THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 t0 tijs Cforrlj in all 
 jllan in tfe vmntt 0f 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED DURING 
 
 THE SEASON OF LENT, 187071, 
 
 IN 
 
 OXFORD. 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. J. S. B. MONSELL, LL.D. 
 
 R. VV. CHURCH, M.A. 
 
 ARCHDEACON BICKERSTETH. 
 H. P. LIDDON, D.D. 
 E. B. PUSEY, D.D. 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. 
 W. F. NORRIS, M.A. 
 A. R. ASHWELL, M.A. 
 
 rforh anh 
 
 JAMES PARKER AND CO. 
 
 1872.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SEEMON I, 
 
 (P.I.) 
 Continuity of the Typical Teaching of the Old Testament. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW xxii. 20. 
 BY THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. 
 
 SEEMON H, 
 
 (p. II.) 
 
 Adam. 
 
 ROMANS v. 14. 
 
 BY R. W. CHURCH, M.A. 
 
 SEEMON HI. 
 (p- 27.) 
 Abel. 
 
 HEBREWS xi. 4. 
 BY THE YEN. ARCHDEACON BICKERSTETH. 
 
 SEEMON IV, 
 
 (P- 43-) 
 Noah. 
 
 HEBREWS xi. 7. 
 BY H. P. LIDDON, D.D.
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 SESMON V. 
 
 (p. 69.) 
 
 Ere. 
 
 GENESIS iii. 4, 5. 
 BY E. B. PUSEY, D.D. 
 
 SEEMON VI. 
 
 (p 89.) 
 
 Joshua, 
 
 HEBREWS xli. 2. 
 
 BY J. S. B. MONSELL, LL.D. 
 
 SEEMON VII. 
 
 (P. 107.) 
 Belief in a Living God essential to the True Life of Man. 
 
 PSALM xlii. 2. 
 BY THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. 
 
 SEEMON VIE. 
 (p. 119.) 
 
 Man's Weakness and God's Omnipotence. 
 
 2 COR. xii. 9. 
 BY W. F. NORRIS, M.A. 
 
 SEEMON IX. 
 
 (p. 131-) 
 Man renewed in Christ, walking with God. 
 
 PSALM cxix. 57. 
 BY A. R. ASH WELL, M.A.
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 Contmutts of tfje Egpical Ceasing of tfje 
 to Testament 
 
 ST. MATTHEW xrii. 20, 
 " Whose is this image and superscription ?" 
 
 IT was an unwelcome question. The cavillers, who 
 had come to our Lord to ask Him whether it was 
 lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, had no mind to face 
 the plain issue whether the tribute money was Caesar's 
 due : proved to be his due by the image which gave 
 it currency. Here, as He ever did, our Lord turned 
 men's attention to the essential truth of the matter in 
 hand, silenced vain questions and casuistical doubts by 
 the very simplicity with which He stated just what 
 an honest questioner would need to consider and no 
 more. His hearers had come with store of objection 
 and dilemma ; but for these there was no place : they 
 must needs answer a simple question simply, and by 
 implication already condemn themselves. 
 
 In propounding the question in the text to-night in 
 a very different connection, I do not wish to wrest, or 
 even to forget, the proper meaning of our Master's 
 words. I desire to remember and pray you to re- 
 member the principle contained in His rejoinder to 
 the Jews' ensnaring speech. Meditating on the sub- 
 ject before us, let us try to look at it and speak 
 of it with the direct simplicity and truthfulness that 
 
 B
 
 2 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch. [SERM. 
 
 gave such power to our Blessed Lord's reply. Is there 
 in the Saints and Patriarchs of the earliest age a cha- 
 racter traceable in successive generations and lives ? 
 Is there a likeness between them ? a special temper 
 and conduct belonging to them more than to others ? 
 Has the coin we are examining a stamp and legend of 
 its own ? If it has " Whose image and superscription 
 is this?" 
 
 Before I answer this question, let me freely admit 
 that other histories too have their own connecting 
 principles and lines of resemblance : other races and 
 families have distinguishing marks, separating them 
 from the rest of the world, and so giving to the antique 
 story a voice of prophecy fulfilled perhaps again and 
 again in later days. History, it has been said, re- 
 peats itself. We should expect it to do so ; for is not 
 human nature substantially the same in all ages ; sub- 
 ject, indeed, to infinite varieties of influence, wayward 
 and versatile, inconstant and infirm, yet in this very 
 inconstancy and waywardness, apt to reproduce itself? 
 fruitful in old errors, and ready to act over again for- 
 gotten scenes ? Those of you who read history atten- 
 tively must have been startled, I am sure, with the 
 strange parallels and correspondences which come from 
 time to time in your way. A turn in the narrative 
 brings you face to face with what had seemed alto- 
 gether buried and past. Old chronicles come down, 
 as it were, from their shelves, and speak in language 
 of these later days. The monuments of bygone ages 
 give up their dead ; we can hardly believe our eyes 
 as we look on these resuscitated forms. Nor is it al- 
 together an unnatural consequence, that we sometimes 
 question the truth .of what is told us about old times 
 because of this very resemblance to later experience.
 
 i.] Continuity of the Typical Teaching, &c. 3 
 
 The likeness is suspicious ; it has a look of forgery 
 about it : and not unfrequently the hasty critic con- 
 demns it as such. He finds a modern air in what \ 
 was really neither ancient nor modern, but a truth of \ 
 every age. 
 
 The account, however, of this resemblance between 
 distant ages and persons is not to be found in the cha- 
 racteristics of human nature alone. Beyond thespjiere 
 of human action and motive, in a domain which passion 
 cannot enter, nor change of mood disturb, there is 
 a Power by whom all the ages are controlled, the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Man's folly and 
 frailty bring him into conflict with the everlasting laws 
 of this kingdom ; and the same results of the conflict 
 have appeared on the page of history from generation 
 to generation since the world began. The waves of 
 man's passionate, tumultuous life still beat against 
 eternal barriers of right and duty : who can wonder 
 that wreck after wreck still strews the wave-washed 
 shore ? 
 
 There are reasons, then, both in the frail nature of / 
 man, and in the unchangeable truth of the providence % 
 of God, why we should expect history to repeat itself. 
 It must needs have its typical persons and events, its 
 ideal characters and recurring forms of thought. You 
 might have expected, perhaps, that knowledge of the 
 past would save men from making old mistakes again. 
 But it is not so : each generation, it seems, must buy I 
 its own experience by its own failures ; composite cha- 
 racters do not throw off the elements of weakness which 
 erewhile belonged to the same type, retaining only V 
 what is strong and pure : strength and weakness re- 
 appear together. Not in particular families only, but 
 in nations nay, in regions of history altogether un- 
 
 H 2
 
 4 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch. [SERM. 
 
 connected by inherited tradition or descent the old 
 is still the parent of the new. 
 
 Freely admitting all this, I ask again, is there not 
 in the saints and patriarchs, of whom your preachers 
 are to speak, a typical character altogether their own ? 
 We Christians have our attention called to them as 
 to no other company of men. Each name that is 
 placed before you, has been named by our Lord or 
 His Apostles, and enshrined for ever in the New Tes- 
 tament page. It is our Lord Himself who has spoken 
 of the days of Noah, as of a familiar time, who has 
 recognised in Moses a Divine lawgiver has put such 
 honour upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as to make 
 them a kind of hosts to welcome others into the king- 
 dom of God. It is He who gives testimony to the 
 righteousness of Abel, and to the faith of Abraham. 
 If we had never heard of the Pentateuch, we should 
 have gained the knowledge of these saints from the dis- 
 course of Christ He does not speak of other histories, 
 nor teach us to acquaint ourselves with the great men 
 who have been famous in other fields of renown. Some- 
 thing there is in these ancients, more than in other 
 men, which makes them fit subjects of contemplation 
 to Jesus Christ, and therefore to the disciples of Jesus 
 Christ in every age. For in every age they have been 
 the honoured companions of devout Christians. They 
 are of no school or party : no special theology dares \ 
 claim them for its own. The highest art has lovingly 
 and humbly striven to represent them : the common 
 people use their names in familiar talk. All commu- 
 nions have recognised their ancient dignity : divines 
 of all persuasions entertain their memory as the re- 
 membrance of friends. Depending on no formal act of 
 canonization, needing no special ecclesiastical homage, ,
 
 I.] Continuity of the Typical Teaching, &c. 5 
 
 they belong to the Church of all periods, and enter 
 into the religious thought of every age. Something 
 there must be, I say, in the great heroes of the sacred 
 story, which makes them, in these last days, no less 
 than in bygone centuries, fit objects for the reverent 
 regard of the whole Christian world. In what does 
 this fitness consist ? 
 
 It is but a partial answer that we give, when we say 
 that they won this regard from Christ by their faith. 
 Eminent, indeed, they were by their faith : they could \ 
 not else have received honour from Him at all. They 
 had a perception of God's presence, and of His deal- 
 ings both with themselves and with the world wherein 
 they lived, to which others were strangers. Noah was 
 building the ark while the whole race of men slumbered 
 in careless unbelief. Abraham journeyed on towards 
 an unknown home, while his kinsfolk stayed by their 
 idols in the land of their birth. Moses preferred exile 
 and affliction to a palace, although his people could 
 scarcely be roused even to wish for escape from servi- 
 tude and toil. No doubt there was a religiousness and 
 godliness of character in them, unknown to the ma- 
 jority of men then, unknown to the majority of men 
 ever since. You feel its presence even in such an 
 one as Jacob, whose character was not without griev- 
 ous stains, nor his life free from great faults. Yet 
 he carries about with him a sense of the presence of 
 God, refers his actions to God, dreams of Him in the 
 hours of rest, sets up memorials of Him as he goes on 
 his way in the world. In the less mingled character 
 of Joseph what a marvellous reflection of Divine in- 
 fluences we behold ! The confiding candour and loving 
 obedience of his youth, his gentleness in suffering, his 
 unsullied purity in time of dangerous temptation, his
 
 6 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch. [SERM. 
 
 discretion and modesty in great office, his affectionate 
 remembrance of father and home, his persistent charity 
 and tenderness of heart even in old age ; look at this 
 character, and doubt, if you can, whose image and 
 superscription it bears. These are God's gracious gifts : 
 they could not be possessed by one who had not a 
 special relation to the Giver of all good. If everything 
 prospered in Joseph's hand, it was God's blessing, be 
 sure of it, that gave such prosperity, God's favour 
 that preserved, untainted, a child's purity and gentleness 
 in the despotic ruler of a mighty land. 
 
 Yet, after all, this is (as I said) only a partial answer 
 to the question proposed. God set His seal to these 
 Saints, not only or perhaps chiefly in making them 
 saints by His grace, but in fashioning them after a 
 singular type, and so ordering their offices and actions 
 as to express great truths especially connected with 
 Himself. This is so evident in the instances of Adam, 
 Melchisedec, and Aaron, as scarcely to need mention. 
 But it is true also in cases less evident than these. It 
 pleased God so to frame and fashion their lives, and 
 to give them such opportunities, sometimes such trials, 
 as to make them significant, if not to their own times, 
 or to themselves, yet to later times and to enlightened 
 eyes, of the principal articles of Christian doctrine. 
 They set forth to us the acts and offices of Christ : or 
 they explain to us God's dealings with His Church : 
 or they illustrate the life of God in the believer's soul. 
 They are typical, not merely as in general history events 
 or persons foreshadow like events and persons here- 
 after to be reproduced, but by Divine ordinance and 
 peculiar adaptation to an appointed end. Men call us 
 fanciful, when we thus speak ; but why should it be 
 thought incredible that God should deal providentially
 
 I.] Continuity of the Typical Teaching, &c. j 
 
 with the work of His own hands ? It is admitted that 
 virtue and holiness are endowments from Him : these 
 saints could not have lived and died as they did, but 
 by His informing and overruling grace. If He gave I 
 them this primary and essential characteristic, why 
 should He not also order their lives so as to express 
 other features of His great design for man ? His divine 
 power conformed them to Himself in righteousness; did 
 it need power more than divine to make their doings 
 types and patterns in other respects of His own fore- 
 ordained acts ? This probability needs no postulate, 
 but the postulate that God is the providential governor 
 of the world. It will follow that He might have been 
 expected to signalize the most solemn and important , 
 acts of His administration beforehand. Especially if His 
 only-begotten Son was pleased to visit His lost world, 
 surely the one incomparably greatest event that could 
 possibly come to pass in it, He would prepare men 
 in a thousand ways for the day of His coming. Heralds 
 would go before the Almighty King. Type and pro- 
 phecy, vision and dream, would multiply on His path : 
 the hearts of the faithful would be stirred : a favour- 
 able opinion (as we say) would be created : men would 
 be familiarized with words and deeds akin to those of - 
 the coming Prince : history would have its pregnant 
 analogies, human life its intimations and foreshadow- 
 ings of its Author's great design. The family, of which 
 He was to be born, would be the guardian of these 
 oracles, the chosen depository of these hints. Looking 
 back along the line of its ancestry, we should expect 
 to meet with tokens of His relation to it : the portraits 
 of its worthies would, sometimes at least, bring His 
 countenance before our eyes. If I do not speak now 
 of rites and ceremonies expressly instituted by God,
 
 8 Typical Persons of tJie Pentateuch. [SERM. 
 
 and directly I had almost said, professedly illus- 
 trating the future Gospel, it is because these form 
 a branch of the great subject before us, which it is 
 not our purpose to submit to you now. It is of typical 
 persons that you are to hear this Lent : our preachers 
 will bring before you in detail what I have suggested 
 as belonging to the general view. The conviction will 
 grow upon you, that these are not names picked out 
 at random from the annals of the elder world, but 
 a series of men with whom God was marvellously 
 dealing for our sakes. You will recognise a divine 
 idea in the whole story of their race. Perhaps you 
 may even come to perceive that you owe portions of 
 your own Christian knowledge to the teaching they 
 have given you. Your idea of Christ would be less 
 complete to say no more if you had not these typi- 
 cal antecedents of Him, and you may enjoy the hope, 
 as you still proceed in this study, that you may gain 
 new fruits of sacred learning : that, while you contem- 
 plate the lives of the servants, you may know more 
 and more of the life and character of their Lord. 
 
