispers to us; He still makes signs to us. But His voice
is so low, and the world’s din is so loud, and His signs
are so covert, and the world is so restless, that it is
difficult to determine when He addresses us and what
He says. Religious men cannot but feel in various ways
that His providence is guiding them and blessing them
personally on the whole ; yet when they attempt to put
their finger upon the times and places, the traces of His
presence disappear. Who is there, for instance, but has
been favoured with answers to prayer, such that, at the
time, he has felt he never could again be unbelieving?
Who has not had strange coincidences in his course of
life which brought before him in an overpowering way
the hand of God? Who has not had thoughts come
upon him with a sort of mysterious force, for his warning
or his direction ? And some persons, perhaps, experience
stranger things still. Wonderful providences have before
now been brought about by means of dreams; or in
other still more unusual ways Almighty God has at times
interposed. And then, again, things which come before
our eyes, in such wise take the form of types and omens of
things moral or future, that the spirit within us cannot
but reach forward and presage what it is not told from
what it sees. And sometimes these presages are remark-
ably fulfilled in the event. And then, again, the fortunes
WAIT IN G F O R C H R IS T. 337
of men are so singularly various, as if a law of Success
and prosperity embraced a certain number, and a Con-
trary law others. All this being so, and the vastness and
mystery of the world being borne in upon us, we begin
to think that there is nothing here below but, for what we
know, may have a connexion with everything else. The
most distant events may yet be united, and meanest and
highest may be parts of one ; and God may be teaching
us and offering us knowledge of His ways, if we will but
open our eyes, in all the ordinary matters of the day
This is what thoughtful persons come to believe ; and
they begin to show a sort of faith in the divine meaning
of the accidents (as they are called) of life, and a readi-
ness to take impressions from them, which may easily
become excessive, and which, whether excessive or not,
is sure to be ridiculed by the world at large as super-
stitious. Yet, considering Scripture tells us that the
very hairs of our head are all numbered by God, that
all things work together for our good, it does Certainly
encourage us in thus looking out for His presence in
everything that happens, however trivial, and in trusting
that to religious ears even the bad world prophesies of
Him.
ARES FAWT BI. ESS/AWGS.
“I have all, and abound ; I am full.”—PHIL. iv. 18.
UCH is St. Paul's confession concerning his temporal
condition, even in the midst of his trials. Those
trials brought with them spiritual benefits, but even as
regarded this world he felt he had cause for joy and
thankfulness, in spite of Sorrows, pains, labours, and Self-
denials. He did not look on this life with bitterness,
complain of it morosely, or refuse to enjoy it ; he was
not soured as the children of men often are by his trials;
but he felt that if he had troubles in this world, he had
blessings also ; and he did not reject these, but made much
of them. “I have all, and abound ; I am full,” he says.
And elsewhere he tells us, that “every creature of God is
good ;” and that “godliness is profitable unto all things,
having the promise of the life that now is, and of that
which is to come.”
Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not
real which has not love in it; that self-chastisement is
not acceptable which is not sweetened by faith and
PR E S E N T B L E S S IN G. S. 339
NJ
cheerfulness. We must live in Sunshine, even when we
sorrow ; we must live in God's presence ; we must not
shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are
reckoning up our past sins.
We ought to bless and praise God that we have the
gift of life. By this I mean not merely that we live, but
for those blessings which are included in the notion of
Our living. He has made life in its very nature to
imply the existence of certain blessings which are them-
selves a happiness, and which bring it to pass, that in
spite of all evils, life in itself, except in rare cases, cannot
be otherwise than desirable. We cannot live without
the means of life ; without the means of life we should
die; and the means of life are means of pleasure. It
might have been so ordered that life could not have
been sustained without the use of such means as
were indifferent, neither pleasurable nor painful, or of
means which were even painful; as in the case of illness
or disease, when we actually find that we cannot pre-
serve it without painful remedies. Now, supposing the
ordinary ways of preserving it had been what are now
but extraordinary ; supposing food were medicine ; Sup-
posing wounds or blows imparted health and strength.
But it is not so. On the contrary, life consists in things
pleasant; it is sustained by blessings. And moreover,
the Gospel, by a solemn grant, guarantees these things
34O D O C T R IN A L.
&}
to us. After the flood, God Almighty condescended to
promise that there never should be such a flood again ;
that seed-time and harvest should not fail. He ratified
the stability of nature by His own word, and by that
word it is upheld. And in like manner He has, in
a special way, guaranteed to us in the Gospel that law of
nature whereby good and pleasant gifts are included in
our idea of life, and life becomes a blessing. He might,
did He so will, sustain us Christians not by bread only,
but by every word that proceedeth out of His mouth.
But He has not done so. He has pledged to us those
ordinary means of Sustenance which we naturally like.
“Bread shall be given us, our water shall be sure.” “All
these things shall be added unto us.” He has not indeed
promised us what the world calls its great prizes; He
has not promised us those goods, so called, of which the
goodness depends on the imagination; He has not
promised us large estates, magnificent domains, houses
like palaces, sumptuous furniture, retainers and servants,
chariots and horses, rank, name, Credit, popularity, power,
the deference of others, the indulgence of our wills, luxury,
sensual enjoyments. These, on the contrary, He denies
us; and withal He declares, that, specious and inviting as
they are, really they are evil. But still He has promised
that this shall be His rule; that thus shall it be fulfilled
to us as His ordinary providence ; that life shall not be a
PRESENT BLESSINGs. 34. I
º
burthen to us, but a blessing, and shall contain more to
comfort than to afflict. And giving us as much as this,
He bids us be satisfied with it. He bids us confess that
we “have all ” when we have so much ; that we
“abound" when we have enough. He promises us food,
raiment, and lodging; and He bids us, “having food and
raiment, therewith to be content.” He bids us be con-
tent with those gifts, and withal unsolicitous about
them ; tranquil, secure, and confident, because He has
promised them. He bids us be sure that we shall have
so much, and not be disappointed that it is no more.
Such is His merciful consideration of us. He does not
separate us from this world, though He calls us out of it;
He does not reject our old nature when He gives us a
new one ; He does but redeem it from the curse, and
purify it from the infection which came through Adam,
and is none of His. He especially blesses the creation
to our use, though we be regenerate. “Every creature
of God,” says the Apostle, “is good, and nothing to be
refused, if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanc-
tified by the word of God and prayer.” He does not
bid us renounce the creation, but associates us with the
most beautiful portions of it. He likens us to the
flowers with which He has ornamented the earth, and to
the birds that live solitary under heaven, and makes
them the type of a Christian. He denies us Solomon's
342 D O CT R IN A. L.
regal magnificence, to unite us to the lilies of the field
and the fowls of the air. “Take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet
for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life
more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold
the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they P
. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither
do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these.” Here, then, Surely, is a matter for joy and thank-
fulness at all seasons. -
Again, what a great blessing is the gift of sleep !
Almighty God does not suffer us to be miserable for a
long time together, even when He afflicts us, but He
breaks our trials into portions; takes us out of this world
ever and anon, and gives us a holiday-time, like children
at school, in an unknown and mysterious country.
All this, then, must be borne in mind in reflecting
on those solemn and sobering truths concerning the
Christian's calling which it is necessary often to insist
upon. It is often said, and truly, that the Christian is
born to trouble, that sorrow is the rule with him, and
pleasure the exception. But when this is said, the
PR E S E N T B L ESS IN G S. 343
Ö
question is one of seasons, circumstances, events, such
things as are adventitious and additional to the gift of
life itself. The Christian's lot is one of sorrow ; but, as
the regenerate life within him is happiness, so is the gift of
natural life also. We live, therefore we are happy; upon
this life of ours come joys and Sorrows ; and in proportion
as we are favourites of God, it is sorrow that comes, not
joy. Still, after all, considered in ourselves, that we live ;
that God breathes in us; that we exist in Him ; that we
think and act ; that we have the means of life; that we
have food, and sleep, and raiment, and lodging ; and
that we are not lonely, but in God's Church, and are
sure of brethren by the very token of our having a
Father which is in heaven;–So far, rejoicing is the
very condition of our being, and all pain is little more
than external, not reaching to our inmost heart. So far,
all men almost are on a level, Seasons of sickness
excepted. Even delicate health and feebleness of life
does not preclude these pleasures. And as to seasons of
sickness, or even long and habitual pain or disease, the
good Lord can compensate for them in His own way by
extraordinary supplies of grace ; as in early times He
made even the torments of Christians in persecution
literally pleasant to them. He who so ordered it that
even the red-hot iron did feel pleasant to the martyrs after
a while, cannot fail of means to support His servants
344 D O CT R IN A I.
when life becomes a burthen. But, generally speaking,
it is a happiness, and that to all ranks. High and low,
rich and poor, have the same refreshment in their
pilgrimage. Hunger is as pleasantly appeased by the
low as by the high, on coarse fare as on delicate.
Sleep is equally the comfort and recruiting of rich and
poor. We eat, drink, and sleep, whether we are in Sorrow
or in joy, in anxiety or in hope. Our natural life is the
type of our spiritual life, and thus, in a literal as well as
higher sense, we may bless Him “who saveth our life
from destruction, and crowneth us with mercy and
loving-kindness; who satisfieth our mouth with good
things, making us young and lusty as an eagle.”