 This, indeed, is the reason why we commend this 
 subject to you in the season of Lent. I will not weary 
 you with arguments to prove that some enlargement of 
 your ordinary study of sacred things is proper to this 
 consecrated time. You feel, I am sure, if you have any 
 desire to win a blessing from its due observance, that 
 its call to you includes this duty, the duty of reading 
 more, or thinking more, about Him whom you seek. 
 Some additional meditation, or reading, or hearing of 
 sermons, has formed part of every scheme of religious 
 exercises in Lent. With you, my brethren in Christ, 
 it will not, I trust, be only part of a scheme of exercises, 
 but a real help to that growth in grace, to which you
 
 I.] Continuity of the Typical Teaching, &c. 9 
 
 desire and pray to attain. The very discipline of rigor- 
 ously claiming an additional portion of each day, how- 
 ever small, for the thought of God, will be of effectual 
 service to you. You want deliverance from the world 
 in which you live. You feel that it has more power 
 over you than it ought to have : it is not merely a world 
 around you that must be so but within you. You 
 are too apt to think its thoughts, and adopt its prin- 
 ciples, without so much as considering whether they 
 are good and true. With some of you, perhaps, there 
 is an overwhelming influence of this kind : the duties, or 
 the pleasures of life, are so many and so incessant, that 
 you have, or seem to have, no time ever to question 
 yourselves on the grounds of your opinions or the mo- 
 tives of your conduct, no space for retirement, or any \ 
 place in which you can commune with your God. Lent 
 gives you such a time, bids you find such a place. 
 
 The outline of these Sermons may suggest to you 
 one profitable subject, at least, on which to exercise 
 your thoughts. Considered as mere history, it might 
 transport you far from present excitements and every- 
 day thoughts. The contemplation of that far-off East- 
 ern world, with its grave fathers spending long gene- 
 rations in the seriousness of the old patriarchal life, 
 might of itself lessen your absorbing admiration for 
 the busy, restless Western society of modern days. 
 The thought of the greatest of them all, " a mighty ) 
 prince," as the children of Heth called him, yet "a 
 stranger and sojourner," living simply in his tent a quiet 
 pastoral life, rebukes our self-indulgent, luxurious ex- 
 istence, with its complicated engagements, and its thou- 
 sand needless cares. But all this is the least part of 
 the great subject before you. Abraham rejoiced to 
 see the day of Christ. Mis thoughts and hopes were
 
 10 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch, [SERM. I. 
 
 fixed on a power and a glory yet to come. You are 
 privileged to enter into those thoughts, but with a 
 clearer knowledge, and with an abounding thankfulness, 
 of which he had only the elements and anticipations 
 within his reach. Communing in spirit with Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, you are communing with those who 
 \longed for Christ, who are with Christ in glory now. 
 You come back from their society as the disciples came 
 down from the Mount, when they had heard Moses 
 and Elias talking with their Lord. You have a glory 
 shining above you, a reflection of heavenly society, a 
 
 fragrance of Paradise. You have been with the Saints : 
 you have drawn, through their converse, nearer to 
 Christ. Let this be the aim of all your contemplation 
 to approach more closely to Him. Brethren, this 
 is the great purpose of Lent ; the great purpose of 
 every season, of every devotional exercise, every holy 
 meditation, to make you know and love your Divine 
 Master more. What reason you will have to thank 
 God when the bright Easter morning dawns upon you, 
 if by these, or any other, meditations, humbly enter- 
 tained, faithfully pursued, you have been led to gain 
 a clearer insight into the perfection of His holiness, 
 the depth of His redeeming love. Life, when we come 
 to the end of it, will be reckoned by these recurring 
 
 . years, and seasons, and times of grace. Let not one 
 of these pass oh, let not this one pass, without its 
 own fresh gain of heavenly thoughts received and 
 cherished, its own fresh earnest of the hope to be with 
 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God.
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 KOMANS v. 14, 
 " Who is the figure of Him that was to come." 
 
 or tart TVTTOS TOW /itXAoi/ror. 
 
 " Qui est forma futuri." 
 
 I ASSUME that there can be no doubt as to the 
 meaning of the words which we render, " Him that 
 was to come ;" and that the ambiguity to which the 
 Latin version, Qui est forma futuri*, might have pos- 
 sibly lent itself, can have no place in the original. In 
 Adam, the Apostle's phrase leads us to see, not the like- 
 ness of what was to be, but the Figure of Him that was 
 to come. Doubtless, we may read in Adam the fore- 
 shadowing of what was to happen in the world, of the 
 future of his race ; but here, the Apostle speaks of 
 the First Man as the Type of a Person, the First Type 
 of Jesus Christ the Lord. 
 
 We are accustomed to this way of speaking, and often 
 it hardly arrests our thought. And yet it might ; for 
 between Type and Antitype, in this case, the relation 
 appears at first sight that of the extremest opposition 
 of condition and character, and resulting work and con- 
 sequences. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all 
 be made alive." " The first man is of the earth, earthy ; 
 the second, is the Lord from Heaven." What oppo- 
 
 VUl. Aug. Epist. civil. 20; DC Pccc. Mcr., i. 13, iii. 9.
 
 1 2 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 sition can be greater ? Yet Adam is the Type of . 
 Christ. He, in whom we see the whole history of our 
 sin and the true image of our falling short, is the figure 
 of Him in whom is summed up all our hope of right- 
 eousness and the whole promise of our completeness. 
 He who stands at the head of the history of this world, 
 so strange, so dark, so short, is the figure of the 
 " Father of the everlasting Age to come." He of whom, 
 in the utter dimness of the beginning of time, we in vain 
 attempt to form a conception, stands as the type of 
 that Brother and Friend whose words and ways and 
 mind are ever open to us, and whom we can know 
 and love as we can none other, who has been among 
 us and has gone from us. He who had a great trust 
 and betrayed it so lightly is the type of Him who came 
 to do His Father's will, and was obedient, even unto 
 death. By what common likeness can we join together 
 him in whom we behold the Fall, with Him in whom 
 we receive the great and eternal Restoration ? How 
 can the great failure be the type of the great victory ? 
 the great transgression, of the great forgiveness ; the 
 great disaster, of the great recovery ; fatal defeat and 
 fault, of fulfilment and perfection ? Every figure must 
 in some respects be a contrast ; and conversely, every 
 contrast implies a parallel and correspondence ; but 
 here, the contrast seems to extinguish the likeness. 
 How is darkness to be the figure of light ? sin, of right- 
 eousness ? death, of life ? How should the beginning 
 of the downward road of evil reflect the beginning of 
 the new creation of righteousness ? how should the 
 Creature, in his first misery and weakness, suggest and 
 represent the Creator, Holy and Strong " the Lord 
 from Heaven," dwelling among us in His awful Power 
 and Love, to reverse our doom ?
 
 II.] Adam. 13 
 
 But high and low lie very near to one another, in that 
 order in which the First Man and the Second are made 
 by St. Paul to be answering counterparts. It is in a 
 world where things are less real, where our thoughts 
 are swayed by opinion and half knowledge and custom, 
 that we shrink from putting them together, except as 
 opposites. But the wisdom of God, which sees all things 
 from end to end in the infinite vastness of the dispensa- 
 tion of grace, has no such restraint. In the first man, 
 in the depth of his fall, it traces the lineaments of that 
 Holy One who was in the fulness of time to bear his 
 flesh and blood. He who made man was not ashamed 
 of him. He who made man did not disdain to share 
 the necessities of his humiliation, accepted the commu- 
 nity of his loss and shame. He bore man's likeness ; 
 He grudged not that man should bear His own ; that 
 man, in the very moment of his overthrow, should be 
 the prophecy of his Deliverer. He was not ashamed 
 that we should see, in him in whom the world was 
 lost, reflections of His own peculiar glory, the image 
 and the promise of what He was Himself to make per- 
 fect. In the very beginning of human history and des- 
 tiny, we find the figure of its fulfilment, which yet was 
 to be so different. 
 
 We see in the great type of the Apostle two things. 
 He to whom, step by step, our blood goes back, he in 
 whom were the germs of all that we are, is set before 
 us as the eternal memorial, at once of what man was ' 
 meant for, and of what man has become. In him are 
 seen together, the intention and the swerving, the pur- 
 pose and the disappointment. He stands not alone 
 in this melancholy significance. The Bible has many 
 such types of good made frustrate, and the actual world 
 is full of them. But in Adam it is the fortunes of man-
 
 14 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 kind that we see summed up. He stands for us all ; for 
 all living souls, who from generation to generation re- 
 ceive and hand on the breath of human life. In him 
 is the image of all his seed. His is no mere personal 
 calling, no mere personal fall, like those of Saul and 
 Judas. Meant for what he was, even man's perfection, 
 yet in his mortality and pain, though brought upon him 
 by himself, he makes his mute but undoubting appeal 
 for restoration ; he witnesses that all has not been in 
 vain, that he was not made for nought. Where the 
 glimpse that is given us is of the destinies of mankind, 
 there, where the purpose and the failure come together, 
 they seem to demand the remedy, and to announce 
 it. So those, whose thoughts are moulded by the Spirit 
 of the God of Hope, instinctively gather : so, the Bible, 
 from first to last the comforter and upholder of human 
 hope, bids them believe that their thoughts are true. 
 He in whom we fell is the Figure of Him that was 
 to come, because he faintly shadows forth the un- 
 imaginable perfection reserved for human nature in 
 its true Head ; and because, in the depths of his own 
 ruin and failure, he cries out and stretches forth his 
 hands for the fulfilment of what he has missed ; and 
 by those cries and yearnings to the Father who made 
 him, is the warrant and promise of it. The type of our 
 lost estate, to all experience irrecoverable, the type of 
 our common disaster which once seemed as if it might 
 have alleviations, but no reversal, is transfigured, while 
 we gaze, into an image, faint yet surrounded with titles 
 of awful honour, of One in whom the obstinate longings 
 of man were to be more than made good ; one by whom 
 the " creature," long " subject to vanity, should be de- 
 livered from the bondage of corruption into the glo- 
 / rious liberty of the children of God." For the First
 
 II.] Adam. 15 
 
 man stands at the head of the genealogy of the Second, 
 as "Adam, which was the Son of God." The First man ' 
 has that awful thing said of him which is said of the 
 Second, in however more ineffable a meaning, " In 
 the image of God, made He man ;" the Son, " Who 
 is the Image of the invisible God," "the express image 
 of His person." 
 
 In Adam we have announced to us the archetype ot 
 man ; what was the design of his being, what was the 
 end and original law of his nature : " Let us make man 
 in our image, after our likeness ;" " So God created 
 man in His own image : in the image of God created 
 He him." In Adam, we are told at the very opening 
 of the Bible of the unity and brotherhood of mankind, \ 
 that last discovery, long fought against and hardly re- 
 cognised, of the widening thought of ages, of the con- 
 spiring feelings and reason of civilized man. In Adam, 
 we have that position of man as the crown of all that 
 we know, which is so absolutely unique and over- 
 whelmingly mysterious as the bondsman and victim 1 
 of nature, yet its lord ; in all its infinite spaces, the 
 one thing free b ; free to choose, free to obey, free to 
 
 b " The first appearance of man in nature was the appearance of a new ' 
 being in nature. . . . The sun had risen, and the sun descended, the stars 
 looked down upon the earth, the mountains climbed to heaven, the cliffs 
 stood upon the shore, the same as now, countless ages before a single being 
 existed who saw it. The counterpart of this whole scene was wanting, . 
 the understanding mind : that mirror in which the whole was to be re- \ 
 fleeted ; and when this arose, it was a new birth for creation itself, that 
 it became known an image in the mind of a conscious being. But even 
 consciousness and knowledge were a less strange and miraculous introduc- 
 tion into the world than conscience. . . . Mysterious in his entrance into this 
 scene, man is now an insulation in it. ... What can be more incompre- 
 hensible, more heterogeneous, a more ghostly resident in nature, than the 
 sense of right and wrong ? What is it ? whence is it ? The obligation of 
 man to sacrifice himself for right is a truth which springs out of an abyss, \ 
 the mere attempt to look down into which confuses the reason. Man is 
 alone, then, in nature ; he alone of all the creatures communes with
 
 1 6 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 rise ; endowed, he alone of things here, with the won- 
 derful power of self-conquest, self-correction, self-im- 
 provement ; with capacities infinite of drawing nearer 
 and nearer for ever to the Father, in whose Image he 
 was made ; the one thing able to know God, and to 
 know what to God is good, the one among creatures 
 here whose perfection lay in the perfection of his will, 
 in owning the sway of those strange, awful words, ought, 
 and ought not. 
 
 And that was the prerogative and calling which was 
 cast away. That was the purpose which was made 
 void. That was the place in the order of God's crea- 
 tion, which from that time to this the race has not 
 fulfilled. In this image of what man was made for 
 begins the terrible record of what man has been ; the 
 unfolding of that terrible and almost infinite variety of 
 failure and sin which crowds the pages of human his- 
 tory, and is its first and deepest impression. " In Adam 
 all die :" nothing remains unspoilt ; no promise reaches 
 its true fulfilment, no good abides without decay and 
 degeneracy : all wears out, evil, happily, too, or the 
 world would perish, but also good. " In Adam all 
 die :" we see it in man's greatest types as in his 
 lowest ; we see it in his refinement and in his degrada- 
 tion ; we see it in his polities and in his Churches, as 
 well as in those monstrous aggregations of unorganized 
 men, without law, without country, without home, which 
 crowd the outskirts of our great cities. Even in all 
 those great doings of his, so elevating, so hopeful, of 
 which the world is full, yet there lurks the taint of the 
 heart not whole and the will infirm : and on them all 
 
 a Being out of nature ; and he divides himself from all other physical 
 life by prophesying, in the face of universal visible decay, his own im- 
 mortality." Mozley, Bampton Lectures, iii. pp. 88, 89.
 
 II.] Adam. 17 
 
 waits death, breaking off the great labour of good, \ 
 beating down the great triumphs over evil and folly. 
 And what are these great labourers, great conquerors, 
 whose work, too, has to begin afresh when they go, 
 what are these few among the so many, who " as soon as 
 they are born, begin to draw to their end, and have no 
 sign of virtue to shew ?" Take the men and women, 
 as we meet them in the streets ; take the huge mul- < 
 titudes of the average ; leave out the extremes on both 
 sides, extremes are rare in all orders of things, though 
 they are less rare on the low side than on the high ; 
 and what a spectacle rises before our mind, of falling ( 
 short of standards, of things marred, of misuse, of empti- I 
 ness, of decay. Think only, in all generations of time, 
 in all countries of mankind, of the waste of life ; of what 
 to us, at least, can only seem the waste of life; the waste 
 of life wantonly cut short, the waste of life, itself wasted \ 
 in the having ; the wastes of savage idleness ; the wastes 
 of barbarian wars .and destructions : life wasted in the 
 artificial vices and wants of the highest social state ; 
 the waste of life, in men, for war, and, it must be said, 
 for much that we call industry ; the waste of life, in 
 ^vomen, who live for man's sin, and by it. These, we 
 know, are things on a great scale ; they are things ac- 
 cepted, as what cannot be helped, as what in the nature 
 of things must be. Do they not reveal to us a world in 
 which, wJio can tell how much, life is wasted ; wasted by 
 men for themselves, wasted by what others do with them. 
 " One day telleth another, and one night certifieth an- 
 other ;" and the tale they repeat is the same dreary 
 story, of to-day fruitless as yesterday, of to-morrow 
 sure to be thrown away as to-day ; of irremediable, 
 continuing waste. In such things as these we see, in 
 its true measure, what is meant by the Fall. 
 
 7
 
 1 8 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 Is not so manifest a purpose, and so manifest a falling 
 
 v short, the very ground and prophecy of hope ? I do 
 
 not suppose that we can always argue from tendency to 
 
 effect ; that every unfulfilled promise, and capacity, and 
 
 
 
 aspiration, implies at last its fulfilment. But there are 
 failures which are final, and there are failures which, 
 in the very moment of their ill-success, by what they 
 might do, by what they do, carry with them the pro- 
 mise of being at last repaired. The fall of Sodom was 
 not like the fall of Israel, or the going astray of Greece 
 and Rome. And here, in Adam and the race he stands 
 for, amid ruin, amid incredible debasement, amid the 
 very mysteries of iniquity and apostasy around him, 
 amid horrors not to be exaggerated, not to be told, 
 of his history, still are to be discerned the outlines 
 of the image of God. Can that image stay with men, 
 and not be to them the pledge of remedy ? Can that 
 image strike its print so deep, can the dream of nature, 
 contradicted everywhere, yet be always and obstinately 
 of goodness, of what is noblest, and purest, and most 
 divine, and not lift mankind to the looking-for of de- 
 liverance, of that day when the old shall pass, and all 
 things be made new ? Can man feel, as he must feel, 
 that sin is not his fate, that evil is not his natural law, 
 and not find in the power within him, of correcting what 
 is amiss, of repentance, of improvement, the irresistible 
 argument of hope ? Surely, from Adam's Creation and 
 Adam's Fall, from such a purpose and such an over- 
 throw, did not the cry go up, prophetic of the grace 
 that listened to it, for retrieval, for a new beginning ? 
 " In Adam all die," Adam, who was " made in the 
 image and likeness of God." Is it not reason, indeed, 
 that from that time till now, " the whole creation," in 
 him made subject to vanity, " groaneth and travaileth
 
 II.] Adam. 19 
 
 in pain together," crying out to be redeemed ; not ac- 
 cepting as its fate " the bondage of corruption ;" earn- 
 estly expecting the accomplishment of a destiny too 
 great to fail at last ? Is not this the expostulation and 
 plea of our nature, in its deep humiliation, in its un- 
 conquerable consciousness of what it was meant for 
 and in whose hand it lives, 
 
 " O remember what my substance is ; 
 
 The work of Thy hands ; 
 
 The likeness of thy countenance. 
 
 Despise not Thou the work of Thine own hands : 
 
 Hast Thou made for nought Thine own image and likeness? 
 
 For nought, if Thou destroy it c ." 
 
 Human nature, in what it is, and in what it is not ; 
 in what it would be and cannot be ; in its aims and 
 its incompleteness ; in its stateliness and its deformity ; 
 in its charm and its repulsiveness ; in its power and 
 its failure, sends up the cry for restoration. Man, but 
 a link in the chain of nature, may stretch forth hands 
 in vain to laws which cannot hear and cannot change. 
 But can man, the Spirit, cry to the God who made him, 
 the Father of Spirits, the Living, the All-compassionate, 
 the True, without the prayer for help and redemption 
 being itself the pledge of its fulfilment ? 
 
 And thus, in his double character, of greatness and 
 of misery ; of the greatness of his end and the misery 
 of his state ; in his longings and their disappointment, 
 in his wish for good and inability to resist the present, 
 in the eternal conflict of conscience and passion, in the 
 strange humiliation of a real will, ever defeated and 
 defeating itself; in all the astonishing and deep con- 
 tradictions of his condition, his desires, his history, he 
 
 c Bishop Andrewes. 
 C 2
 
 2O Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 foreshadows and foretells the deliverance which cor- 
 responds at once to the awful height of what he was 
 meant for, and the depth, beyond our measuring, 
 to which he had sunk. For his Deliverer was one 
 like himself ; yet with all the difference that there is 
 between the Creature and the Creator. He who "took 
 hold" of him was He who made him, after whose 
 Image he was made, whose Likeness he was meant to 
 attain to : greater none could be, to stamp and make 
 certain the greatness of his nature. But who can tell 
 the depth of the humiliation of the Second Adam ? 
 "The Lord from heaven," the "quickening Spirit" 
 by whom the dead are made alive, the "Word made 
 flesh ;" what was He but the likeness of His creature, 
 in the wretchedness in which he had gone forth from 
 Paradise ; in the " form of a servant," in " the likeness 
 of sinful flesh ;" seeking the lost in the company of the 
 lowest of the lost ; the friend of " publicans and sin- 
 ners," accepting the reproach of their companionship ; 
 tempted and scorned, a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief; bearing in the eyes of the world all the 
 marks of ignominious and unsuccessful sin ; judged, in 
 the name of the Highest, as a deceiver and a blas- 
 phemer ; made sin for us, made a curse for us ; for- 
 saken of God, a worm and no man, the very scorn of 
 men, and outcast of the people. What has man done of 
 worst evil, of which the apparent shadow did not rest 
 'on his Deliverer? What unrest, what pain, what pri- 
 vation, troubles his lot, which his Deliverer did not 
 share ? what is there in the sinner's doom at the Fall 
 -shame, sorrow, death which the Sinless does not 
 iccept, in order, in accepting it, to reverse it ? Face 
 face with the amazing contrarieties of the Fall are 
 the amazing contrarieties of the Incarnation. Face to
 
 II.] Adam. 21 
 
 face with the greatness and the misery of the First man, 
 are the greatness and the misery of the Second. 
 
 And so, at the point where the Fall leaves rrian, Re- 
 demption meets him : and the meeting-point is at the j 
 lowest depths. The Fall left him a being of mysterious 
 and surmised greatness, but of most real and visible 
 distance from all that he seemed made for ; struggling 
 with corruption and sin, or sinking under them ; strug- 
 gling with disaster, struggling with pain, struggling 
 vainly with death ; ever haunted by dreams of per- 
 fection, by dreams of bliss, and by the waking cer- 
 tainty of wretchedness and vanity. Whatever else may 
 be true about him, what is palpable is, his humiliation. 
 And then, in the very point of deepest ignominy and 
 disorder, starting from all its disadvantages, traversing 
 its paths, surrounded by all its badges, reflecting its 
 dreary colours, not refusing the semblances of its more 
 real evil ; amid that mortal confusion and degradation 
 of Qonsciejice, in which good is taken for evil, and evil 
 for good, and in which the Holiest was thought the 
 vilest of sinners, the Restorer of man begins His new < 
 and strange work, His new creation. In Adam we see 
 what Christ was to meet with, and to begin with ; where 
 Adam had descended to, Christ descended to meet him : \ 
 in sorrow, in infirmity, in defeat, in the humiliations of 
 mortality, in all but the evil of our treacherous will, 
 man's partner : his partner in such anguish as is de- 
 scribed in the Psalms ; in daily company with his dis- 
 tresses and all that train of unknown and nameless 
 suffering which surrounds the Son of Man in the Gos- 
 pels. The work of heaven, it begins on earth, amid 
 the too well known conditions of our state, the too well 
 known and familiar realities of what \vc arc and what ' 
 we have to go through. From that which seems to be
 
 22 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 but the continuation of the doom of the Fall, from that 
 which seems to be its aggravation in the person of the 
 Innocent, from the darkness and dreary gloom with 
 which Adam's history closes, issues forth the power 
 which is to repair the wreck, the light which is to make 
 it no longer hopeless, the Life which is to quicken the 
 dead. The figure is fulfilled ; its conflicting aspects are 
 reconciled in the transcendent Antitype. " In Adam 
 all die : in Christ shall all be made alive ;" but not 
 before the death of the First man is repeated in the 
 Second ; not before " God had made Him to be sin 
 for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in Him ;" not before the " Cap- 
 tain of man's salvation should by the grace of God 
 taste death for every man ;" " should be made perfect 
 through sufferings." 
 
 Adam is "the Figure of Him that was to come," the 
 figure of our perfection, and of our ruin and mortality ; 
 the figure of God's intention, of what man has spoiled 
 and God repaired. We may measure the reality of 
 the deliverance by the reality, which we know, of the 
 v wreck ; we may measure the vastness of what was 
 wrecked by the greatness of the remedy d . And so 
 the world is changed, and what might but be guessed 
 at before is made certain now. We are of a race 
 that had lost its way ; and now we know it. We are 
 of a race whose prospects and destiny it is vain to 
 circumscribe by what we see ; it belongs to a world to 
 which this world cannot reach, and where we are linked 
 with God. So even the First man dared to imagine 
 before the Second came ; but he knew not, and all the 
 practical energy of his nature was directed here. He 
 went forth and did great things. As it is said in those 
 
 d Pascal, Pensles, ii. 85, 145 (ed. Faugere).
 
 II.] Adam. 23 
 
 great Choruses which are the Psalms of Heathenism, 
 he subdued the earth, he founded states, he sought 
 out arts, he mastered powers living and powers ele- 
 mental, he found the secret of beauty, and the spell 
 of words, and the power of numbers, and the fine threads 
 that waken and order thought ; he made the world his 
 workshop, his arsenal, his palace ; generation after gene- 
 ration he learned to know more of its inexhaustible 
 magnificence, to use more of its inexhaustible gifts ; 
 his eye was more opened, his sense more delicate, his 
 hand more crafty ; he created, he measured, he ga- 
 thered together, he enjoyed. He is before us now, in 
 his greatness, his hopes, his pride, with even nobler 
 aims and vaster tasks, alleviating misery, curing in- 
 justice, bridling or extinguishing disease. But still he 
 is the First Man : of the riddle of his nature he has not 
 the key, and despairs of reaching it : he passes in his . 
 greatness, and never continueth in one stay: sorrow and 
 decay baffle him, sin entangles him, and at the end is 
 death. " Of the earth, earthy ;" of the earth, bounded 
 by its barriers, invisible, impassable. And now, side by 
 side with him, is the Second Man, from the Manger, the 
 Cross, the Grave, dead, yet alive, and alive for ever : 
 attended by His train of sanctities, by unthought-of 
 revelations of heart, by the " things of the Spirit," by 
 hopes and peace which for this world were an idle 1 
 dream, by the new Beatitudes. He comes in the great- 
 ness of his strength, he comes in weakness : but strength 
 and weakness to Him are both alike ; for love, which is 
 of God, in strong and weak, is the life of the new crea- 
 tion, its " one thing needful," the essential mark of its | 
 presence. So He comes, on the bed of sickness, in the 
 lifelong burden, in the broken heart ; with the children 
 in spirit, the poor, the feeble, the helpless, the unknown ;
 
 24 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 with the sorrows of penitence, the hunger after right- 
 eousness, the longings to be true, the longings to be 
 pure, the joy of forgiveness, the hope that is for the 
 other side of the grave. Strange attendants for the 
 company of the Deliverer ; but they bring with them 
 the victory which nothing else has gained. " The First 
 Man is of the earth, earthy ; the Second Man is the 
 Lord from heaven." O Soul of man, called to this 
 wonderful existence, so gifted, yet so rigidly bounded : 
 made for such great things, yet turned aside by such 
 poor ones : so promising, yet so transient : the breath 
 of a day between the two eternities, yet rich" with 
 power, and thought, and beauty, rich in capacities of 
 grace and goodness, ever unfolding, ever growing ; con- 
 scious of such needs and such evils, longing for such 
 firm reality and truth, responding to such calls, and 
 then going hence, as if never having been : where is 
 to be thy part ? what wilt thou do with what is given 
 thee, with that great and fearful thing which we call 
 life ? Wilt thou rest in the portion of the First Adam : 
 great, lovely, as it often is, merely to live, -to see, to be 
 glad in the sky above and God's blessing on the earth, 
 in our home, in our work ? It is enough, if we had no 
 more ; it is enough to be thankful for, if our view closed 
 here. " But the First Man is of the earth, earthy : and 
 there is the Second Man, the Lord from heaven." And 
 none but He dares claim the two great victories : the 
 v victory over sin, the victory over death. With Him 
 only is it said, " O wretched man that I am, who shall 
 deliver me from the body of this death ? I thank God, 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord." With Him only it is 
 said, "that this corruptible must put on incorruption, 
 and this mortal must put on immortality." Only He 
 speaks to us here, of " mortality swallowed up of life."
 
 II.] Adam. 25 
 
 With Him only it is said, " The sting of death is sin, 
 and the strength of sin is the law : but thanks be to 
 God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." He only 
 
 " Holds for us the keys of either home, 
 Earth and the world to come 6 ." 
 
 O Soul of man, inheritor of the First Adam, new- 
 born to the Second, which wilt thou choose ? 
 
 e Lyra Apostolica, No. 71.
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 HEBREWS ri, 4. 
 
 " By faith Abel offered unto G-od a more excellent sacrifice than 
 Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteons, 
 God testifying of his gifts : and by it he, being dead, yet 
 
 A CCORDING to the appointed course of these 
 ** Lenten Sermons, it falls to my lot this evening 
 to speak to you of the first martyr recorded in the 
 world's history, of him to whom Divine wisdom has 
 applied the noble epithet of "RIGHTEOUS ABEL*." 
 I have to dwell upon his history both in its general 
 aspect and in its typical relation to the Gospel, and 
 to shew you how the message which he thus delivered 
 is an abiding message of comfort and instruction to the 
 Church of God, even to the end of the world. 
 
 We find the circumstances of Abel's history, so far 
 as they are handed down to us, in the fourth chapter 
 of the Book of Genesis. We there read that after the 
 expulsion from Paradise, Eve bare to Adam a son, 
 whom she at once named Cain, or " acquisition," say- 
 ing, perhaps with a reference to the first promise, " I 
 have gotten," or acquired, " a man from the Lord." 
 We are then told that "she again bare his brother, 
 Abel." The names of remarkable persons in Holy 
 
 St. Matt, xxiii. 35.
 
 28 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 Scripture are frequently given to them, as by a Di- 
 vine instinct, at the time of their coming into the world, 
 to mark something peculiar, either in the circumstances 
 of their birth, or in their future destinies. But whether 
 or not Abel received this appellation at his birth, his 
 name, which signifies " vanity," or " nothingness," is 
 strikingly indicative of the frailty and shortness of his 
 life, and of his sudden and violent end. 
 