Again, consider the blessings which we have in
Christian brotherhood. In the beginning, woman was
made, that man might not be alone, but might have a
helpmate for him ; and our Lord promised that all who
gave up this world and this world's kindred for Him should
“receive manifold more in this present time, houses, and
brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and
lands, with persecutions.” You see He mentions the
troubles of Christians, which were their lot as Christians;
but still these did not interfere with the prior law of their
very nature, that they should not be friendless. As food
and raiment are necessary conditions of life, Society is an
inseparable adjunct of it. God does not take away food
PR E S E N T B L E S S IN G S. 345
and raiment when He gives us grace, nor does He take
away brotherhood. He removes from the world to put
into the Church. Religion without a Church is as un-
natural as life without food and raiment. He began
our life anew, but He built it up upon the same founda-
tions; and as He did not strip us of our body when He
made us Christians, neither did He of social ties. Christ
finds us in the double tabernacle of a house of flesh and
a house of brethren, and He sanctifies both, not pulls
them down. Our first life is in ourselves; our second in
our friends. They whom God forces to part with their
near of kin for His sake, find brethren in the spirit at
their side. They who remain solitary for His sake, have
children in the spirit raised up to them. How should
we thank God for this great benefit !
We, through God's mercy, whether we be young or
old, whether we have many friends or few, if we be
Christ's, shall all along our pilgrimage find those in whom
We may live, who will love us, and whom we may love;
who will aid us, and help us forward, and Comfort us, and
close our eyes. For His love is a secret gift, which,
unseen by the world, binds together those in whom it
lives, and makes them love and sympathize in one
another.
THAE DAAWGAER OF R/CAHAE.S.
“Woe unto you that are rich for ye have received your
consolation.”—LUKE vi. 24.
INLESS we were accustomed to read the New Testa.
ment from our childhood, I think we should be
very much struck with the warnings which it contains,
not only against the love of riches, but the very possession
of them. We should wonder with a portion of that asto.
nishment which the apostles at first felt, who had been
brought up in the notion that they were a chief reward
which God bestowed on those He loved. As it is, we
have heard these most solemn declarations so continually,
that we have ceased to attach any distinct meaning to
them ; or if our attention is at any time drawn more
closely to them, we soon dismiss the subject, on some
vague imagination that what is said in Scripture had a
reference to the particular times when Christ came,
without attempting to settle its exact application to us,
or whether it has any such application at all; as if the
T H E D A N G E R O F RI C H E S 34.7
circumstance that the application requires care and
thought were an excuse for giving no thought nor care
whatever to the settling of it.
But even if we had ever so little concern in the Scrip-
ture denunciations against riches and the love of riches,
the very awfulness of them might have seemed enough
to save them from neglect ; just as the Flood and the
judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah are still dwelt upon
by Christians with solemn attention, though we have a
promise against the recurrence of the one, and trust we
shall never be so deserted by God’s grace as to call down
upon us the other. And this consideration may lead a
man to suspect that the neglect in question does not
entirely arise from unconcern, but from a sort of mis-
giving that the subject of riches is one which cannot be
safely or comfortably discussed without placing the
claims of God’s law and the pride of life into visible and
perplexing opposition. Let us then see what the letter
of Scripture says on the subject. For instance, consider
the text: “Woe unto you that are rich for ye have
received your consolation.” The words are sufficiently
clear, it will not be denied, as spoken of rich persons in
our Saviour's days. Let the full force of the word “con-
solation” be observed. It is used by way of Contrast to
the comfort which is promised to the Christian in the
list of beatitudes. Comfort, in all the fulness of that word,
348 D O C T R IN A. L.
as including help, guidance, encouragement, and support,
is the promise of the Gospel. The promised Spirit who
has taken Christ's place was called by Him the “Com-
forter.” There is then something very fearful in the in-
timation of the text, that those who have riches thereby
receive their portion, such as it is, in full, instead of the
heavenly gift of the Gospel. The same doctrine is im-
plied in our Lord's words in the parable of Dives and
Lazarus. “Son, remember thou in thy lifetime receivedst
thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but
nozº, he is comforded, and thou art tormented.” At another
time He said to His disciples, “How hardly shall they
that have riches enter into the kingdom of God . For
it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
Now it is usual to dismiss such passages with the
remark that they are directed, not against those who have,
but against those who trust in riches; as if, forsooth,
they implied no connection between the having and the
trusting ; no warning lest the possession lead to the idola-
trous reliance on them ; no necessity of fear and anxiety
in the possessors, lest they should become castaways.
And this irrelevant distinction is supposed to find coun-
tenance in Our Lord's own language on one of the occa-
sions above referred to, in which he first says, “How
hardly shall they that have riches;” then, “How hard it is
T H E D A N G E R O F R.I.C H. E. S. - 349
for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom
of God;” whereas surely He only removes His disciples'
false impression that the bare circumstance of possessing
wealth was inconsistent with a state of Salvation, and no
more interprets having by trusting than makes frusting
essential to having. He connects the two without iden-
tifying, without explaining away; and the simple question
which lies for our determination is this: Whether, con-
sidering that they who had riches when Christ came were
likely in His judgment idolatrously to trust in them, there
is, or is not, reason for thinking that this likelihood
varies materially in different ages P and according to the
solution of this question must we determine the applica-
tion of the woe pronounced in the text to these times.
And, at all events, let it be observed, it is for those who
would make out that these passages do not apply now,
to give their reasons for their opinion : the burden of
proof is with them. Till they draw their clear and
reasonable distinction between the first and nineteenth
century, the denunciation hangs over the world that is,
as much as over the Pharisees and Sadducees at our
Lord's Coming.
But, in truth, that our Lord meant to speak of riches
as being in some sense a Calamity to the Christian, is
plain, not only from such texts as the foregoing, but from
His praises and recommendation on the other hand of
350 D O C T R IN A. L.
poverty. For instance: “Sell that ye have and give alms;
provide yourselves bags which wax not old.” “If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.”
“Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
“When thou makest a dinner or a supper, Call not thy
friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy
rich neighbours—but—call the poor, the maimed, the
lame, the blind.” And in like manner St. James: “Hath
He not chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and
heirs of that kingdom which He hath promised to them
that love Him?” Now I cite these texts in the way of
doctrine, not of precept. Whatever be the line of
conduct they prescribe to this or that individual (with
which I have nothing to do at present), so far seems
clear, that according to the rule of the Gospel, the ab-
sence of wealth is, as such, a more blessed and a more
Christian state than the possession of it.
The most obvious danger which worldly possessions
present to our spiritual welfare is, that they become
practically a substitute in our hearts for that one object
to which our Supreme devotion is due. They are present;
God is unseen. They are means at hand of effecting
what we want; whether God will hear our petitions for
Such things is uncertain ; or rather, I may say, Certain in
the negative. Thus they minister to the corrupt inclina.
T H E D A N G E R O F RIC II F. S. 35 I
tions of our nature. They promise and are able to be
gods to us, and Such gods, too, as require no Service;
but, like dumb idols, exalt the worshipper, impressing
him with a notion of his own power and security. And
in this consists their chief and most subtle mischief.
Religious men are able to repress, nay, extirpate sinful
desires, the lust of the flesh and of the eyes, gluttony,
drunkenness, and the like, love of amusements, and
frivolous pleasures and display, indulgences or luxuries
of whatever kind; but as to wealth, they cannot
easily rid themselves of a secret feeling that it gives
them a footing to stand upon, an importance, a
superiority; and in Consequence they get attached to
this world, lose sight of the duty of bearing the cross,
become dull and dim-sighted, and lose their delicacy and
precision of touch; are numbed (so to Say) in their
fingers'-ends as regards religious interests and prospects.
To risk all upon Christ's word seems somehow unnatural
to them, extravagant, and evidences a morbid excitement;
and death, instead of being a gracious, however awful
release, is not a welcome subject of thought. They are
content to remain as they are, and do not contemplate
a change. They desire and mean to serve God; they
actually do serve Him in their measure; but not with
the keen sensibilities, the noble enthusiasm, the grandeur
and elevation of soul, the dutifulness and affectionateness
352 D O C T R IN A L.
towards Christ which becomes a Christian ; but as Jews
might obey, who had no image of God given them
except this created world, “eating their bread with joy,
and drinking their wine with a merry heart;” caring that
“their garments be always white, and their head lacking
no ointment; living joyfully with the wife whom they love
all the days of the life of their vanity,” and “enjoying the
good of their labour” (Eccles. ix. 7–9, v. 18). Not of
course that the due use of God's temporal blessings is
wrong; but to make them the object of our affections,
to allow them to beguile us from the “one husband’ to
whom we are espoused, is to mistake the Gospel for
Judaism.