 Well ; the two brothers grew up, and in due time en- 
 tered, each of them, upon their allotted callings in life. 
 Of Cain we read that he "tilled the ground." It was 
 a part of the Divine sentence inflicted upon Adam that 
 the ground w r as cursed for his sake, and that thenceforth 
 it would yield nothing of what was precious and useful, 
 but in return for hard and toilsome labour. It was not, 
 indeed, that there was no labour in Paradise, for we are 
 told that the Lord God put Adam into the garden of 
 Eden "to dress it and to keep it." A Divine hand first 
 planted and adorned the garden, and thenceforth it was 
 Adam's business, by his own industry, to maintain its 
 primitive beauty. Thus industry was demanded of man, 
 as of all God's creatures, even in his state of innocency. 
 And hence the curse inflicted upon man was the curse, 
 not of labour, but of painful and oppressive labour. 
 " In the sweat of his face he was to eat bread ;" and 
 so, as has been well observed, " we were designed for 
 labour in our first happy state ; and upon our lapse 
 thence were further doomed to it, as the sole remedy 
 of our needs, and of the inconveniences to which we 
 became exposed V 
 
 Thus Cain became a husbandman. But Abel fol- 
 lowed another pursuit, which, though not exempting 
 from activity and vigilance, afforded more opportunity 
 
 b Barrow, vol. iii. p. 206.
 
 III.] Abel. 29 
 
 for thought and contemplation c . While Cain was " sub- 
 duing the earth," Abel was asserting the dominion which 
 God had given to man over the beasts of the field, and 
 he became a " keeper of sheep." We need not enter 
 into the question whether the flesh of animals was ever 
 used for food before the Flood. It is sufficient for our 
 purpose to remember that the wool and the milk of the 
 flock would be required for purposes of clothing and of 
 food, to say nothing of those higher typical uses to 
 which I shall have presently to call your attention. 
 
 We next read that " in process of time," or rather " at 
 the end or fulfilment of days," as the words might be 
 rendered, " Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an 
 offering to the Lord ; and Abel, he also brought of the 
 firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof." It is pos- 
 sible that this religious service may have taken place 
 upon the occasion of some appointed festival or solemn 
 anniversary d , and that thus the time as well as the place 
 of offering may have been of Divine appointment. But, 
 however this may be, the two brothers bring, each of 
 them, their offerings, the gifts in either case being cha- 
 racteristic of their different employments. The hus- 
 bandman, Cain, brings of " the fruit of the ground ;" 
 the shepherd, Abel, brings of the "firstlings of his flock." 
 Perhaps the words of the narrative may imply that 
 Abel took more pains than Cain in the selection of 
 
 " In the first event or occurrence after the fall of man, we see, as the 
 Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at all the truth of the story 
 or letter, an image of the two estates, the contemplative state and the active 
 state, figured in the two persons of Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest 
 and most primitive trades of life, that of the shepherd, who, by reason of 
 his leisure, rest in a place, and living in view of heaven, is a lively image 
 of a contemplative life ; and that of the husbandman ; where we see again 
 the favour and election of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller 
 of the ground. " Baton, Advancement of Learning, bk . i. 
 
 d Perhaps on the seventh day, or Sabbath.
 
 3O Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 his gifts. But even if the words convey this meaning, 
 we can hardly find here a sufficient reason why the 
 oblation of one brother should have found favour rather 
 than that of the other e . Nevertheless, we are told im- 
 mediately that "the Lord had respect unto Abel and 
 to his offering ; but unto Cain and to his offering He 
 had not respect." In the one case, both the person and 
 his offering were acceptable to Jehovah ; in the other 
 case, both were alike distasteful to Him. And then we 
 read that " Cain was very wroth, and his countenance 
 fell." Whatever defects there may have been, whether 
 in his disposition or in the nature of his offering, (and 
 it would seem from the narrative that there was some- 
 thing faulty in both,) it is at least plain that he valued 
 the favour of God ; for as soon as he perceived that his 
 offering was rejected, he was overcome with anger and 
 vexation. But notwithstanding his exhibition of sullen 
 displeasure, his Maker condescended to reason with 
 him : " Why art thou wroth ? and why is thy counte- 
 nance fallen ? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be 
 accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the 
 door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt 
 rule over him." If I may venture to paraphrase this 
 
 * The Talmud supposes that Cain offered not his best produce. This 
 view is held by several of the Fathers, as St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom. 
 Cornelius & Lapide says, "Obtulit Cain de fructibus terrse, secundos scilicet 
 et viliores fructus. Primos igitur et meliores fructus sibi reservabat Cain ; 
 opponitur enim Abelo, qui obtulit Deo primogenita, et de adipibus, id 
 est optima et pinguissima gregis sui." 
 To the same purpose, Milton : 
 
 " thither anon 
 
 A sweaty reaper from his tillage brought 
 Firstfruits, the green ear, and the yellow sheaf 
 Unculled, as came to hand ; a shepherd next 
 More meek, came with the firstlings of his flock 
 Choicest and best." 
 
 Paradise Lost, bk. xi. 1. 433.
 
 ill.] Abel. 31 
 
 remonstrance, it may probably be thus understood : 
 "Thou hast displeased Me, both by thy offering and 
 by the spirit with which thou hast made it. But if 
 thou wilt henceforth do good, and follow My revealed 
 will, thou mayest even yet find acceptance, like Abel ; 
 but if not, remember that sin lieth at the door ; it is 
 close at hand, lying in wait for thee, crouching like 
 a wild beast of prey, ready to spring upon thee. 
 Nevertheless, if thou wilt even now follow My com- 
 mands, though sin is desirous to have thee, thou may- 
 est even yet rule over it f ." Thus this remonstrance 
 was an admonition to Cain to submit himself to God's 
 will, and to banish from his mind those turbulent pas- 
 sions of envy and discontent which were then agitating 
 him. He was in great danger, but he might yet escape. 
 It was not too late. It was still in his power to obtain 
 a triumph. If he could not altogether destroy the 
 enemy sin, he might at least hold it in check, and 
 arrest its progress. 
 
 Perhaps for a time this merciful expostulation had 
 its effect. The narrative, here as elsewhere, is some- 
 what obscure, though it seems to imply that there may 
 have been a temporary reconciliation s. But within a 
 while sin revived ; the old feeling of envy and hatred 
 
 f This interpretation is favoured by St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augus- 
 tine, and others of the Fathers ; also by Cornelius d Lapide, Kalisch, 
 Wordsworth, &c. Lightfoot and others consider "sin" in this passage 
 to mean "a sin-offering," but it is difficult to reconcile this meaning with 
 the context. 
 
 * Kalisch, following Gesenius, says that verse 8 might be rendered 
 "And Cain said it to Abel his brother," that is, he communicated to him 
 the words of God, which confidence might be regarded as shewing a dis- 
 position towards reconciliation. There is, however, some good authority 
 for the Septuagint addition, " And Cain said unto Abel his brother, ' Let 
 us go into the field.'" See Canon Selwyn's article on the Septuagint in 
 Smith's "Bible Dictionary."
 
 V 
 
 32 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 gained ascendancy, and in a moment of overpowering 
 passion, perhaps when Abel was reasoning with him of 
 the promises of redemption and of judgment to come, 
 " Cain rose up against him and slew him." 
 
 Such is the narrative as we. read it in Genesis. There 
 is .no lack of testimony in the New Testament to its 
 actual historical reality ; while for its typical meaning 
 we can hardly find a more helpful passage than that 
 which I have chosen for my text, it being carefully 
 remembered that one great design of this Epistle to 
 the Hebrews is to shew the relation of the ancient 
 sacrifices to Christ h . 
 
 Now in this text the Apostle tells us that " by faith 
 Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than 
 Cain." The expression, " a more excellent sacrifice," is 
 very remarkable. An early translation quaintly but 
 accurately renders it, "a much more sacrifice 1 ." And 
 the meaning is clearly this, that by faith Abel was 
 enabled to present that which was much more of the 
 nature of a sacrifice than that offered by Cain, and that 
 by this he obtained witness that he was righteous ; 
 righteous, that is, in the sense of being justified by 
 his faith, God manifesting by some visible sensible 
 token, probably that of fire consuming the sacrifice, 
 that He accepted the offering k . It is difficult to see 
 
 h "The doctrine of this Epistle plainly is, that the legal sacrifices were 
 allusions to the great and final Atonement to be made by the Blood of 
 Christ, and not that this was an allusion to those." Butler's Analogy, 
 part ii. c. v. 
 
 1 That of Wycliffe. 
 
 k " Quaeres, pro signo declaravit Deus sibi placere oblationes Abelis, non 
 autem Cain ? Respondeo ; communiter tradunt Patres, Deum id igne de 
 ccelo misso in sacrificium Abelis, non autem Cain, declarasse ; ignem enim 
 hunc combussisse et consumpsisse sacrificium Abelis, Caini vero sacrificium 
 intactum reliquisse." "Id ipsum asserunt et tradunt S. Hier., Procopius, 
 Cyrillus hie, Chrysost., &c., unde et Theodotion vertit" KO\ Iveitvpurtv
 
 III.] Abel. 33 
 
 i n what the faith of Abel could have consisted, if not 
 in the nature of his oblation. The question, therefore, 
 that I have to ask myself is this, What grounds had 
 Abel for believing that this would be "a more ex- 
 cellent sacrifice ?" 
 
 Now we know that expiatory sacrifices have been 
 prevalent throughout the world from very early times. 
 How, then, do we account for this ? Did the insti- 
 tution of sacrifice take its origin from the natural reason 
 of man, or can it be traced to some distinct primaeval 
 revelation ? It may safely be assumed that a common 
 custom, diffused amongst races of the greatest diversity, 
 must have sprung either from human reason or from 
 some special and definite command of the Creator. 
 Now we can hardly conceive that reason could have 
 originated the idea of animal sacrifices. It might, in- 
 deed, conceive the propriety of presentations to God as 
 thank-offerings, of the fruits and flowers of earth ; but 
 it could hardly suggest, without Divine guidance, that 
 God would be pleased with the blood of animals and 
 the fat of slain beasts, at least for their own sake. I 
 admit that the institution once existing, the human con- 
 science would acquiesce in its fitness, because there is 
 that in fallen man which tells him that he is impure. 
 The sense of sin prompts him to hide himself from the 
 presence of the Lord. It tells him that there is some- 
 thing wrong between him and his Maker, and that this 
 wrong needs to be redressed. But the question is, 
 whether the unassisted reason of man could have de- 
 vised such a method of reconciliation as this. To this 
 there is apparently but one answer. The conclusion 
 seems forced upon us, that a custom so universal, and 
 
 ourek 6 9f6s " inflammavit Dominus super Abel ct sacrificium cjus, super 
 Cain non." Cornelius ct I.apide, in loc. 
 
 I)
 
 34 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 yet at the same time so opposed to the primary con- 
 ceptions or instincts of men, must have been derived 
 from some supernatural revelation. And it is nothing 
 to the point to contend that these sacrifices soon de- 
 generated to corrupt and superstitious uses. All super- 
 stition is built up upon what is true. Superstition is 
 something excessive, which the ill-regulated or unin- 
 structed mind adds to revealed religion. Superstition 
 is an abuse ; but every abuse pre-supposes a true and 
 proper use. 
 
 Let us see, then, whether there are sufficient reasons 
 for concluding that expiatory sacrifices would be or- 
 dained by God. Now we know that immediately upon 
 the fall of man the promise was made of his recovery 
 through Christ. In the predicted "Seed of the woman" 
 there lay the foundation of his hopes, and in the dim 
 twilight of that first Gospel announcement he saw the 
 pathway of his deliverance. From that moment the 
 coming Saviour, who in some mysterious manner was 
 to destroy the power of sin and Satan, became the 
 great object of his faith. But how was this faith to 
 be kept alive in the world ? how but by some outward 
 sign, which should have a typical resemblance to the 
 thing signified. The Being who was to bruise Satan 
 must Himself be bruised ; and thus the first promise 
 indicated that in order to the expiation of sin there 
 must be the shedding of blood. If, then, we believe 
 that Christ Jesus was " fore-ordained," that He was 
 indeed " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world '," what more appropriate type of that deliverance 
 could be appointed than that of sacrifice ? Christ was 
 to appear at the end of the world to put away sin by 
 the one finished Sacrifice upon the Cross. But mankind 
 
 1 Rev. xiii. 8.
 
 III.] Abel. . 35 
 
 must be gradually educated to receive this truth, and 
 in this education the sacrificial system was the greatest 
 element. These vicarious and representative sacrifices 
 had indeed a twofold meaning. They reminded the 
 offerer that he deserved to die on account of his sins, 
 and at the same time they foreshadowed that death 
 which was to be undergone by the Redeemer in the 
 fulness of time to deliver man from the consequences 
 of sin. Their true meaning is thus vividly expressed 
 by Eusebius : " Whilst men had no victim that was 
 more excellent, more precious, and more worthy of 
 God, animals were made the price and ransom of 
 their souls. And their substituting these animals in 
 their own room, bore indeed some affinity to their suf- 
 fering themselves, in which sense all the ancient wor- 
 shippers and friends of God made use of them. The 
 Holy Spirit had taught them that there should one 
 day come a Victim more venerable, more holy, more 
 worthy of God. He had likewise instructed them how 
 to point Him out to the world by types and shadows. 
 And thus they became prophets, and were not ignorant 
 of their having been chosen out to represent to man- 
 kind the things which God resolved to accomplish m ." 
 
 In real truth the great central point of Divine revela- 
 tion is the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross. 
 Around this, the whole of Revelation revolves. It 
 is to this that all former sacrifices are to be referred, 
 and in the light of this alone that they can be under- 
 stood. There probably was, in those early ages, but 
 a vague and imperfect knowledge of their typical mcan- 
 
 m Eusebius, Dcmonst. Evang., lib. i. c. 10. "Sacrifices of expiation 
 were commanded the Jews, and obtained amongst most other nations 
 from tradition, whose original probably was Revelation." Butler's Ana- 
 logy, part ii. c. 5. 
 