This then, if we may venture to say so, was some
part of our Saviour's meaning, when He connected to-
gether the having with the trusting in riches. Our
Saviour seems further to warn us in His description of
the thorns, in the parable of the Sower, as being the cares
of this world, and the “deceitfulness of riches;” and more
clearly in the parable of the Great Supper, where the
guests excuse themselves, one as having “bought a piece
of ground,” another, “five yoke of oxen.” Still more
openly does St. Paul speak in his first Epistle to
Timothy: “They that desire to be rich fall into temp-
tation and a Snare, and into many foolish and hurtful
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
T H E D A N G E R O F R.I.C H. E.S.
3
S
3
For the love of money is the root of all evil; which,
while some coveted after, they have erred from the
faith, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows.”
The danger of possessing riches is the carnal security
to which they lead; that of desiring and pursuing them
is, that an object of this world is thus set before us as
the aim and end of life. It seems to be the will of
Christ that His followers shall have no aim or end,
pursuit or business, merely of this world. Here, again,
I speak as before, not in the way of precept, but of
doctrine. I am looking at His holy religion as at a
distance, and determining what is its general character
and spirit, not what may happen to be the duty of this
or that individual who has embraced it. It is His will
that all we do should be done, not unto men, or to the
world, or to self, but to His glory; and the more we are
enabled to do this simply, the more favoured we are
whenever we act with reference to an object of this
world. Even though it be ever so pure, we are exposed to
the temptation (not irresistible, God forbid still to the
temptation) of setting our hearts upon obtaining it. And,
therefore, we call all such objects excitements, as stimulat-
ing us incongruously; Casting us out of the Serenity and
stability of heavenly faith; attracting us aside by their
o proximity from our harmonious round of duties; and
2 A
354 D O C T R IN A L.
º
}
making our thoughts converge to something short of that
which is infinitely high and eternal. Such excitements
are of perpetual occurrence; and the mere undergoing
them, so far from involving guilt in the act itself or its
results, is the great business of life and the discipline
of our hearts. It is often a sin to withdraw from them,
as has been the case of some perhaps who have gone
into monasteries to serve God more entirely. On the other
hand, it is the very duty of the spiritual ruler to labour
for the flock committed to him, to suffer and to dare. St.
Paul was encompassed with excitements hence arising,
and his writings show the agitating effect of them on his
mind. He was like David, a man of war and blood,
and that for our sakes. Still it holds good that the
essential spirit of the Gospel is “quietness and confidence;”
that the possession of these is the highest gift, and to
gain them perfectly our main aim. Consequently, how-
ever much a duty it is to undergo excitements when they
are sent upon us, it is plainly unchristian, a manifest
foolishness and sin, to seek out any such, whether secular
or religious.
Men of energetic minds and talents for action are
called to a life of trouble ; they are the Compensations
and antagonists of the world's evils; still let them never
forget their place. They are men of war, and we war
that we may obtain peace. They are but men of war,
T H E D A N G E R O F RI C H E S. 355
honoured indeed by God's choice, and in spite of all
momentary excitements, resting in the depth of their hearts
upon the one true vision of Christian faith. Still after all
they are but soldiers in the open field, not builders of the
-Temple, nor inhabitants of those “amiable” and specially
(%
t.
d
blessed “tabernacles,” where the worshipper lives in
praise and intercession, and is militant amid the unosten-
tatious duties of ordinary life. “Martha, Martha, thou
art anxious and troubled about many things : but one
thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part
which shall not be taken away from her.” Such is our
Lord's judgment, showing that our true happiness consists
in being at leisure to serve God without excitements. For
this gift we specially pray in one of our Collects: “ Grant,
O Lord, that the course of this world may be so peace-
ably ordered by Thy governance, that Thy Church may
joyfully serve Thee in all godly quietness.” Persecution,
civil changes, and the like, break in upon the Church's
calm. The greatest privilege of a Christian is to have
nothing to do with worldly politics—to be governed, and
to submit obediently ; and, though here again, selfishness
may creep in, and lead a man to neglect public concerns
in which he is called to take his share, yet, after all,
such participation must be regarded as a duty, scarcely
as a privilege ; as the fulfilment of trusts committed to him
for the good of others, not as the enjoyment of rights (as
356 D O C T R IN A L.
men talk in these days of delusion), not as if political
*Tower were in itself a good.
I say, then, that it is a part of Christian caution to
see that our engagements do not become pursuits. En-
gagements are our portion, but pursuits are for the most
part of our own choosing. We may be engaged in
worldly business without pursuing worldly objects.
“Not slothful in business,” yet “serving the Lord.” In
this then consists the danger of the pursuit of gain, as
by trade and the like. It is the most common and
widely-spread of all excitements. It is one in which
every one almost may indulge, nay, and will be praised
by the world for indulging. And it lasts through life; in
that differing from the amusements and pleasures of the
world, which are short-lived, and succeed one after
another. Dissipation of mind, which these amusements
create, is itself indeed miserable enough ; but far worse
than this dissipation is the concentration of mind upon
some worldly object which admits of being constantly
pursued; and such is the pursuit of gain. Nor is it a
slight aggravation of the evil that anxiety is almost sure to
attend it. A life of money-getting is a life of care. From
the first there is a fretful anticipation of loss in various
ways to depress and unsettle the mind, nay, to haunt it,
till a man finds he can think about nothing else, and is
unable to give his mind to religion from the constant
T H E D A N G E R OF RIC H. E.S. 357
whirl of business in which he is involved. It is well this
should be understood. You may hear men talk as if
the pursuit of wealth was the business of life. They will
argue that, by the law of nature, a man is bound to gain
a livelihood for his family, and that he finds a reward in
doing so—an innocent and honourable satisfaction—as
he adds one sum to another, and Counts up his gains.
And perhaps they go on to argue that it is the very duty
of man, since Adam's fall, “in the sweat of his face,” by
effort and anxiety, “to eat bread.” How strange it is
that they do not remember Christ's gracious promise,
repealing that Original Curse, and obviating the necessity of
any real pursuit after “the meat that perisheth.” In order
that we might be delivered from the bondage of corrup-
tion, He has expressly told us that the necessaries of life
shall never fail His faithful follower any more than the
meal and oil the widow woman of Sarepta; that while he
is bound to labour for his family, he need not be en-
grossed by his toil—that while he is busy, his heart may
be at leisure for his Lord. “Be not anxious, Saying, What
shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal
shall we be clothed P For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek; and your heavenly Father knoweth that
ye have need of all these things.”
I have now given the main reason why the pursuit of
gain, whether in a large or small way, is prejudicial to
358 D O C T R IN A L.
our spiritual interests—that it fixes the mind upon an
object of this world. Yet others remain behind. Money is
a sort of Creation, and gives the acquirer even more than
the possessor an imagination of his own power, and
tends to make him idolize self. Again, what we have
hardly won, we are unwilling to part with ; so that a man
who has himself made his wealth will commonly be
penurious, or at least will not part with it except in
exchange for what will reflect credit on himself, and
increase his importance. Even when his conduct is
most disinterested and amiable (as in spending for the
comfort of those who depend on him), still this indulgence
of self, of pride and worldliness, insinuates itself. Very
unlikely therefore is it that he should be liberal towards
God; for religious offerings are an expenditure without
sensible return, and that upon objects for which the very
pursuit of wealth has indisposed his mind. Moreover, if
it may be added, there is a considerable tendency in
occupations connected with gain to make a man unfair
in his dealings; that is, in a subtle way. There are so
many conventional deceits and prevarications in the
details of the world's business, so much intricacy in the
management of accounts, so many perplexed questions
about justice and equity, so many plausible subterfuges
and fictions of law, so much Confusion between the
distinct yet approximating outlines of honesty and civil
T H E D A N G E R O F R. I C H E S. 359
rº
—t-
enactment, that it requires a very straightforward mind
to keep firm hold of strict conscientiousness, honour, and
| truth, and to look at matters in which he is engaged as
he would have looked on them Supposing he now came
upon them all at Once as a stranger.
And if such be the effect of the pursuit of gain on an
individual, doubtless it will be the same on a nation,
Only let us consider the fact that we are a money-making
people, with our Saviour's declaration before us against
wealth, and trust in wealth, and we shall have abundant
matter for serious thought.
Lastly, the pattern of St. Matthew is our consolation,
for it suggests that we, Christ's ministers, may use great
freedom of speech, and state unreservedly the peril of
wealth and gain, without aught of harshness or uncha-
ritableness towards individuals who are exposed to it.
They may be brethren of the evangelist, who left all for
Christ's sake. Nay, such there have been (blessed be
God ) in every age; and in proportion to the strength of
the temptation which surrounds them is their blessedness
and their praise, if they are enabled amid the “wares of
the seas” and the “great wisdom of their traffick,” to
hear Christ's voice, to take up their Cross, and follow
Him.
TEARS OF CHR/ST A T THE GRA VAZ
OF ZAZAR U.S.
“Jesus said, Where have ye laid him 2 They say unto him, Lord,
come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how
He loved him.”—JOHN xi. 34–36.
HAT led our Lord to weep over the dead, who
could at a word restore him ; nay, had it in pur-
pose to do so P
I. First of all, as the context informs us, He wept from
very sympathy with the grief of others. “When Jesus
saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping which
came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was
troubled.” It is the very nature of compassion or sym-
pathy, as the word implies, “to rejoice with those who
rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” We know it is
so with men, and God tells us He also is compassionate,
and full of tender mercy. Yet we do not well know
what this means, for how can God rejoice Cr grieve P By
the very perfection of His nature, Almighty God cannot
CHRIST AT T H E G R A V E OF LAZAR U.S. 361
show sympathy, at least to the comprehension of beings
of such limited minds as ours. He indeed is hid from
us; but if we were allowed to see Him, how could we
discern in the Eternal and Unchangeable signs of sym-
pathy P Words and works of sympathy He does display
to us; but it is the very sight of sympathy in another
that affects and comforts the sufferer more even than the
fruits of it. Now we cannot see God's sympathy ; and
the Son of God, though feeling for us as great compas-
sion as His Father, did not show it to us while He
remained in His Father's bosom. But when He took
flesh and appeared on earth, He showed us the Godhead
in a new manifestation. He invested Himself with a new
set of attributes, those of our flesh, taking into Him
a human soul and body, in Order that thoughts, feelings,
affection might be His, which could respond to ours, and
, certify to us His tender mercy. When, then, our Saviour
weeps from sympathy at Mary's tears, let us not say it is
the love of a man overcome by natural feeling. It is the
love of God, the bowels of Compassion of the Almighty
and Eternal condescending to appear as we are capable
of receiving it, in the form of human nature.
~ Jesus wept, therefore, not merely from the deep
thoughts of His understanding, but from spontaneous
tenderness, from the gentleness and mercy, the encom-
passing loving-kindness and exuberant fostering affection
362 ID O C T R IN A L.
* * **T*T* *-------------. = <=
of the Son of God for His own work, the race of man.
Their tears touched Him at once, as their miseries
had brought Him down from heaven. His ear was open
to them, and the Sound of weeping went at once to His
heart.
\- 2. But next we may suppose (if it is allowable to con-
jecture) that His pity thus spontaneously excited was
led forward to dwell on the various circumstances in
man's condition which excite pity. It was awakened,
and began to look around upon the miseries of the
world. What was it He saw P He saw visibly displayed
the victory of death ; a mourning multitude, everything
present which might awaken sorrow, except him who was
the chief object of it. He was not—a stone marked the
place where he lay. Martha and Mary, whom He had
known and loved in their brother's company, now solitary,
approached Him, first one and then the other, in far other
mood and circumstance than heretofore—in deep afflic-
tion; in faith and resignation, yet, apparently, with some-
what of a tender complaint : “Lord, if Thou hadst been
here, my brother had not died.” Such has been the
judgment passed, or the doubt raised, concerning Him in
the breast of the creature in every age. Men have seen
sin and misery around them, and, whether in faith or un-
belief, have said, “If Thou hadst been here,” if Thou
hadst interfered, it might have been otherwise. Here,
C H R IST AT T H E G R A V E OF LAZA R U S. 363
then, was the Creator surrounded by the works of His
hands, who adóred Him indeed, yet seemed to ask
why He suffered what He Himself had made so to be
marred. Here was the Creator of the world at a scene
of death, seeing the issue of His gracious handiwork.
Would not He revert in thought to the hour of creation,
when He went forth from the bosom of the Father to
bring all things into existence P There had been a day
when He had looked upon the work of His love, and
seen that it was “ very good.” Whence had the good
been turned to evil, the fine gold become dim? “An
enemy had done this.” Why it was allowed, and how
achieved, was a secret with Him, a secret from all who
were about Him, as it is a secret to us at this day.
Here He had incommunicable thoughts with His Eternal
Father. He would not say why it was. He chose
another Course for taking away their doubts and com-
plaints. “He opened not His mouth,” but He wrought
wondrously. What He has done for all believers,
revealing His atoning death, yet not explaining it, this
He did for Martha and Mary also, proceeding to the
grave in silence, to raise their brother while they com-
plained that he had been allowed to die.
Here, then, I say, were abundant sources for His
grief (if we may be permitted to trace them), in the con-
trast between Adam, in the day in which he was created,
364 D O CT R IN A Le
innocent and immortal, and man as the devil had made
him, full of the poison of sin and the breath of the grave;
and again, in the timid complaint of His sorrowing friends
that that change had been permitted. And though He
was about to turn back the scene of sorrow into joy
again, yet, after all, one day Lazarus must die again—
He was but delaying the fulfilment of His own decree.
A stone lay upon him now ; and though he was raised
from the grave, yet, by His own inscrutable law, one day
he must lie down again in it. It was a respite, not a
resurrection. e
Alas ! there were other thoughts still to call forth His
tears. This marvellous benefit to the forlorn sisters—
how was it to be attained P. At His own cost. Joseph
knew he could bring joy to his brethren, but at no sacri-
fice of his own. Christ was bringing life to the dead by
His own death. His disciples would have dissuaded
Him from going into Judea, lest the Jews should kill
Him. Their apprehension was fulfilled. He went to
raise Lazarus, and the fame of that miracle was the
immediate cause of His seizure and crucifixion. This He
knew beforehand. He saw the prospect before Him;-
He saw Lazarus raised—the Supper in Martha's house—
Lazarus sitting at table—joy on all sides of Him—Mary
honouring her Lord on this festive occasion by the out-
pouring of the very costly ointment upon His feet—the
CHRIST AT THE GRAVE OF L.A. Z.A.R. U.S. 365
... —-º"
Jews crowding, not only to see Him, but Lazarus also—
His triumphant entry into Jerusalem—the multitude
shouting Hosanna—the people testifying to the raising
of Lazarus—the Greeks, who had come up to worship
at the feast, earnest to see Him—the children joining
in the general joy; and then the Pharisees plotting
against Him—Judas betraying Him—His friends de-
serting Him, and the cross receiving Him. These things
doubtless, among a number of thoughts unspeak-
able, passed over His mind. He felt that Lazarus was
wakening to life at His own sacrifice; that He was
descending into the grave which Lazarus had left. He
felt that Lazarus was to live and He to die; the appear-
ance of things was to be reversed; the feast was to be
kept in Martha's house, but the last passover of Sorrow
remained for Him. And He knew that this reverse was
altogether voluntary with Him. He had come down
from His Father's bosom to be an atonement of blood
for all sin, and thereby to raise all believers from the
grave, as He was then about to raise Lazarus; and to
raise them, not for a time, but for eternity. And now the
sharp trial lay before Him, through which He was to
“open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” Con
templating then the fulness of His purpose while going
about a single act of mercy, He said to Martha, “I am
the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in Me,
366 D O C T R IN A I.
\->
though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever
liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.”
Let us take to ourselves these comfortable thoughts,
both in the contemplation of our own death, or upon the
death of our friends. Wherever faith in Christ is, there
is Christ Himself. He said to Martha, “Believest thou
this?” Wherever there is a heart to answer, “Lord, I
believe,” there Christ is present ; there our Lord vouch-
safes to stand, though unseen—whether over the bed of
death or over the grave—whether we ourselves are sink-
ing or those who are dear to us. Blessed be His name !
nothing can rob us of this consolation ; we will be as
certain, through His grace, that He is standing over us in
love, as though we saw Him. We will not, after our ex-
perience of Lazarus' history, doubt an instant that He is
thoughtful for us. He knows the beginnings of our ill-
ness, though He keeps at a distance. He knows when
to remain away, and when to draw near. He notes down
the advances of it, and the stages. He tells truly when
His friend Lazarus is sick, and when he sleeps. We all
have experience of this in the narrative before us, and
henceforth, so be it ! will never complain of the course
of His providence. Only we will beg of Him an increase
of faith; a more lively perception of the curse under
which the world lies, and of our own personal demerits;
a more understanding view of the mystery of His cross;
C H R IST AT T H E G R A V E OF L.A. Z.A.R. U. S. 367
a more devout and implicit reliance on the virtue of
it; and a more confident persuasion that He will
never put on us more than we can bear, never afflict
His brethren with any woe except for their own highest
benefit.
A PAA’ T/CO/LA R AERO V//DEAVCE 24 S
A&AE VEA LA; D //V THAE GOSPA: /,
“Thou God seest me.”—GEN. xvi. I3.
V HEN Hagar fled into the wilderness from the face
of her mistress, she was visited by an Angel, who
sent her back, but, together with this implied reproof
of her impatience, gave her a word of promise to en-
courage her. In the mixture of humbling and cheerful
thoughts thus wrought in her, she recognized the pre-
sence of her Maker and Lord, who ever comes to His
servants in a twofold aspect; severe, because He is holy;
yet soothing, as abounding in mercy. In consequence,
she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her.
“Thou God Seest me.”
Such was the condition of man before Christ came,
favoured with some occasional notices of God's regard
for individuals; but, for the most part, instructed merely
in His general Providence as seen in the course of
human affairs. In this respect even the Law was de-
A PART I C U L A R P R O VI DE N C E. 369
ficient, though it abounded in proofs that God was a
living, all-seeing, all-recompensing God. It was de-
ficient, in comparison of the Gospel, in evidence of the
really existing relation between each soul of man and its
Maker, independently of everything else in the world.