 1) 2
 
 36 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 ing ; but at any rate there was room for the exercise 
 of faith, through such sacrifices, in the promise of salva- 
 tion. And thus Abel's sacrifice was his parable of re- 
 demption, and in offering it he was justified sacra- 
 mentally, and by faith. He had grasped the great 
 truth of man's sinfulness and man's need of an atone- 
 ment ; and as he presented his lamb upon the altar 
 he delivered a witness, the power of which no lapse 
 of ages can weaken, a witness to the efficacy of " that 
 Blood which cleanseth from all sin." We thus see why 
 Abel's offering was accepted, and why Cain's was re- 
 jected. Abel by his sacrifice proved his faith in the 
 Divinely appointed method of salvation ; whereas Cain, 
 disdaining the Divine command, and perhaps consider- 
 ing the means unworthy of the end, deemed it sufficient 
 to render his homage to God as the God of Providence. 
 Cain sought to be accepted for his own righteousness ; 
 Abel sought acceptance through the righteousness and 
 death of another. The question to be solved in that 
 early period, the question which all along the ages 
 demands an answer, was this, whether " Revelation 
 ought to control Reason, or Reason to prescribe to 
 Revelation n ." Cain would accept no guide but Reason ; 
 Abel added Faith to Reason ; and as the fire from 
 heaven fell and consumed his sacrifice, there was a 
 sensible evidence that he had found justification ; and 
 so from that primaeval altar there went forth the un- 
 dying message, even to the remotest depths of time, 
 that " without shedding of blood is no remission," and 
 that the Atoning Sacrifice upon the Cross is the only 
 appointed means by which Death can be abolished and 
 Sin done away. 
 
 Thus, also, this first martyr teaches us something of 
 
 " South.
 
 ill.] Abel. 37 
 
 the nature of that faith which justifies. It is not the 
 mere assent of the understanding ; it is not merely an 
 act of the mind which follows necessarily wherever there 
 is sufficient testimony. The faith which Abel had is 
 not a natural gift ; it is the gift of God. The great and 
 principal object which is presented to the faith that jus- 
 tifies is Jesus Christ dying upon the Cross for the sins 
 of the world. Faith contemplates this object ; it ac- 
 cepts the truth that there is none other Name whereby 
 we can be saved ; and it inspires each faithful man with 
 the desire of being found in Christ, not having his 
 own righteousness, but "the righteousness which is of 
 God by faith." Here was just the difference between 
 these two brothers. Cain rejected the primaeval revela- 
 tion, but Abel accepted it. Cain was self-confident, too 
 philosophical for the Gospel, too independent for a Re- 
 deemer ; Abel bowed down before the majesty of Reve- 
 lation. Cain's thoughts would be these : " I do not 
 see what I have to do with my father's sin. I am told 
 that the guilt of it is transmitted to me ; but I do not 
 believe in this kind of hereditary taint ; and as for any 
 personal sin, I do not see that anything which I have 
 done deserves the penalty of death. I am not without 
 becoming thoughts of God. I acknowledge His Being, 
 I own His power, I adore His goodness. I am ready 
 to bring my thank-offering to Him who blesses the 
 labour of my hands, and causes the earth to yield her 
 increase ; but as for any prescribed mode of worship- 
 ping Him, I must myself be the judge of its propriety 
 and reasonableness ; and as for acknowledging myself 
 a sinner deserving of death, or offering a sacrifice which 
 indicates this, and which is supposed to have reference 
 
 " Caini oMatio, confessionem duntaxat obligation!* liabuit, Abclis 
 , confcsMonem pcccati, ct dcsiderium expiation!*. " Be
 
 38 Typical Persons of ttie Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 to some future atonement, against this my reason re- 
 bels." And so he brings his offering, which testifies 
 indeed to a Creator's bounty, but conveys no recog- 
 nition of a Saviour's love. Far different from this is 
 the mind of Abel. " I acknowledge," he would say, 
 " my father's guilt and my own. But blessed be His 
 name that He has provided a remedy. I will go into 
 His presence, and take a sacrifice which shall be a token 
 of my faith in the Victim that He will one day provide, 
 and in return for His amazing love I will consecrate 
 myself, with the best that I have, to be henceforth 
 wholly His p ." Thus while Cain, through his unbelief 
 and neglect of the Divine warning, became the founder 
 of the race of evil men, so did Abel, by his faith and 
 obedience, take the foremost place amongst the citizens 
 of the heavenly City. And he was a type of Christ, not 
 only in his meek and blameless life, and in the nature 
 of his offering, but also in his death ; for as he was 
 sacrificed through the envy of his brother Cain, so was 
 Christ Jesus crucified through the malice and envy of 
 His brethren the Jewish people. And as the great 
 Shepherd of the sheep was brought again from the 
 dead, so shall this primitive shepherd, and all the 
 saints and martyrs who have followed his faith, be 
 brought again by a glorious resurrection, through the 
 power of that " blood of sprinkling, which speakcth 
 better things than that of Abel." 
 
 Well, then, might the Apostle say of Abel that " he, 
 being dead, yet speaketh." Eloquent, indeed, are his 
 utterances, and full of instruction, as their echoes ring 
 from his early tomb, and are repeated from age to age 
 along the mighty reach of six thousand years. They 
 tell us of the first conflict of Reason with Revelation, 
 
 f Sec Mcditatiuncs Hcbraica;, Rev. W. Tail.
 
 III.] Abel. 39 
 
 and of its inevitable issue. They tell us that our worship 
 of God must be of faith as well as of reason. They tell 
 us that if it be of faith, there will ever be mingled with 
 it the acknowledgment of our sinfulness, and that there- 
 fore we must bring our sin-offering as well as our thank- 
 offering to His footstool. And this we do by ever 
 bearing in our hearts the remembrance of Christ dying 
 for us, and by presenting Him by an act of faith as our 
 trespass-offering to the Father. This we do especially 
 in the Holy Communion, in which it should be our 
 prayer that " the commemoration of the true Sacrifice 
 may be well pleasing to God the Father, even as the 
 gifts of Abel were accepted by HimV 
 
 Then, further ; as we place ourselves in thought by 
 the grave of this early victim of violence and death, 
 he speaks to us by his name. He tells us that " man 
 is like to vanity, and that his time passeth away like 
 a shadow." He tells us that we must expect to suffer 
 for righteousness' sake ; but he tells us also that this 
 earthly life is not the highest boon. Eternity is our 
 real lifetime, and death is but its birth. Who would 
 exchange the brief life of Abel, taken quickly though 
 violently to his everlasting reward, for the protracted 
 and miserable existence of the murderer and fugitive, 
 Cain ? Not, indeed, that long life on earth is not to 
 be desired. I know that out of life are the issues of 
 eternity. Long life is therefore a blessing, if it be 
 devoted to God ; but if it is consumed in vanity or in 
 sin, then I say, come early death, rather than an exist- 
 ence, the remembrance of which will sting hereafter 
 like an adder. I know that there is not one in this 
 congregation to-night who will deny that he was born 
 for a nobler purpose than that of living to himself, and 
 
 i Ivo r.iriuitensis, quoted l>y J. Mole, |>. 377.
 
 4O Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 for the gratifying of his passions. Every one of you 
 must be conscious that he was born for something 
 higher than this. You have been created, redeemed, and 
 regenerated, that you should live to God's honour, and 
 fulfil the great purposes of your existence ; and there 
 is something noble and dignified in the thought that 
 we are, all of us, servants of the great King, appointed 
 to do His work. With such a view of life we may pro- 
 nounce long life to be a blessing ; for then there is not 
 a duty we perform, not a word we speak, not a thought 
 we think, which may not add to the sum of our happi- 
 ness in the future glories of the everlasting kingdom. 
 
 But we must think not only of ourselves but of others. 
 Let me then, lastly, urge it upon you to seek so to live, 
 that when you come to die you may deserve the epi- 
 taph of Abel, " He, being dead, yet speaketh." It is 
 a pure and noble ambition to aim at handing on our 
 names and examples with honour ; and this, God help- 
 ing us, is within the reach of all. To live, so as to finish 
 the work which He has given us to do ; to live, so as to 
 please Him and to be useful to our brethren ; to regard 
 time as a precious talent, not to be wasted in indolence 
 and self-indulgence, still less to be sacrificed to criminal 
 pursuits and sensual pleasures ; to regard time, I say, 
 as a trust, and therefore not to be killed as an enemy, 
 but to be redeemed as a friend ; to live, every day, 
 so as to give a good account of every day; to be 
 humble and self-denying, and earnest and true, and 
 generous and pure ; to search out our faults and to 
 try, honestly and manfully, to overcome them ; in one 
 word, " to live by the faith of Him who loved us and 
 gave Himself for us," the influence of such a life is 
 undying. The seed thus sown shall become a tree, 
 yielding fiuit for those that shall come after, yea,
 
 III.] Abel. 41 
 
 stretching out its branches into eternity itself. And 
 by such a life you, after death, shall yet speak, speak 
 as with a thousand tongues 1 ", testifying to ages yet 
 to come, that, whatever scornful and unbelieving men 
 may say, Christianity is after all a great power in the 
 world ; and that the only religion which has any real 
 abiding hold upon the hearts of men is the religion 
 of the CRUCIFIED ONE. 
 
 ' " Abelis olim occisi fides, innocentia, martyrium, et memoria adhuc 
 recens est et celebratur apud omnes fideles, eosque ad sui imitationem 
 exhortatur melius quam si Abel mille linguis eos exhortaretur. " Cornelius 
 a Lapide, in loc.
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 HEBREWS xi. 7. 
 
 " By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not' seen as yet, 
 moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; 
 by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the 
 righteousness which is by faith." 
 
 THE great servants of God, generally speaking, 
 share in a common stock of thought, feelings, 
 resolves, efforts, sacrifices, which lifts them, as a class, 
 above the ordinary level of men, and makes them what 
 they are. They live in the world, without being of it ; 
 they look beyond its narrow frontiers for their main 
 interests and ruling motives ; in some shape or other 
 they give up what they see for what they do not see. 
 They feel, and feel practically, that human life is at 
 once blessed and awful ; blessed in its opportunities, 
 awful in its possibilities. They act as men who are 
 in possession of the clue to its real meaning ; they 
 know and feel why they are here, and whither they 
 are going. And thus, in communion with the Author 
 and object of their existence, and in doing His will, so 
 far as they know it, by themselves and among their 
 fcliow-creatures, they realize the true scope and dignity 
 of their being, and they fertilize the lives of all around 
 them. " Blessed is the man that hath not walked in 
 the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of 
 sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful.
 
 44 Typical Persons of tlic Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His 
 law will he exercise himself day and night. And he 
 shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that 
 shall bring forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also 
 shall not wither, and look, whatsoever he doeth it shall 
 prosper a ." 
 
 But each among the servants of God has some dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic over and above those which 
 are common to them as a body. As in nature no two 
 flowers, no two animals, no two human countenances 
 are exactly alike, so in grace this reflection among the 
 creatures of the Creator's exhaustless resources is even 
 more apparent. Each who has a part, still more, each 
 who is eminent in the kingdom of grace, has in it 
 a place, a form, a work, which belongs to no other ; 
 his character or his circumstances make him, at least 
 in some respects, unlike any who have preceded or 
 who follow him. 
 
 The great patriarchal figures who move before us in 
 the sacred record of the antediluvian age are naturally 
 shrouded in the dimness of a remote antiquity. Of 
 the seven names which connect Seth with Noah, one 
 only attracts a specific moral and religious interest : 
 we pause at the holy life and the glorious translation 
 of Enoch. With this exception there is little to arrest 
 the attention beyond the length of years which was 
 granted to those earliest generations of men. Strange, 
 almost inconceivable, such longevity may perhaps ap- 
 pear when we contrast it with the existing limit of 
 human life ; but it is in harmony with the general 
 scale of gigantic power to which all the most reliable 
 evidence relating to the old world consistently points 
 as characterizing it b . Life in that early age was com- 
 
 " I's. i. I 4. b Dclitz.sch.
 
 IV.] Noah. 45 
 
 paratively simple, regular, free from the social mischiefs 
 and the weakness which came with a more highly or- 
 ganized society. The climate, the weather, the natural 
 conditions under which man found himself were pro- 
 bably different from those which succeeded the Deluge. 
 And Paradise was still recent, so that, although its great 
 prerogatives had been immediately forfeited, the endow- 
 ments of which man had been originally possessed, such 
 as immortality, would die out only gradually, and as 
 if by a process of progressive exhaustion c . Thus it was 
 that when Enoch was translated into eternal life with 
 God, without passing through disease and death, five 
 generations of ancestors must still have been living, 
 Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, even Seth ; while 
 Enoch's son Methuselah, and his grandson Lamech, 
 had already attained an age far beyond that of modern 
 man ; Lamech was 1 13 years old. Of that antediluvian 
 line, at the date in question, only Adam had been taken 
 to his rest ; only Noah was not yet born. 
 
 Sixty-nine years elapsed between the translation of 
 Enoch and the birth of Noah, and during that period 
 the moral atmosphere of human history had very rapidly 
 darkened. This result appears to have been due to two 
 main causes beyond the constantly self-aggravating ef- 
 fects of the Fall. In the fourth and fifth chapters of 
 Genesis the developement of the human race is traced 
 through two entirely different lines, that of Cain and 
 that of Seth. It would seem that, notwithstanding the 
 sense of the phrase elsewhere in Scripture, the Sethites, 
 and not any beings of a higher world, are in this con- 
 nection meant by the august title, " sons of God ;" and 
 the intermarriage between the Sethites, who had pre- 
 served the higher and better traditions of Eden, and 
 1 Dclit/sch.
 
 46 Typical Persons of the Pentatcitcli : [SERM. 
 
 the Cainites, who had entirely lost them, issued in the 
 rapid moral degradation of the posterity of Seth. Dis- 
 tinct from this, but contemporaneous with it, was the 
 appearance of the Nephilim, the "giants" of the Eng- 
 lish Bible. They seem to have been social tyrants 
 rather than physically unnatural monsters ; they made 
 the law of might the ruling force of that primitive 
 society. The corruption of the old world was there- 
 fore mainly traceable to two factors, each fatal to the 
 moral well-being of man ; it was due to social oppres- 
 sion, or cruelty, accompanied by a reckless sensuality. 
 
 Lamech felt the evils of his time ; all seemed to him 
 to flow, as it did flow, from the sin which had been per- 
 petrated and from the curse which had been pronounced 
 in Eden. He felt the burden of his labour upon the 
 soil, and when his son was born, we read a proof of 
 the father's melancholy together with the prophetic 
 presentiment of a brighter future in the name of the 
 infant : " And he called his name Noah, saying, This 
 same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil 
 of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord 
 hath cursed d ." 
 