Of Moses, indeed, it is said, that “the Lord spake unto
him face to face, as a man speaketh unto his ſriend.” But
this was an especial privilege vouchsafed to him only,
and to some others, as to Hagar, who records it in the
text, not to all the people. But under the New Covenant
this distinct regard vouchsafed by Almighty God to every
one of us is clearly revealed. It was foretold of the
Christian Church : “A// thy children shall be taught of
the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy children’’
(Is, liv. 13). When the Eternal Son came on earth in
our flesh, men saw their invisible Maker and Judge. He
showed Himself no longer through the mere powers of
nature, or the maze of human affairs, but in our own
likeness. “God, who commanded the light to shine out
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to kindle the
knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ;” that
is, in a sensible form, as a really existing individual
being. And, at the same time, He forthwith began to
speak to us as individuals. He, on the one hand,
addressed each of us on the other. Thus it was in some
a sense a revelation face to face.
37O D O C T R IN A. L.
This is the subject on which I propose now to make
a few remarks. And first, let me observe, it is very
difficult, in spite of the revelation made us in the Gospel,
to master the idea of this particular providence of God.
If we allow ourselves to float down the current of the
world, living as other men, gathering up our notions of
religion here and there, as it may be, we have little or
no true comprehension of a particular Providence. We
Conceive that Almighty God works on a large plan ; but
we cannot realize the wonderful truth that He sees and
thinks of individuals. We cannot believe that He is really
present everywhere ; that He is wherever we are, though
unseen. For instance, we can understand, or think we
understand, that He was present on Mount Sinai—or
within the Jewish Temple—or that He clave the ground
under Dathan and Abiram ; but we do not in any suf-
ficient sense believe that He is in like manner “about
our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our
ways.” We cannot bring ourselves to get fast hold of
the Solemn fact that He sees what is going on among
ourselves at this moment; that this man falls, and that
man is exalted, at His silent, invisible appointment. We
use, indeed, the prayers of the Church, and intercede,
not only for all conditions of men, but for the king, and
the nobility, and the court of parliament, and so on,
down to individual sick people in our own parish ; yet,
A P A R T I C U L A R P R O VI L) E N C E. 37 I
in spite of all this, we do not bring home to us the truth
of His ornniscience. We know He is in heaven, and
forget that He is also on earth. This is the reason why
the multitude of men are so profane ; they use light
words; they scoff at religion ; they allow themselves to
be lukewarm and indifferent ; they take the part of
wicked men; they push forward wicked measures ; they
defend injustice, or cruelty, or sacrilege, or infidelity,
because they have no grasp of a truth, while, neverthe-
less, they have no intention to deny that God sees them.
There is, indeed, a self-will, a self-deceit, which would
sin on even in God’s visible presence. This was the sin
of Balaam, who took part with the enemies of Israel for
reward ; and of Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of the
Simeonites, on whom Phineas did judgment; and such
the sin of Saul, of Judas, of Ananias and Sapphira.
Alas ! doubtless such is the sin of many a man now
in England, unless human nature is other than it was
aforetime. Alas ! such a sin is in a measure our own
from time to time, as any one may know for certain who
is used to self-examination. Yet, over and above this,
there is certainly a great deal of profane sinning from
our forgetting, not comprehending that we are in God's
presence; not comprehending, or (in other words) be-
lieving, that He sees and hears and notes down every-
thing we do. This, again, is often the state in which
372 D O C T R IN A L,
persons find themselves on falling into trouble. The
world fails them, and they despair, because they do not
realize to themselves the loving-kindness and the pre-
sence of God. They find no comfort in a truth which to
them is not a substance, but an opinion. Therefore it was
that Hagar, when visited in the wilderness by the angel,
called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, “Thou
God seest me !” It came as a new truth to her, that,
amid her trouble and her waywardness, the eye of God
was upon her. The case is the same now. Men
talk in a general way of the goodness of God, His
benevolence, compassion, and long-suffering; but they
think of it as a flood pouring itself out through all the
world—as the light of the Sun, not as the continually
repeated action of an intelligent and living mind,
contemplating whom it visits, and intending what it
effects. Accordingly, when they come into trouble, they
can but say, “It is all for the best—God is good ſ” and
the like ; and it all falls as Cold comfort upon them, and
does not lessen their sorrow, because they have not
accustomed their minds to feel that He is a merciful
God, regarding them individually, and not a mere uni-
versal Providence acting by general laws. And then,
perhaps, all of a sudden the new notion breaks on them,
as it did upon Hagar. Some especial Providence, amid
their infliction, runs right into their hearts; brings it
A PARTIC U L A R P R O V.I.D E N C E. 373
close home to them, in a way they never experienced
before, that God sees them. And then, Surprised at
this, which is a something quite new to them, they go
into the other extreme, in proportion to their former
apathy, and are led to think that they are especial objects
of God's love more than all other men.
The most winning property of our Saviour's mercy (if
it is right so to speak of it), is its dependence on time
and place, person and circumstance ; in other words,
its tender discrimination. It regards and consults each
individual as he comes before it. It is called forth by
some as it is not by others; it cannot (if I may so say)
manifest itself to every object alike ; it has its particular
shade and mode of feeling for each ; and in Some it is so
wrapt up as to seem to depend for its own happiness on
their well-being. This might be illustrated, as is often
done, by our Lord's tender behaviour towards Lazarus
and his sisters, or His tears over Jerusalem ; or by His
conduct towards St. Peter, before and after his denial of
Him; or towards St. Thomas when he doubted ; or by
His love of His mother or of St. John. But I will
direct your attention rather to His treatment of the
traitor Judas, both because it is not so commonly
referred to, and also, if there was a being in the whole
world whom one might suppose cast out of His presence
as hateful and reprobate, it was he who He foresaw
374 D O C T R IN A L.
would betray Him. Yet we shall find that even this
wretched man was followed and encompassed by His
serene though solemn regard till the very hour He
betrayed Him.
Judas was in darkness and hated the light, and “went
to his own place;” yet he found it, not by the mere force
of certain natural principles working out their inevitable
results—by some unfeeling fate, which sentences the
wicked to hell—but by a Judge who surveys him from
head to foot, who searches him through and through, to
see if there is any ray of hope, any latent spark of faith;
who pleads with him again and again, and, at length
abandoning him, mourns over him the while with the
wounded affection of a friend rather than the severity of
the Judge of the whole earth. For instance, first, a
startling warning a year before his trial: “Have I not
chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil P’’ Then,
when the time was Come, the lowest act of abasement
towards one who was soon to betray Him and to suffer
the unquenchable fire : “He riseth from supper, poureth
water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet,”
and Judas in the number. Then a second warning at
the same time, or rather a sorrowful lament, spoken as if
to Himself: “Ye are not all clean.” Then openly :
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall
betray Me.” “The Son of Man goeth, as it is written of
A PARTIC U L A R P R O VIDEN CE.
3
7
5
Him; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man
is betrayed it had been good for that man if he had
not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed Him,
answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him,
Thou hast said it.” Lastly, when He was actually
betrayed by him: “Friend, wherefore art thou come P”
“Judas (He addresses him by name), betrayest thou the
Son of Man with a kiss?” I am not attempting to
reconcile His Divine foreknowledge with this special and
prolonged anxiety, this personal feeling towards Judas ;
but wish you only to observe the latter, to observe what
is given us by the revelation of Almighty God in the
Gospels, viz., an acquaintance with His providential
regard for individuals, making His sun to rise on the
evil as well as on the good. And, in like manner
doubtless, at the last day, the wicked and impenitent
shall be condemned, not in a mass, but one by one—
one by one appearing, each in his own turn, before the
righteous Judge, standing under the full glory of His
countenance, carefully weighed in the balance, and
found wanting; dealt with, not, indeed, with a weak and
wavering purpose, where God's justice claims satisfaction,
yet, at the same time, with all the substantial solicitude
and awful care of one who would fain make, if He
could, the fruit of His passion more numerous than it is.
This solemn reflection may be further enforced by Con-
376 D O C T R IN A L,
sidering our Lord's behaviour towards strangers who
came to Him. Judas was His friend; but we have
never seen Him. How will He look, and how does He
look upon us? Let His manner in the Gospels towards
the multitude of men assure us. All holy and all almighty
as He is, and has shown Himself to be, yet in the midst
of His divine majesty He could display a tender in-
terest in all who approached Him; as if He could not
O
cast His eyes on any of His creatures without the over-
flowing affection of a parent for his child, regarding it
with a full satisfaction, and simply desiring its happiness
and highest good. Thus, when the rich young man came
to Him, it is said : “And Jesus beholding him, Zoved him,
and said unto him, One thing thou lackest.” When the
Pharisees asked a sign, “He sighed deeply in His spirit.”
At another time, “He looked round about on them,”—as
if on every one, to see if here and there perchance there
Inight be an exception to the general unbelief, and to
condemn, one by one, those who were guilty,+“He
looked round about on them with anger, being grieved
for the hardness of their hearts.” Again, when a leper
came to Him, He did not simply heal him, but, “moved
with compassion, He put forth His hand.”
How gracious is this revelation of God’s particular
providence to those who seek Him How gracious to
those who have discovered that this world is but vanity,
A PARTIC U L A R P R O VI DE N C F. * 377
and who are solitary and isolated in themselves, whatever
shadows of power and happiness surround them . The
multitude, indeed, go on without these thoughts; either
from insensibility, as not understanding their own hearts,
or changing from one idol to another, as each successively
fails. But men of keener hearts would be overpowered
by despondency, and would even loathe existence, did
they suppose themselves under the mere operation
of fixed laws, powerless to excite the pity or the
attention of Him who has appointed them. What
should they do especially who are cast among persons
unable to enter into their feelings, and thus strangers to
them, though by long custom ever so much friends P or
have perplexities of mind they cannot explain to them-
selves, much less remove, and no one to help them P or
have affections and aspirations pent up within them,
because they have not met with objects to which to
devote them P or are misunderstood by those around
them, and find they have no words to set themselves
right with them, or no principles in Common by way of
appeal? Or seem to themselves to be without place or
purpose in the world, or to be in the way of others P or
have to follow their own sense of duty without advisers
or supporters, nay, to resist the wishes and solicitations
of superiors or relatives? Or have the burden of some
painful secret, or of some incommunicable solitary grief?
378 D O C T R IN A. L.
**
In all such cases the gospel narrative supplies our very
need, not simply presenting to us an unchangeable
Creator to rely upon, but a compassionate Guardian, a
discriminating Judge alsº Helper. God beholds thee
individually, whoever tho art. “He calls thee by thy
name.” He sees thee, and understands thee. He
knows what is in thee, all thy own peculiar feelings and
thoughts, thy dispositions and likings, thy strength and
thy weakness. He views thee in thy day of rejoicing
and in thy day of sorrow. He sympathises in thy hopes
and in thy temptations. He interests Himself in all thy
anxieties and thy remembrances, in all the risings and
fallings of thy Spirit. He has numbered the very hairs
of thy head, and the cubits of thy stature. He com-
passes thee round, and bears thee in His arms; He
takes thee up and sets thee down. He notes thy very
Countenance, whether smiling or in tears, whether health-
ful or sickly. He looks tenderly upon thy hands and
thy feet; He hears thy voice, the beating of thy heart,
and thy very breathing. Thou dost not love thyself
better than He loves thee. Thou canst not shrink from
pain more than He dislikes thy bearing it; and if He puts
it on thee, it is as thou wilt put it on thyself, if thou art
wise, for a greater good afterwards. Thou art not only
His creature (though for the very sparrows He has a
care, and pitied the “much cattle” of Nineveh), thou art
A PART I C U L A R P R O VI DE N C E. 379
man redeemed and sanctified, His adopted son, favoured
with a portion of that glory and blessedness which flows
from Him everlastingly unto the Only-begotten. Thou
art chosen to be His, even above thy fellows who
dwell in the east and south. Thou wast one of those
for whom Christ offered up His last prayer, and sealed
it with His precious blood. What a thought is this, a
thought almost too great for our faith ! Scarce can we
refrain from acting Sarah's part, when we bring it before
us, so as to “laugh” from amazement and perplexity.
What is man, what are we, what am I, that the Son of
God should be so mindful of me? What am I, that He
should have raised me from almost a devil's nature to
that of an angel's P that He should have changed my
soul's original constitution, new-made me, who from my
youth up have been a transgressor, and should Himself
dwell personally in this very heart of mine, making me
His temple P What am I, that God the Holy Ghost
should enter into me, and draw up my thoughts heaven-
ward “with plaints unutterable P’’
These are the meditations which come upon the
Christian to console him while he is with Christ upon
the holy mount. And when he descends to his daily
duties they are still his inward strength, though he is not
allowed to tell the vision to those around him. They
make his countenance to shine; make him cheerful,
380 D O C T R IN A. L.
collected, serene, and firm in the midst of all temptation,
persecution, or bereavement. And with such thoughts
before us, how base and miserable does the world appear
in all its pursuits and doctrines How truly miserable
does it seem to seek good from the creature ; to court
station, health, or credit ; to choose for ourselves, in
fancy, this or that mode of life; to affect the manners
and fashions of the great; to spend our time in follies;
to be discontented, quarrelsome, jealous or envious,
censorious or resentful, full of unprofitable talk, and
eager for the news of the day; busy about public matters
which concern us not ; hot in the cause of this or that
interest or party ; or set upon gain ; or devoted to the
increase of barren knowledge And at the end of our
days, when flesh and heart fail, what will be our conso-
lation, though we have made ourselves rich, or have
served an office, or been the first man among our
equals, or have depressed a rival, or managed things
our own way, or have settled splendidly, or have been
intimate with the great, or have fared sumptuously, or
have gained a name ! Say, even if we obtain that which
lasts longest, a place in history, yet, after all, what ashes
shall we have eaten for bread And in that awful hour,
when death is in sight, will He, whose eye is now so
loving towards us, and whose hand falls on us so gently,
will He acknowledge us any more? Or if He still speaks,
A PARTICULAR P R O VI DEN CE. 381
will His voice have any power to stir us? Rather, will it
not repel us, as it did Judas, by the very tenderness with
which it would invite us to Him P
Let us then endeavour, by His grace, to understand
rightly where we stand, and what He is towards us :
most tender and pitiful, yet, for all His pity, not passing
by the breadth of a single hair the eternal lines of truth,
holiness, and justice ; He who can condemn to the
woe everlasting, though He weeps and laments before-
hand, and who, when once the sentence of condemnation
has gone forth, will wipe out altogether the remembrance
of us, “and know us not.” The tares were “bound in
bundles” for the burning, indiscriminately, promiscuously,
contemptuously. “Let us then fear, lest a promise being
left us of entering into His rest, any of us should seem
to come short of it.”
TIMES OF PRIVA TE PRA YER.
“Thou, when thou prayect, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”—
MATT. vi. 6. :
I ERE is our Saviour's own sanction and blessing
vouchsafed to private prayer, in simple, Clear, and
most gracious words. The Pharisees were in the
practice, when they prayed by themselves, of praying in
public, in the corners of the streets; a strange incon-
sistency, according to our notions, since in our language
prayer by one's self is ever called private prayer. Public
private prayer, this was their self-contradictory practice.
Warning, then, His disciples against the particular form
of hypocrisy in which the self-conceit of human nature at
that day showed itself, Our Lord promises in the text His
Father's blessing on Such humble Supplications as were
really addressed to Him, and not made to gain the praise
of men. Those who seek the unseen God (He seems to
say) seek Him in their hearts and hidden thoughts, not
T IM ES OF PR IV A. T E PRAY E R.
3
8
3
in loud words, as if He were far off from them. Such
men would retire from the world into places where no
human eye saw them, there to meet Him humbly and in
faith who is “about their path and about their bed, and
spieth out all their ways.” And He, the searcher of
hearts, would reward them openly. Prayers uttered
in secret, according to God's will, are treasured up in
God's Book of Life. They seem, perhaps, to have
sought an answer here, and to have failed of their object.
Their memory perishes even in the mind of the peti-
tioner, and the world never knew of them. But God is
ever mindful, and in the last day, when the books are
opened, they shall be disclosed and rewarded before the
whole world.
Such is Christ's gracious promise in the text, ac-
knowledging and blessing, according to His own Con-
descension, those devotional exercises which were a duty
even before Scripture enjoined them ; and changing into
a privilege that work of faith which, though bidden by
conscience, and authorised by reason, yet before He
revealed His mercy, is laden, in every man's case who
attempts it, with guilt, remorse, and ſear. It is the
Christian's unspeakable privilege, and his alone, that he
has at all times free access to the throne of grace
boldly through the mediation of his Saviour.
But in what I shall now say Concerning prayer I shall
384 D O CT R IN A La
not consider it as a privilege, but as a duty. For till we
have some experience of the duties of religion, we are
incapable of entering duly into the privileges; and it is
too much the fashion of the day to view prayer chiefly
as a mere privilege, such a privilege as it is inconsiderate
indeed to neglect—but only inconsiderate, not sinful—and
optional to use.
Now we know well enough that we are bound to be,
in one sense, in prayer and meditation all the day long.
The question then arises, are we to pray in any other
way P Is it enough to keep our minds fixed upon God
through the day, and to commune with Him in Our
hearts? or is it necessary, over and above this habitual
faith, to set apart particular times for the more systematic
and earnest exercise of it? Need we pray at certain
times of the day in a set manner P Public worship in-
deed, from its very nature, requires //aces, times, and
even set forms. But private prayer does not necessarily
require set times, because we have no one to consult but
ourselves, and we are always with ourselves. Nor forms;
for there is no one else whose thoughts are to keep pace
with ours. Still, though set forms and times of prayer
are not absolutely necessary in private prayer, yet they
are highly expedient ; or, rather, times are actually com-
manded to us by Our Lord in the text: “Thou, when
thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast
T IM ES OF PRIVATE PRAY ER. 385
</
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and
thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee
openly.” *
In these words certain times for private prayer, over
and above the secret thought of God which must ever be
alive in us, are clearly enjoined ; and the practice of good
men in Scripture gives us an example in confirmation of
the command. Even our Saviour had His peculiar
Seasons of communing with God. His thoughts indeed
were one continued sacred service offered up to His
Father, Nevertheless, we read of His going up “into a
7
mountain apart to pray;” and again, of His “continuing
all night in prayer to God.” Doubtless you will recol-
lect that solitary prayer of His, before His Passion, thrice
repeated, “that the cup might pass from Him.” St.