 Noah's personal piety is described by the same phrase 
 as Enoch's : he " walked with God." This expression 
 denotes even more than that which is used in a divine 
 command to Abraham, and in Abraham's description 
 of his own life e . Abraham was to " walk," and did 
 " walk before God." Still more carefully should it be 
 distinguished from " walking after God," a phrase by 
 which Moses enjoins obedience to the law in one age, 
 and Josiah renews it in another f . To walk after God 
 is to lead a life of obedience to the commands given 
 
 11 Gen. v. 20. ' Ibid. xvii. I ; xxiv. 40. 
 
 f Deut. xiii. 4 ; 2 Kin<js xxiii. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31.
 
 IV.] Noah. 47 
 
 in the divine law ; to walk before Him is to be con- 
 stantly conscious of His overshadowing and searching 
 Presence ; but to walk with God is something higher 
 and more blessed even than this ; it is to be, as it were, 
 constantly at His side, and in His confidence ; it is to 
 be admitted to close and intimate communion with Him 
 as with a most cherished Friend ; it is to be in spirit 
 what the Apostles were in the flesh, when they shared, , 
 day by day, in the streets and lanes of Galilee, the 
 Divine companionship of the Incarnate Son. Under \ 
 the Gospel, it is St. John's " fellowship with the Father, 
 and with His Son Jesus Christ ;" it is the equivalent to 
 St. Paul's " being quickened and made sit together in 
 heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Once only besides j 
 does the phrase occur in the Old Testament, when the 
 Prophet Malachi applies it, not to the conduct of the 
 Israelites generally, but to that of the priests, who stood 
 in a closer relation to God than the rest of the people, 
 and could enter the Holy of Holies, and hold inter- 
 course with the Presence Which was veiled from the 
 public eye g . 
 
 Noah's piety, then, was of an exceptionally lofty kind. 
 He is said expressly to " have been a just man, and 
 perfect in his generations," and in the midst of the 
 general corruption he " found grace in the eyes of the 
 Lord." Of this general temper, his thankfulness after 
 his deliverance is a sample ; in order to express it, he 
 sacrifices some of the little store which he had saved 
 from the general wreck ; and a sentence in Ezekiel im- 
 plies that he had especial power as an intercessor with 
 God h . Yet his intercession fs classed with that of Job 
 and Daniel, and his thankfulness was in the form, as 
 in the spirit of its manifestation, an anticipation, to 
 
 * Mai. ii. 3. h K/ck. xiv. 14. 20.
 
 48 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 cite no other instances, of that of Moses. Holy Scrip- 
 ture, with its wonted simplicity and truthfulness, de- 
 scribes his fall, in his old age, into an ,error; whether 
 of inadvertence or of weakness. It does not generally 
 place him above the level of other servants of God. 
 We have, then, still to ask what it was wherein Noah's 
 specific and typical excellence more particularly shewed 
 itself ? And this question is answered by the passage 
 we are considering in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Omit- 
 ting all else and there is much which the history of 
 this great Patriarch suggests, it bids us observe that 
 " by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not 
 seen as yet, moved "with fear, prepared an ark to the 
 saving of his house ; by which he condemned the world, 
 and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." 
 
 Indeed, it is to this period of the life of Noah that all 
 the allusions to him in the New Testament, with the 
 exception of that in St. Luke's genealogy of our Lord, 
 refer. In the mind not only of St. Peter but of our Lord 
 himself, "the days of Noah" were especially that most 
 critical period of 120 years which preceded the Deluge 1 . 
 It is possible that the social or political interest of his 
 life may have been greater at earlier or at later periods ; 
 it is certain that the intensity of its moral interest 
 centred in this. 
 
 In Noah's building the ark at the command of God 
 there are three main points to be considered. 
 
 I. It implies, first of all, that he had an earnest con- 
 viction of the sanctity and greatness of moral truth ; 
 a conviction which, beyond any other, is the basis of 
 the religious character. He was surrounded by popula- 
 tions which had broken altogether with the laws of God ; 
 impiety, impurity, lawlessness were the order of the day. 
 
 1 St. I. uke xvii. 26.
 
 IV.] Noah. 49 
 
 " Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was 
 only evil continually ;" the corruption was universal, in- 
 ternal, profound. To a great many men a surrounding 
 atmosphere of moral evil would be destructive of the 
 moral sight. Those of us who know' anything of our 
 own hearts must know this ; how easily we get accus- 
 tomed to the sight of what is wrong, how soon we feel 
 complacency, or something like complacency, towards 
 it ; how it undermines our sense of its malignity, and 
 makes us, if not its captives, yet almost its tolerant apo- 
 logists. " Neither doth he abhor everything that is evil," 
 is a severe and exceptional condemnation in the mouth 
 of the Psalmist. But how widely is it applicable ! It is 
 not that evil, triumphant as in Babylon, crushes us into 
 acquiescence : the remnant of the jCanaanites that is 
 in the land suffices for the corfuption of Israel. There 
 it is ; and we take it for granted, in ourselves and in 
 others. It is part of the actual sum of human life and 
 activity, nay, it is a very large part. Within our own 
 hearts, perhaps, it finds something like countenance and 
 sympathy. What is the good, we say to ourselves, of 
 always finding fault with the weather or with an epi- 
 demic ? We may wish that things were otherwise, but 
 we resign ourselves philosophically to take them as 
 they are. 
 
 This acquiescence in evil as inevitable, involves some- 
 thing beyond it. It leads us to shut our eyes to what 
 the deepest and truest of all human presentiments 
 apart from the revelation of God points to as its cer- 
 tain consequence. It blinds us to the fact that evil is, 
 must be, followed, at some time or other, in some way 
 or other, by punishment. Could it be otherwise, God 
 would not beGod.^a necessarily and intrinsically Moral 
 Being ; could it be otherwise, the first and most earnest 
 
 E
 
 5O Typical Persons of tlic Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 affirmation of a healthy conscience would be untrust- 
 worthy. And yet we may, by familiarity tolerant, 
 indolent, sympathetic familiarity with evil, learn first 
 to forget that evil leads to punishment, and next, not 
 improbably, to deny it It is inconceivable, we say, 
 that a world-embracing mass of evil should be punished ; 
 its very universality is its safeguard and protection : it 
 might be punished, if it were an exception ; it must 
 escape, simply as being the rule. This is what we 
 tacitly say to ourselves : we shut our eyes to a first 
 truth of morals, and we flatter ourselves that we are 
 only recognising facts. 
 
 It was against this silent and fatal influence of a cor- 
 rupt moral and social atmosphere that Noah's life was 
 a protest and a, resistance. Scripture says, he was 
 " perfect in or among his generations," and those gene- 
 rations were altogether corrupt. He was a preacher of 
 righteousness, when righteousness was .at a discount and 
 unpopular. He walked with God, when mankind at 
 large had forgotten Him. He did not think the better 
 of sin, of its real nature or of its future prospects, only 
 because it was practised on a large scale, and with con- 
 siderable apparent impunity. To Noah the eternal 
 truths were more certain than the surface-appearances 
 of life ; he was certain that evil was evil, and that it 
 could not but be followed by chastisement, because 
 God is God. 
 
 2. Such a moral conviction, it must have been, which 
 fitted Noah to listen to the Divine prediction of a coming 
 deluge. God does not take the morally deaf and blind 
 into His confidence. The words of Jesus Christ sound 
 through all the ages of human history as the voice of 
 a Divine Providence : " He that hath ears to ear, let 
 him hear." He whose moral senses are alive, let him
 
 V- V f\ 
 \A3v~A, < i ju 
 
 iv.] 7V0tf/!. 5 1 
 
 listen to the proclamation of God's Truth ; to others it 
 will only be meaningless. " He that willeth to do the 
 will of God shall know of the doctrine whether it be 
 of God." Noah was " warned" of God -""of things not 
 seen as yet :" he was the subject in some way we 
 cannot determine in what way of a supernatural com- 
 munication. It may have been some sensible voice 
 from without ; it may have been an unmistakeably 
 Divine assertion, yet from within. "God said unto 
 Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me ; for 
 the earth is filled with violence through them : and 
 behold I will destroy them from the earth. Make thee 
 an ark of gopher wood. . . . Behold I, even I, do bring 
 a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, 
 wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven : and 
 everything that is in the earth shall die. . . . But with 
 thee will I establish my Covenant k ." 
 
 Why should Noah believe this prediction sufficiently 
 to act upon that command ? Because God had jspoken. 
 That was his reason ; that was his conviction. It was 
 enough for him, he needed no more. But his conviction 
 of the unchangeableness and truth of the moral laws 
 of God would have rendered such an announcement, 
 under the circumstances, to him at least morally in- 
 telligible. It mattered not that what was foretold was 
 altogether unratified by any past experience. In the 
 burning plains of Central Asia, the idea of an universal 
 Deluge may well have seemed the wildest of imagina- 
 tions ; a thousand years, at least, of human history had 
 already passed, and there had been nothing like it. 
 Nature seemed to be unvarying in her movements : the 
 sun rose and set, the seasons succeeded each other, 
 the generations of living beings appeared and passed 
 
 k den. vi. 1418. 
 E 2
 
 52 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 away : there was a limited, and so to call it, a regulated 
 variety, traversing this reign of a discernible and per- 
 vading order; but as yet there was nothing that met 
 the senses to warrant the expectation of a vast and 
 overwhelming shock or catastrophe. Why should it 
 be otherwise hereafter ? Why should this accumulated 
 experience go for nothing ? why should the sense of 
 security which it so amply warranted be succeeded by 
 apprehensions of a disaster to which, as yet, the annals 
 of the world afforded no parallel ? 
 
 The answer was, because God had spoken. Who that 
 believes in a really living^God can plead the observed 
 invariability of nature against the declared Will of the 
 Author of nature ? After all, this invariability, so to 
 call it, appeals rather to the imagination than to the 
 reason. The imagination becomes so accustomed to 
 it, so moulded by it, that it undergoes a certain dis- 
 tress at the thought of its violent interruption ; but 
 reason, true reason, is ever mindful of the limits which 
 bound even her widest observations. Because we ob- 
 serve a continuing sequence of similar effects, it does 
 not follow as a certainty, it is only a high presumption, 
 strong in proportion to the range of our observation, 
 that these effects will continue indefinitely. We are 
 not really in possession of knowledge respecting any 
 secret necessity rooted in the nature of things, which 
 makes it certain that they must continue ; and if we 
 believe that the Mighty Author of nature is really alive, 
 and that He is a moral Being, and not merely a Force, 
 or an Intelligence ; and that as a Moral Being He may 
 have grave reasons for disturbing all this physical and 
 social symmetry which encircles us, we shall not dis- 
 trust Him if He tells us that He means to do so. So 
 it was with Noah : he was moved with fear, with a rea-
 
 iv.] Noah. 53 
 
 sonable and a religious fear. He did not treat the 
 warning he had received as if it had been only an omen, 
 appealing to his superstition : he " prepared an ark to 
 the saving of his house." 
 
 The event in which Noah believed before it came 
 was appealed to in a later age by St. Peter, as fur- 
 nishing a reason for believing in a still future and 
 greater catastrophe. St. Peter is writing at the very 
 close of his life, and already a sufficient time had 
 elapsed since the Ascension of our Lord to allow for 
 the formation of doubts respecting His Second Coming, 
 doubts which were based upon the seeming unchange- 
 ableness of the world and of the laws of life. "Where 
 is the promise of His Coming, for since the fathers fell 
 asleep all things continue as they were from the be- 
 ginning of the Creation l ?" The Apostle reminds those 
 who argued thus that time has no meaning for the 
 Eternal God, and that to apply our notions of the 
 difference between greater and less portions of it to 
 His Majestic Providences is to forget that there is 
 simply no such thing as succession in His unbegun, 
 unending Life. " Beloved, 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 m ." But if 
 Christ's delay meant nothing but His long-suffering, 
 the unchanging order of the world could not be urged 
 as a reason for disbelief in the catastrophe of a future 
 judgment, because the past history of the world already 
 contained at least one eminent example of such a catas- 
 trophe. " By the word of the Lord the heavens were 
 of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in 
 the water: whereby the world that then was, being 
 overflowed with water, perished"." In other words, water 
 
 1 2 St. Peter iii. 4. Ibid. v. 8. " Ibid. v. 5, 6.
 
 54 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 had been the instrument by which the surface of the 
 earth was moulded, and one of the constituent elements 
 of its well-being and productiveness ; yet at the creative 
 word of God, from being a servant and a blessing, it 
 became an overmastering force and scourge. What had 
 been, might yet be ; another element had yet a work to 
 do in God's providence, and neither the lapse of years 
 nor the regularity of the observed order of nature, were 
 any real reasons for presuming that the final catastrophe 
 would not come at last. " The heavens and the earth, 
 which are now, by the same word arc kept in store, 
 reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and 
 perdition of ungodly men ." 
 
 Nay, it is very possible that, with a larger knowledge 
 than that which we at present possess, we might be 
 able to extend the argument by additional illustrations. 
 Some years ago it was usual to refer solely to the period 
 of the Deluge the animal remains which have been 
 discovered in caverns or beneath the surface of the 
 earth. But more recent science urges that they imply 
 a higher antiquity, and are found under circumstances 
 for which no universal flood would sufficiently account. 
 It may be so. Is there anything in the text of the 
 Bible which obliges us to narrow down to six thousand 
 years, or in any way to stint the measure of the world's 
 antiquity, short of admitting its absolute eternity ? On 
 the contrary, between the record of the original crea- 
 tive act and the subsequent description of a gradual 
 process by which, through successive periods, " days" 
 they are called, the world was brought into its present 
 state, there is room for a measureless interval or series 
 of intervals. And if this be so, who shall say that 
 many of the animal it may be some of the 'human' 
 
 2 Pet. iii. 7.
 
 IV.] Noah. 5 5 
 
 remains which are now pointed to as hostile or at 
 least embarrassing to the Faith of Christians, are, after 
 all, proofs and relics of some bygone catastrophes, of 
 which, previous to the creation of the present order of 
 things, this globe has been the scene, and by which 
 ages of probation accorded to moral beings who have 
 preceded us men, were, by the sentence of the Great 
 Judge, violently closed ? It is true that we are here 
 altogether in the region of pure hypothesis ; but, I sub- 
 mit that there is at least nothing in revelation which 
 necessarily contradicts it ; while, if it be true, it yields 
 support to the argument of the Apostle, and it justifies 
 the generous faith of the Patriarch. 
 
 Not that Noah's faith had anything to do with such 
 cosmical speculations. Religious men may be glad to 
 harmonize their convictions with the advancing But 
 shifting and often inconsistent conclusions of human 
 knowledge. But the foundation of their faith is one 
 and invariable. They believe that He who made the 
 world can control it : and when His purpose is clear 
 to them, they do not allow themselves to lose sight 
 of it only because their imaginations are powerfully 
 impressed by the spectacle of a settled and common 
 order of phenomena or institutions. They are there- 
 fore independent of scientific arguments, without being 
 indifferent to 'them ; they walk by faith and not by 
 sight. They are quite certain that, whatever difficulties 
 may be urged against His declared Will at the moment, 
 God will in the long run justify Himself to man, and 
 will vindicate the wisdom of those who in a day of trial 
 and darkness have taken Him at His Word. 
 
 3. For a third point to be observed in Noah is his 
 perseverance under difficulties. His faith was a prac- 
 tical principle, and it upheld him in the face of serious 
 discouragements.
 
 56 Typical Persons of tlie Pentateuch. [SERM. 
 
 (a.) To begin with, he might easily have said to him- 
 self that there could be no real necessity for his per- 
 sonally exerting himself; that the threatened disaster 
 would scarcely touch one who was already 480 years 
 of age ; that it would be enough to warn his children 
 of what was coming when he himself would probably 
 have entered upon his rest. Why should he rouse him- 
 self in advanced life to so great an effort as that which 
 was required of him, instead of leaving it to be under- 
 taken by younger hands ? The answer in his conscience 
 was, that God had said, not to others but to him : 
 " Build thou an ark of gopher wood." 
 
 (y3.) Again, he might naturally have dwelt upon the 
 great mechanical and constructive difficulties of the 
 undertaking. It is not to be supposed that these were 
 left to be discovered for the first time by modern criti- 
 cism. How could such an ark be built, so as to secure 
 at once space and safety ? How could it be provisioned, 
 lighted, warmed ? How would the several animals be 
 gathered so as to enter it ? how would it be possible 
 to preserve them under conditions of weather and tem- 
 perature so unlike their own ? And then when would 
 the scourge have passed ? and how would it be possible 
 to enter again upon the earth as a solitary colonist, 
 amid the traces of so gigantic a desolation ? Well may 
 Noah's heart have sunk within him. Yet, he knew, 
 God had said to him, "Build thou an ark of gopher 
 wood," and he had only to obey. 
 
 (7.) Once more. Noah had to begin his work, and to 
 continue it, not merely without active support and sym- 
 pathy, but under the eye of a public opinion, not so 
 much hostile as contemptuously cynical. What was 
 this extraordinary outlay of labour and skill ? what was 
 its purpose and meaning ? how was it other than the 
 crotchet of a visionary and a fanatic ? Did he really
 
 IV.] Noah. 57 
 
 think that his fancies would become true, and that the 
 settled order of nature as well as the civilization and 
 progress of human life were going to be buried beneath 
 the flood which he dreamt of navigating? Was every 
 one else wrong, while he was right ? was his private 
 information (if such it was) to be weighed against the 
 collective experience and judgment of mankind ? How 
 they must have mocked at the entire undertaking ! how 
 naturally must they, in their aversion to the idea and ob- 
 ject, have revenged themselves on the form and appear- 
 ance ! What airy criticisms must have been lavished on 
 it in its earliest rudimentary shape, on each detail which 
 was supplied to it, on its complete structure ! what deli- 
 cate and yet bitter comments on its uselessness, its 
 ugliness, its utter opposition to the whole current of 
 contemporary thought and feeling ! How, too, some 
 of the more liberal critics would have endeavoured, as 
 if in scornful and condescending pity, to enter, although 
 remotely and for a moment, into the strange hallucina- 
 tions that could have produced it, as if surveying from 
 afar a mental curiosity, which only did not move their 
 anger because it ministered so abundantly to their amuse- 
 ment ! And then with what satisfaction and compla- 
 cency would they have betaken themselves anew to the 
 life against which it was a protest and a warning, as to 
 that which was warranted by the common sense and 
 judgment of the time, and by a force of custom and 
 sentiment which, as the world grew older, was daily 
 gathering new strength and empire. Our Lord has 
 said that what took place then is an anticipation of 
 what will be on the eve of the last Judgment : " As 
 it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be in the days 
 of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they 
 married and were given in marriage, until the day came
 
 $8 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch: [SERM. 
 
 that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and 
 destroyed them all P." 
 
 Yes, there was a delay of 1 20 years, but the threat- 
 ened judgment came at last." "The flood came and 
 destroyed them all." Whether it was strictly universal 
 or something less than universal ; whether it covered 
 Ararat without covering, for instance, the Himalayas ; 
 whether it can be explained by any combination of 
 known causes or only by supernatural ones ; these are 
 important questions, but they do not touch the moral 
 interest of the narrative, they would only lead us away 
 from it. The judgment came. It came to vindicate 
 the morality and sovereignty of God ; it came to justify 
 Noah, and to condemn the generation which rejected 
 him. It came to demonstrate the folly and emptiness 
 of all the glitter and order of that ancient civilization ; 
 the irreverence and falsehood of that opinion which 
 seemed at the time so well founded and so strong. 
 There must have been a day, an hour of uttered 
 surprise, alarm, struggle, agony, despair, when this 
 was realized. Poets and painters have endeavoured to 
 pourtray it. But as the mind dwells on any vast picture 
 of human agony, the heart grows sick and the head 
 giddy. In that buried multitude, no doubt, there were 
 degrees of responsibility and guilt, known to and weighed 
 by the Eternal Justice. The Apostle hints as much in 
 a significant expression q , which apparently implies that 
 on the descent of our Lord's Human Soul into the place 
 of the departed there was a compensatory preaching at 
 least to some of the imprisoned spirits of the ante- 
 diluvian world. But, the general result is a contrast 
 between an overwhelming judgment and a signal mercy, 
 
 P St. Luke xvii. 26, 27. 
 
 > I St. Pet. iii. 19, 20, compared with I St. Pet. iv. 6.
 
 IV.] Noah. 59 
 
 a judgment provoked by forgetfulness of the law and 
 knowledge of God, and a mercy awarded to faith in His 
 word, which was not sacrificed to false and narrow views 
 of duty, or to baseless misgivings, or to the corrupt and 
 corrupting opinion of the day. 
 
 What Noah's work really and mainly foreshadowed 
 would have been obscure at the time ; but we look back 
 upon it from a vantage ground, which enables us to do 
 it justice. Every Christian must see, in the labour and 
 temporal salvation of Noah, the shadow of a greater 
 Toil and a more complete__Deliverance. Looking to 
 Jesus Christ, humanity in its wretchedness and yet in 
 its hope might use in a deeper sense the words of 
 Lamech : " This Same shall comfort us concerning our 
 work and toil of our hands/' Like Noah, Jesus Christ 
 was a preacher of Righteousness ; He preached a high er 
 and broader Righteousness than man knew before, but 
 then, by His Passion and Death and gifts of grace, He 
 robed man in it, and made His Revelation tolerable 
 to human weakness by making its substance a gift to 
 faith'. And as Noah built an ark for the saving of his 
 house, so did our Lord build His Church to be the 
 home of His followers, with the promise that against 
 it "the gates of Hell should notfinaJij^_prevail." His 
 teaching, His example, His works of mercy and of 
 grace, His bitter Passion and Death, His Resurrection 
 from the tomb and ascent to Heaven, were all steps in 
 this mighty work; the Divine Architect shed His very 
 life-blood in the labour of construction. And at length 
 Pentecost came, and the Eternal Spirit welded all into 
 a consistent and enduring whole ; and as the races and 
 sexes and degrees of men passed within it at the hea- 
 venly call, lo ! there was neither Greek nor Jew, neither 
 
 ' llcl). xi. I.
 
 60 Typical Persons of tlie Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 male nor female, circumcision nor uncircumcision, bar- 
 barian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ was all 
 and in all 8 . And although, since those earlier days, the 
 passions and errors of men have raised walls of partition 
 within the Divine Fabric over and above the 'stories' 
 which He ordered to be made in it *, yet these most as- 
 suredly will not always last ; they are human, while the 
 Ark itself is Divine. Even now it floats upon the 
 waters, upon the vast ocean of human opinion and so- 
 ciety, and we, without any merit'of our own, but of His 
 free grace and mercy, have been permitted to enter it. 
 Over us was uttered the prayer that " the Everlasting 
 God, Who of His Great Mercy did save Noah and His 
 family in the Ark from perishing by water," would look 
 upon, wash, and sanctify us ; that being delivered from 
 His wrath we might be " received injtp the Ark of Christ's 
 Church, and being steadfast in faith, joyful through 
 hope, and rooted in charity, might so pass through the 
 waves of this troublesome world, that finally we might 
 come to the land of Everlasting Life u ." We may, of 
 course, if we will, plunge again into the waters ; but we 
 have only ourselves to thank if me Ark of the true 
 Noah does not land us at the last on the Mount of 
 God. 
 
 It may be useful to insist upon one or two practical 
 conclusions which are suggested to us by the life and 
 work of Noah. 
 
 (a.) It suggests, first of all, a particular form of^djuty, 
 which at certain times in the world's history may press 
 very heavily on the conscience of public men whether 
 in Church or State ; and, at certain turns in life, upon 
 all of us, however private and retired our place and 
 work may be. I mean the duty which may arise upon 
 
 Col. iii. II ; Gal. iii. 28. ' Gen. vi. 16. u Baptismal Service.
 
 IV.] Noah. 6 1 
 
 our seeing, or believing that we see, more or less clearly 
 into a future which has to be provided for, or provided 
 against. Indeed, to endeavour to look forward and 
 provide is a part of the work of those who are charged 
 with the maintenance and support of large public in- 
 terests. It is their business to observe the direction 
 in which things are moving, the forces which are coming 
 to the front, the combinations or separations of forces 
 which may be fairly anticipated, the general result that 
 will emerge from and succeed the state of things with 
 which they are actually conversant. Here, as elsewhere, 
 to seek knowledge is to learn, at any rate, something ; 
 and God teaches us through our natural powers of ob- 
 servation and reflection, as well as in other and higher 
 ways. Here, as elsewhere, to pray to know enough to 
 be able to do God's Will in our day and generation, 
 is to be answered ; and, it may be, to have to antici- 
 pate deliberately much to which we would willingly 
 be blind. Such a habit of looking forward, if its motive 
 be higher than a speculative curiosity, will not interfere 
 with the duties of the present hour : nor will it militate 
 against the general temper of trustful resignation, which, 
 in those who see furthest and deepest, is ever ready to 
 leave its hopes and fears in the Hands of God. In pri- 
 vate and worldly concerns, such foresight is not often 
 either undervalued or neglected. No man continues to 
 invest his money in an undertaking recommended by 
 an imposing Prospectus and Board of Directors, if be- 
 neath its fair promises and apparent prosperity he can 
 clearly see at work the causes of coming bankruptcy. 
 But where the interests of others are only or chiefly 
 concerned, it being probable that the man himself will 
 have passed from the scene before his anticipations are 
 realized, it is possible for him to find himself in Noah's
 
 62 Typical Persons of the PentateucJi : [sERM. 
 
 position thus far ; that he guesses a danger, a catas- 
 trophe, which is hidden from the sight of his contem- 
 poraries, and which imposes on him the plain duty of 
 preparing to meet it. 
 
 Then comes his trial. Will he bestir himself to obey 
 the behests of his conviction, or will he indolently fold 
 his hands and let things take their course ? Will he say 
 to himself, " After all, this is no particular concern of 
 mine; it is the concern of everybody. Why should 
 I be compelled to put myself out of my way in a matter 
 that interests hundreds of other people as much as it 
 i nterests me ? Why should I be taxed, heavily taxed, 
 on the score of my farsightedness, while others can go 
 on easily and quietly, with a perfectly good conscience, 
 
 nly because they are too unobservant or too inert to 
 see, or to try to see, beyond the next turn in the road ? 
 
 1 will let things take their course ; there is no necessity 
 on my part for a chivalry which will be mocked at till 
 it is justified by events, and which, even if events do 
 justify it, will soon be forgotten." 
 
 Will he reason thus, or will he reflect that knowledge, 
 insight, farsightedness, if they really exist and are felt 
 to exist, constitute responsibility ; that, even if he 
 would, a man who sees further and knows more than 
 others cannot be as others, morally, and before God 
 or before men ; that together with knowledge there 
 comes, to a certain extent, and within the area which 
 it covers, a forfeiture of that particular species of liberty 
 which is a moral right of ignorance ? Will he reason 
 thus, and act upon his reasoning ? My brethren, it is 
 a critical question ; possibly for the generation, the 
 country, the Church to which he belongs, but certainly 
 and under any circumstances for himself. 
 
 Can anyone with a heart think without sorrow of
 
 IV.] Noah. 63 
 
 that King of France whose reign covers the greater 
 part of the last century, and who spans the interval 
 which connects the Court of the Great Monarch with 
 the reign of the Bourbon who died upon the scaffold ? 
 Few things in history are more piteous than the con- 
 trast between a boyhood of much interest and promise 
 and an advanced life of abject, systematized dissipation. 
 Yet Louis XV. was not wanting in penetration ; and 
 the gay revelries of Versailles did not wholly blind or 
 deafen him to sights and sounds which might have 
 convinced a less observant ruler that the fountains of 
 the great deep of national life were breaking up, and 
 that a new order of things was imminent. Allowing 
 for the difficulties of a traditional position such as his, 
 may we not believe that an earnest and well-considered 
 effort to improve the condition and assert the rights of 
 the people, in the middle of the century, might have 
 saved France from the torrents of blood in which the 
 inevitable Revolution was baptized ? Yet Louis XV. 
 passed away, enervated morally and physically by plea- 
 sures which ministered only to the satisfaction of the 
 hour, while the mutterings of the approaching storm 
 were falling on his dying ear, and his last and deepest 
 convictions became embodied in words which were too 
 surely verified : " After us the deluge." 
 
 Nor can we walk the streets of Oxford, and know 
 anything of the history of the buildings which meet our 
 eyes, without encountering another illustration of the 
 matter before us. During the two centuries which pre- 
 ceded the Reformation there were men in England who 
 felt that a change of some kind was coming, and that 
 it was their duty to prepare for it. They could not 
 read history with our eyes ; they could not look into 
 the future as we look back upon the past ; they knew
 
 64 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 not whether Reform or Revolution was before them. 
 But at least, come what might, it could not but be well 
 to gather and cultivate the highest learning of the time 
 under the guidance and stimulus of Religion ; and it 
 was to this provident care of theirs that we owe the 
 foundation of some of the noblest colleges in Oxford. 
 It may be feared that the highest aim and desire of their 
 great legacy will not be handed on to the generations 
 that will follow us ; and yet it may be the duty and 
 privilege of our day, under other yet not altogether 
 unlike circumstances, and on a humbler scale, to leave 
 at least one modern institution in Oxford where human 
 learning will still be blessed by Christ, when we of this 
 century shall have gone to our account. 
 