Peter too, as in the narrative of the conversion of
Cornelius, the Roman centurion, went up upon the
house-top to pray about the sixth hour: then God visited
him. And Nathaniel seems to have been in prayer
under the fig-tree at the time Our Saviour saw him, and
Philip called him. I might multiply instances from
Scripture of such Israelites without guile; which are of
course applicable to us; because, though they were under
a divine government in many respects different from the
Christian, yet personal religion is the same at all times.
“The just,” in every dispensation, “shall live by faith;"
2 C
386 T) O C T R IN A. L.
and whatever reasons there were then for faith to display
and maintain itself by stated prayer remain substantially
the same now. Let two passages suffice. The Psalmist
says, “Seven times a day do I praise Thee, because of
Thy righteous judgments.” And Daniel's practice is
told us on a memorable occasion : “Now when Daniel
knew that the writing was signed (the impious decree
forbidding prayer to any but King Darius for thirty
days), he went into his house, and his windows being
open in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon
his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks
before his God, as Āe did aforefime.”
It is plain, then, besides the devotional temper in
which we should pass the day, more solemn and direct
acts of worship, nay, regular and periodical, are required
of us by the precept of Christ and His own example,
and that of His apostles and prophets under both
COVenantS.
Now it is necessary to insist upon this duty of ob-
serving private prayer at stated times, because amid the
cares and hurry of life men are very apt to neglect it;
and it is a much more important duty than it is generally
considered, even by those who perform it.
The following are two chief reasons for its importance.
First, it brings religious Subjects before the mind in
regular course. Prayer through the day is indeed the
TIM ES OF P K IV A. T E PRAY ER. 387
characteristic of a Christian spirit; but we may be sure
that, in most cases, those who do not pray at stated times,
in a more Solemn and direct manner, will never pray well
at other times. We know in the Common engagements
of life the importance of Collecting and arranging our
thoughts calmly and accurately before proceeding to any
important business, in order to the right performance of
it ; and so in that one really needful occupation, the care
of Our eternal interests, if we would have our minds com-
posed, our desires subdued, and our tempers heavenly
through the day, we must, before commencing the day's
employment, stand still awhile to look into ourselves and
commune with our hearts, by way of preparing ourselves
for the trials and duties on which we are entering. A
like reason may be assigned for evening prayer, viz., as
affording us a time of looking back on the day past, and
summing up (as it were) that account which, if we do
fºot reckon, at least God has reckoned, and written down
in that book which will be produced at the judgment. .
Stated times of private prayer are useful as impulses
(so to say) to the continuous devotion of the day. They
instruct us and engage us in what is ever our duty. It
is commonly said that what is every one's business is
practically no one's : this applies here. I repeat it, if we
leave religion as a subject of thought for all hours of the
day equally, it will be thought of in none. In all things
388 D O C T R IN A L.
it is by Small beginnings and appointed channels that an
advance is made to extensive works. Stated times of
prayer put us in that posture (as I may call it) in which
we ought ever to be ; they urge us forward in a heavenly
direction, and then the stream carries us on. For the
Same reason it is expedient, if possible, to be solemn in
the forms of our private worship, in order to impress our
minds. Our Saviour Aneeled down, fell on His face, and
prayed; so did His apostles, and so did the Saints of the
Old Testament.
I now come to the second reason for stated private
prayer. Besides its tending to produce in us lasting im-
\
pressions, it is also a more direct means of gaining from
God an answer to our requests. He has so sanctioned it
in the text: “Shut thy door, and pray to thy Father
which seeth in secret, and He shall reward thee openly.”
We do not know ſhoze it is that prayer receives an answer
from God at all. It is strange, indeed, that weak man
should have strength to move God; but it is our privi-
lege to know that we can do so. The whole system of
this world is a history of man's interfering with divine
decrees; and if we have the melancholy power of baffling
His good will to our own ruin (an awful and incom-
prehensible truth !) if, when He designs our eternal
salvation, we can yet annul our heavenly election, and
accomplish our eternal destruction, much more have we
TIMES OF PRIVATE PRAY E.R. 389
the power to move Him (blessed be His name ) when
He, the Searcher of hearts, discerns in us the mind of
that Holy Spirit which “maketh intercession for the
Saints according to His will.”.
Stated times of prayer, then, are necessary, first, as a
means of making the mind sober and the general tem-
per more religious ; secondly, as a means of exercising
earnest faith, and therefore of receiving a more certain
blessing in answer than we should otherwise obtain. . . .
Satan perceives well enough that stated private prayer is
the very emblem and safeguard of true devotion to God,
3.S impressing on us and keeping up in us a rule of
conduct. He who gives up regularity in prayer has lost
3. principal means of reminding himself that Spiritual life
is obedience to a Lawgiver, not a mere feeling or a taste.
. . . Be sure, my brethren, whoever of you is persuaded to
disdsé his morning and evening prayers, is giving up the
armour which is to secure him against the wiles of the
devil. If you have left off the observance of them, you
may fall any day; and you will fall without notice. For
a time you will go on, seeming to yourselves to be the
same as before ; but the Israelites might as well hope to
lay in a stock of manna, as you of grace. You pray God
for your daily bread, your bread day by day; and if you
have not prayed for it this morning, it will profit you

little that you prayed for it yesterday. You did then
390 D O C T R IN A L.
pray, and you obtained—but not a supply for two days.
When you have given over the practice of stated prayer,
you gradually become weaker without knowing it. Samson
did not know he had lost his strength till the Philistines
came upon him. You will think yourselves the men you
used to be, till suddenly your adversary will come
furiously upon you, and you will as suddenly fall. You will
be able to make little or no resistance. This is the path
which leads to death. . . . Beware then of the subtilty
of your enemy, who would fain rob you of your defence.
Do not yield to his bad reasonings. Be on your guard
especially when you get into novel situations, or circum-
stances which interest and delight you, lest, they throw
you out of your regularity in prayer. Anything new or
unexpected is dangerous to you. Going much into
mixed society, and Seeing many strange persons, taking
share in any pleasant amusements, reading interesting
books, entering into any new line of life, forming some
new acquaintance, the prospect of any worldly advantage,
travelling; all these things and such like, innocent as they
are in themselves, and Capable of a religious use, become
means of temptation if we are not on Our guard. See
that you are not unsettled by them ; this is the danger;
fear becoming unsettled. Consider that stability of mind
is the chief of virtues, for it is faith. “Thou wilt keep
him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee,
T IM ES OF PR IV A. T E P R A Y E R. 39 I
because he trusteth in Thee ;” this is the promise. But
“the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot
rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no
peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Not to the wicked
only, in our common sense of the word “wicked,” but to
none is there rest who in any way leave their God and
rove after the goods of this world. Do not indulge
visions of earthly good, fix your hearts on higher things
let your morning and evening thoughts be the points of rest
for your mind's eve, and let those thoughts be upon the
narrow way and the blessedness of heaven, and the glory
and power o Christ your Saviour. Thus will you be
kept from anseemly risings and fallings, and steadied in
an equayle way. Men in general will know nothing of
this; they witness not your private prayers, and they will
confise you with the multitude they fall in with. But
vur friends and acquaintances will gain a light and a
comfort from your example; they will see your good
works, and be led to trace them to their true secret source,
gº the influences of the Holy Ghost sought and obtained by
prayer. Thus they will glorify your heavenly Father,
and in emulation of you will seek Him; and He who
seeth in secret shall at length reward you openly.
PORMS OF PR/VA 7TE ARA VAFA.
“Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”—
LUKE xi. I.
HESE words express the natural feelings of the
awakened mind, perceiving its great need of God's
help, yet not understanding well what its particular wants
are, or how they are to be relieved. The disciple of John
the Baptist and the disciples of Christ waited on tieir re-
spective masters for instruction /low to pray, 77-eir weed
has been the need of Christians ever since. All of us's,
childhood, and most men ever after, require direction
how to pray; and hence the use of Forms of prayer,
which have always obtained in the Church. John taught
his disciples; Christ gave the apostles the prayer which
is distinguished by the name of the Zord's Prayer; and
after He had ascended on high, the Holy Spirit has given
us excellent services of devotion by the mouth of those
blessed saints whom from time to time He has raised up
to be overseers in the Church. In the words of St. Paul,
F OR M S OF PRIVATE PRAY E R. 393
(
“We know not what we should pray for as we ought;”
5
but “the Spirit helpeth our infirmities;” and that not
only by guiding our thoughts, but by directing our words.
This, I say, is the origin of Forms of prayer, of which I
mean to speak to-day; viz., these two undeniable truths :
first, that all men have the same spiritual wants, and
secondly, that they cannot of themselves express them. .
I suppose no one is in any difficulty about the use of forms
of prayer in public worship ; for common sense almost
will tell us that when many are to pray together as one
man, if their thoughts are to go together, they must
agree beforehand what is to be the subject of their
prayers; nay, what the words of their prayers, if there
is to be any certainty, Composure, ease, and regularity
in their united devotions. To be present at extempore
prayer, is to hear prayers.
Let us bear in mind the precept of the wise man :
“Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart
be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in
heaven, and thou upon earth ; therefore let thy words be
}}
few.” Prayers framed at the moment are likely to
become irreverent. Let us consider for a few moments
before we pray into whose presence we are entering—the
presence of God. What need have we of humble, sober,
and subdued thoughts, as becomes creatures sustained
hourly by His bounty; as becomes lost sinners who have
394 D O C T R IN A l.
-- -
no right to speak at all, but must submit in silence
to Him who is holy; and still more as grateful servants
of Him who bought us from ruin at the price of His own
blood; meekly sitting at His feet like Mary to learn and
to do His will, and like the penitent at the great man's
feast, quietly adoring Him, and doing Him service with-
out disturbance, washing His feet (as it were) with our
tears, and anointing them with precious ointment, as
having sinned much and needing a large forgiveness.
Therefore, to avoid the irreverence of many or unfit words,
and rude half-religious thoughts, it is necessary to pray
from book or memory, and not at random.
Again, forms of prayer are necessary to guard us
against the irreverence of wandering thoughts. If we
pray without set words (read or remembered), our minds
will stray from the subject; other thoughts will cross
us, and we shall pursue them ; we shall lose sight of His
presence whom we are addressing. This wandering of
mind is in good measure prevented, under God's blessing,
by forms of prayer. Thus a chief use of them is that of
fixing ſhe affenſion.
Next, they are useful in securing us from the irreverence
of excited ſhotg/iſs. It is true that in certain times of
strong emotion, grief or joy, remorse or fear, our religious
feelings outrun and leave behind them any form of
words. In such cases not only is there no need of forms
FORMS OF PR IV A. T E P R A Y E R. 395
of prayer, but it is perhaps impossible to write forms of
prayer for Christians agitated by such feelings. For each
man feels in his own way, perhaps no two men exactly
alike ; and we can no more write down how men ought
to pray at Such times, than we can give rules how they
should weep or be merry. As a general rule, forms of
prayer should not be written in strong and impassioned
language ; but should be calm, composed, and short.
Our Saviour's own prayer is our model in this respect.
How few are its petitions ! how soberly expressed how
reverently and at the same time how deep they are,
and how comprehensive l—I readily grant, then, that
there are times when the heart outruns any written words;
as the jailor cried out, “What shall I do to be saved P’’
Nay, rather I would maintain that set words should not
attempt to imitate the impetuous workings to which
all minds are subject at times in this world of change
(and therefore religious minds in the number), lest one
should seem to encourage them.
Granting that there are times when a thankful or a
wounded heart bursts through all forms of prayer, yet
these are not frequent. To be excited is not the ordinary
state of the mind, but the extraordinary, the now and
then state. Nay, more than this, it ought not to be the
common state of the mind; and if we are encouraging
within us this excitement, this unceasing rush and alter-
396 D O C T R IN A L.
nation of feelings, and think that this, and this only, is
being in earnest in religion, we are harming our minds,
and (in one sense) I may even say, grieving the peaceful
Spirit of God, which would silently and tranquilly work
*** *
His divine work in our hearts. This, then, is an
especial use of forms of prayer, when we are in earnest,
as we ought always to be, viz., to keep us from irreverent
earnestness, to still emotion, to calm us, to remind us
what and where we are, to lead us to a purer and serener
temper, and to that deep unruffled love of God and man
which is really the fulfilling of the law and the perfection
of human nature.
Let us recollect, the power of praying, being a habit,
must be acquired like all other habits, by practice. In
order at length to pray well, we must begin by praying ill,
since ill is all we can do. Is not this plain? Who,
in the case of any other work, would wait till he could
do it perfectly before he tried it? The idea is absurd.
Yet those who object to forms of prayer fall into this
strange error. If, indeed, we could pray and praise God
like the angels, we might have no need of forms of
prayer; but forms are to teach those who pray poorly
to pray better. They are helps to our devotion, as
teaching us what to pray for, and how, as St. John and
our Lord taught their disciples; and doubtless even the
best of us prays but poorly, and needs the help of them. . .
F OR MS OF PR IV A. T E PRAY E R. 397
Further, forms are useful to help our memory, and to
set before us at Once, completely, and in order, what we
have to pray for. It does not follow, when the heart is
really full of the thought of God, and alive to the reality
of things unseen, that then it is easiest to pray.
Rather, the deeper insight we have into His majesty and
our innumerable wants, the less we shall be able to draw
out our thoughts into words. The publican could only
say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” This was enough
for his acceptance; but to offer such a scanty service was
not to exercise the gift of prayer, the privilege of a
ranSomed and exalted son of God. He whom Christ
has illuminated with His grace is heir of all things. He
has an interest in the world's multitude of matters. He
has a. Soundless sphere of duties within and without him.
He has a glorious prospect before him. The Saints
shall hereafter judge the world, and shall they not here
take cognizance of its doings P Are they not in One
sense counsellors and confidential servants of their Lord,
intercessors at the throne of grace, the secret agents by
and for whom He guides His high providence, and Carries
on the nations to their doom P And in their own persons
is forgiveness merely and acceptance (extreme blessings
as these are) the scope of their desires? else might they
be content with the publican's prayer. Are they not
rather bidden to go on to perfection, to use the Spirit
398 D O C T R IN A. L.
given them, to enlarge and purify their own hearts, and
to draw out the nature of man into the fulness of its
capabilities after the image of the Son of God? And for
the thought of all these objects at once who is sufficient?
Whose mind is not overpowered by the view of its own
immense privilege, so as eagerly to seek for words of
prayer and intercession carefully composed according to
the number and the nature of the various petitions it has
to offer P So that he who prays without plan, is in fact
losing a great part of the privilege with which his
• baptism has gifted him.
And further, the use of a form as a help to the memory
is still more obvious when we take into account the
engagements of this world with which most inen are
surrounded. The cares and businesses of life press upon
us with a reality which we cannot overlook. Shall we
trust the matters of the next world to the chance thoughts
of our own minds, which come this moment and go the
next, and may not be at hand when the time of employ-
ing them arrives, like unreal visions, having no substance
and no permanence P This world is Satan's efficacious
; Form, it is the instrument through which he spreads out,
in order and attractiveness, his many Snares; and these
doubtless will engross us, unless we also give forrn to the
, , Spiritual objects towards which we pray and labour.
How short are the seasons which most men have to
F OR M S OF PR IV A. T E P R A Y E R. 399
‘...
_-
give to prayer. Before they can collect their memories
and minds, their leisure is almost over, even if they
have the power to dismiss the thoughts of this world
which just before engaged them. Now forms of prayer
do this for them. They keep the ground occupied,
that Satan may not encroach upon the seasons of
devotion. They are a standing memorial, to which we
can recur as to a temple of God, finding everything in
order for our worship as soon as we go into it, though
the time allotted, us at morning and evening be ever so
circumscribed. . . . .
Let us recollect for how long a period our prayers
have been the standard Forms of devotion in the Church
of Christ, and we shall gain a fresh reason for loving
them, 2nd a fresh source of comfort in using them. I
know"different persons will feel differently here according
to their different turn of mind; yet surely there are few
of us, if we dwelt on the thought, but would feel it a
privilege to use (for instance, in the Lord's Prayer) the
very petitions which Christ spoke. He gave the prayer,
and used it. His apostles used it; all the Saints ever
since have used it. When we use it we seem to join
company with them. Who does not think himself
brought nearer to any celebrated man in history, by seeing
his house, or his furniture, or his handwriting, or the very
books that were his 2 Thus does the Lord's Prayer
4OO D O C T R IN A. L.
bring us near to Christ, and to His disciples in every age.
No wonder, then, that in past times good men thought
this form of prayer so sacred, that it seemed to them
impossible to Say it too often, as if some especial grace
went with the use of it. Nor can we use it too often ; it
contains in itself a sort of plea for Christ's listening to
us; we cannot, so that we keep our minds fixed on its
petitions, and use our minds as well as our lips
when we repeat it. And what is true of the Lord's
Prayer is in its measure true of most of those prayers
which our Church teaches us to use. It is true of the
Psalms also, and of the Creeds, all of which have become
sacred, from the memory of Saints departed who have
used them, and whom we hope one day to meet in
heaven.
One caution I give in conclusion as to using these
thoughts. Beware lest your religion be one of feeing
merely, not of practice. Men may speak in a high
imaginative way of the ancient Saints and the Holy
Apostolic Church, without making the fervour or the
refinement of their devotion bear upon their conduct.
Many a man likes to be religious in graceful language;
he loves religious tales and hymns, yet is never the better
Christian for all this. The works of every day, these are
the tests of our glorious contemplations, whether or not
they shall be available to our salvation; and he who does
FORMS OF PRIVATE PR A. Y. E. R. 4OI
one deed of obedience for Christ's sake, let him have
no imagination and no fine feeling, is a better man, and
returns to his home justified rather than the most eloquent
speaker and the most sensitive hearer, if such men do
not practise up to their knowledge.
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