 From the State and Education it is natural to pass 
 to the Church. Nearly forty years have now elapsed 
 since a few of the purest and loftiest spirits that ever 
 b reathed the air of this place saw in the suppression of 
 some Irish Sees a warning to prepare for more serious 
 emergencies. They, too, might have said, that as pri- 
 vate clergymen and teachers they might well let things 
 take their course, or leave the work of struggle and of 
 protest to those who were set in the high places of the 
 Church. But their insight into the future, such as it 
 was, was their own ; and they could not transfer to 
 others the responsibility of possessing it. They knew 
 that the real cause of present disaster, and the most 
 serious menace of future danger, lay not in any ex- 
 ceptional irreligion on the part of the State, but in the 
 fact that Churchmen were at best half-hearted in pro- 
 fessing their Creed : Samson's locks had been shorn, 
 and who could wonder that the Philistines were upon 
 him. If the Church of England was to be loved and 
 worked-for in the years to come, it must be by men who
 
 IV.] Noah. 65 
 
 recognized in her something nobler than the plaything 
 and creature of Parliaments and Statesmen, something 
 more than one of many human organizations, designed 
 to promote co-operation among believers in Christ. If 
 she was not a Branch of Christ's Body, her sacred lan- 
 guage was a studied unreality ; if her Sacraments were 
 not channels of Divine Grace, were not their administra- 
 tors like the heathen augurs of old, who could not but 
 smile as they passed each other in the Forum ? These 
 men understood that a Church, to be upheld, must be 
 believed in ; but they would have failed, and deserv- 
 edly, if they had endeavoured to re-invigorate a faith 
 which they themselves held to be untrue. In their belief 
 that, whatever came of it, they must go forward, in their 
 simple sincerity, lay the secret of their strength. Out 
 of the old materials which were ready to their hands, 
 they set themselves to build an ark of fresh and strong 
 convictions ; they laboured, by all the avenues to public 
 thought and feeling that they could command, to per- 
 suade their contemporaries to mean the Creed which 
 daily passed their lips, and to act upon it. 
 
 It may be true that that movement has been pushed 
 to some unwarranted and lamentable consequences, 
 that its original principle has been, in some cases, ca- 
 ricatured or perverted, that it has indirectly created 
 some bewilderment and confusion. What is this but 
 to say that its originators and conductors were human, 
 and that they have enjoyed no guaranteed exemption 
 from human liability to error ? But look at it generously 
 and as a whole, look at it as its opponents, I venture 
 to say, will look at it, when in the clear daylight of 
 history it can be viewed without any disturbing rays of 
 intervening passion ; and it will, it must be said to have 
 saved the Church of England from impending death, 
 
 F
 
 f : 
 
 66 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 either by spiritual hysteria, or by spiritual atrophy. 
 It has poured a tide of life, the life of earnest con- 
 viction and of earnest work, through all the arteries 
 and veins of the Church of this land ; and it is year 
 by year adding to the spiritual force which alone can 
 enable Christians to face the speculative or political 
 anxieties of the future. He who exclaimed from Bag- 
 ley, forty years ago, 
 
 "The flood is round thee, but thy towers as yet 
 Are safe," 
 
 at the sight of Oxford, foresaw clearly what was coming. 
 And now that he is gone to his rest, it is not too much 
 to say that he has done more perhaps than any in these 
 last times to enable us of a younger generation to look 
 forward to the rising flood, if not without fear on the 
 score of our own possible disloyalty, yet certainly with- 
 out misgiving as to the general and final issue to the 
 Kingdom of Christ in England. 
 
 It is easy to exaggerate the importance of the age we 
 live in ; it is a subtle inclination of self-love which leads 
 us to do so. Yet after allowing for this propensity 
 or weakness, we can scarcely doubt that the present 
 is a period of exceptional importance, whether to the 
 State or to Religion, both in England and Europe. 
 Scarcely a year passes without the crash of some old 
 throne or constitution ; and around us are taking place, 
 silently but with astonishing rapidity, vast political 
 and social changes, which cannot but lead to much 
 besides in the years immediately to come. To be en- 
 tering on the full powers of life in such days as these 
 may be a privilege or a misery ; as a man has or has 
 not the heart to feel their moral solemnity. Alas ! 
 for those whose conduct at such a time exposes noble 
 
 " ,f > > i 
 
 
 
 4*9 I *^T"
 
 IV.] Noah. 67 
 
 names and ancient institutions to a condemnation, 
 which will make it at least difficult to link the past with 
 the future. Alas ! for those who can see clearly and 
 far into that which is hidden from most of us, yet who 
 enjoy their keensightedness, if not with a reckless levity, 
 yet without feeling any generous desire to lend a hand 
 towards making an Ark of safety for truth and good- 
 ness. For, on a great scale or a small, there will be, 
 there is, some share in the work of Noah to be taken 
 by all of us ; and they who work most in silence and 
 unobserved, may have at the last the largest share in 
 the blessing of the great Patriarch. 
 
 And, leaving public interests and duties, there is one 
 sense in which each one of us must build his Ark, and 
 that quickly. To every man death is the Deluge, and 
 life is the time given him wherein to prepare to meet it. 
 If we would not sink beneath the waters, we must build 
 our Ark ; and we have much less than the 120 years 
 of Noah in which to build it. What if this brief and 
 precious period is passing from us while we stand aside, 
 watching the efforts of others, either in moody indiffer- 
 ence, or in scornful contempt ! What if, as St. Augus- 
 tine said of some Christians in his day, whose natural 
 energy furthered Christ's kingdom, while their hearts 
 were not enlisted in His cause our part is only that of 
 the mercenary Camites, whose services the Patriarch 
 enlisted to buildTthe Ark, into which, when the day of 
 trouble came, they would not enter ! Let us look into 
 this matter, if it be for the first time, this Lent. Let us 
 lose no more days in setting to work, and let us take 
 heed how we set to work. The ark_of Solution, says 
 St. Augustine again, must be built by the Christian out 
 of the wood of Christ's Cross. We cannot ourselves 
 furnish cither the design or the material ; but if God 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch. [SERM. IV. 
 
 will not save us by ourselves, He certainly will not 
 save us without ourselves, without our corresponding, 
 that is to say, with His purposes of grace and mercy. 
 Yet if He f~ witrr^TTT matters little, although the 
 clouds are sensibly darker than they were, and the 
 fountains of the great deep are already breaking up. 
 It matters little, though all be submerged before our 
 eyes beneath the rising tide, if we know and are sure, 
 upon the strength of His word, that after a brief voyage 
 upon the waters, our feet will rest upon the Eternal 
 Mountain, and we shall have our part in that mighty 
 Thanksgiving which will never end.
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 GENESIS iii. 4, 5. 
 
 " And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die : 
 for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your 
 eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good 
 and evil." 
 
 EVE's temptation and fall is the forerunner and 
 counterpart of the falls of the sons and daughters 
 of Eve, especially of those who are relatively in her con- 
 dition, innocence as yet not sharply tried, the relative 
 innocence of youth, before its first great fall. Her 
 central temptation was, to seek against the Will of 
 God, in a way of her own, forbidden by God, a good 
 which God willed to give her in His way. So much 
 is this an image of us, that a school has been found, 
 which teaches, that Eve's act was a stage in human 
 progress, " the first bold venture of reason, the first 
 beginning of moral being, the happiest event of human 
 history a ;" " the eternal myth of man, whereby he be- 
 comes man b ;" "the free-willed human spirit, bursting 
 through the bands of instinct and the narrow home of 
 animal peace, to soar unhindered to the hot struggle 
 for hallowing c ." "The narrator would shew, how man 
 
 Schiller iib. d. erste Menschengescllschaft nach d. Icitfaden Mosaisch. 
 Urkunde-Werke, x. 389, cd. 1838, in Dclitzsch ad loc. 
 b Hegel, Philos. d. Gesch., p. 333, ib. 
 c Einhorn (a Rabbi) I'rincip. d. Mo.saismus, i. 65, ib.
 
 7O Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 found his way, out of moral ignorance and unindepend- 
 ence, and attained to moral knowledge and self-depend- 
 ence, but therewith took on himself greater duties, than 
 he had before to fulfil d ." As if a debasing slavery to 
 evil were a necessary condition of the knowledge of the 
 difference of good and evil; as if previous estrangement 
 from God were the essential preparation for being His 
 friend ; as if a ghastly independence of the All-wise 
 were the necessary pathway to matured wisdom ; as 
 if the subjugation of our spirits to the natures which 
 we have in common with the beasts which perish, were 
 the indispensable stepping-stone and threshold to "the 
 glorious liberty of the sons of God ;" and disobedience 
 to our Creator were essential to the perfection of beings 
 created in His " image and likeness ;" as if lawlessness 
 were true liberty, wandering amid error the condition 
 of the attainment of truth, abuse of our God-given facul- 
 ties the essential practice of their use, unreason the 
 handmaid of reason, moral darkness the one only ves- 
 tibule to the true Light, the Light in which God dwells, 
 the Light which He Is. But for sin, the Incarnation 
 might have been without the horribleness of the Passion ; 
 we might have been as God, yea, God-united, engodded ; 
 and God might have been as one of us, without our 
 being first as the Evil One or as the brutes ; Heaven 
 might have been without hell ; the eternal Halleluiahs 
 without those everlasting cursings and blasphemies ; 
 the reign of Divine love without that dark realm of 
 hate; the ever self- unfolding communication of the 
 satisfying fulness which God has and is, without that 
 eternal impotent rejection of God which would that 
 He were not. 
 
 But God willed, for our endless well-being, to be 
 
 d Knobcl, adloc.
 
 v.] Eve. 71 
 
 loved with our full free-will. He would not (even if 
 it does not involve a contradiction) be loved without 
 our free choice. He willed to condescend to expose 
 Himself (so to speak) to the free choice or contempt 
 of His creatures. He empowered them, by His grace, 
 to choose Him ; He even made it a violence to their 
 engraced nature, not to choose Him. But He subjected 
 Himself to the vile indignity that He Who Alone Is, 
 Who hath and is all Good, the perpetual Fountain of 
 all Perfection as of being, should be rejected by us, 
 who have no being save from Him, who . have from 
 Himself the power of rejecting Him, rather than not 
 bestow on us the unspeakable dignity, freely to choose 
 Him. 
 
 And so, since that ever-to-be-repeated choice is of 
 such infinite moment, God gives us the history, not 
 of the moving temptation only and the fall, but of the 
 order of Satan's wiles and Eve's tampering with her 
 tempter. 
 
 Satan prepares for the fall by exaggerating the pro- 
 hibition. He would convey hard thoughts of God, with- 
 out "directly touching on the prohibition itself. " Can 
 it then be," he asks, "that the Deity 6 (he omits the 
 special name of God) hath forbidden you to eat of 
 any f tree of the garden?" Much as he might say 
 now, " Has the Deity forbidden all progress ? Has 
 He put bars to the intelligence which He has created, 
 and fettered the free scope and use of the reason which 
 He has made a created image of His own ?" Or, " Docs 
 God indeed mean to forbid us the enjoyment of the 
 appetites which He has given us ?" As though to rc- 
 
 ' C^nbs. The special name, by which Gixl revealed Himself to man, 
 
 , is omitted in this dialogue. 
 ' The force of
 
 72 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 strain a mighty stream within a prescribed channel, that 
 it waste not itself, and change not the fair bright face of 
 nature around it into a foul morass, were to dam its 
 course ! Satan would not directly impinge on the com- 
 mandment itself, as now, too, he never begins at once 
 with suggesting the overt breach of some chief com- 
 mandment. He knows well, " No one at once becomes 
 all bad g ." But he would familiarize the mind or lodge 
 in it the thought, " the Deity could be hard." It was 
 the beginning of the fall, to hold intercourse with one 
 who had such thoughts, and had suggested them. The 
 idea, although set aside as a fact, was lodged in the 
 soul, which held parlance with him who had suggested 
 it. Not to reject the first insinuation of evil, is virtually 
 to consent to it. Eve's answer agrees in two ways with 
 our wont, when giving way. It seems most likely that 
 she added of her own to God's command. For in this 
 state of original righteousness, the command "not" to 
 "eat of the fruit of the tree," and "not" to "touch it," 
 would alike be positive commands. Neither was wrong 
 in itself, except in so far as it violated a command of 
 God. Nature was whole then. There was no tempta- 
 tion to contravene it. Allegiance to its Creator was 
 its only trial. When God forbids us to do anything, 
 for fear that the first step should lead to the next, it 
 is that the first is easier to us, is a less wound to con- 
 science than the other. So the thought or imagination 
 of sin, such as is forbidden in the " thou shalt not covet," 
 lies nearer to us than the full violation of the seventh or 
 eighth commandment. But in the state of man's inno- 
 cency, when nature was not yet disordered, there was 
 no stronger temptation to eat, than to touch what was 
 forbidden. There was no occasion to place a fence 
 
 * " Nemo repente fuit turpissimus."
 
 v.] Eve. 73 
 
 round a further law, when to break either would have 
 been the same offence, the breach of a positive law of 
 God. Had God forbidden to touch the fruit, to touch 
 it had been the same offence as to eat it. Either, alike, 
 would have been to do what God forbade. Eve's an- 
 swer, then, fair as the words sound, betrays that Satan's 
 poison had begun to work in her soul. She made out, 
 that God had forbidden more than He had ; the very 
 suggestion which Satan had just more broadly made 
 to her. " Of the trees in the garden we may eat, and 
 of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the 
 garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it and ye 
 shall not touch it." Then follows the other token of 
 giving way. She adds, " Lest ye die." Not the sin 
 itself, not the loyalty to her God, not the ingratitude 
 in disobeying Him Who had so bountifully endowed 
 her and surrounded her with all things fair and beauti- 
 ful, not the thought of that daily converse with God, 
 and His being with them as a Friend, not the dread 
 of the severance of that relation of love with Infinite 
 love, which God is, is foremost in her mind, but the 
 penal consequences to themselves of the breach of the 
 commandment, " Lest ye die." True, God had said. 
 " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die." 
 True also that the dread of hell is often, in our now 
 fallen nature, the first beginning of a conversion to God. 
 True also, that, as it involves an eternal severance from, 
 and loss of God, the fear of it may rightly quicken the 
 converted soul in its exceeding dread of that which is 
 the true severance from God, sin. But in our unfallcn 
 nature it was already a leaning to a fall, that the penal 
 consequences of sin were put forward, rather than the 
 offence against God. It is not, " My God hath for- 
 bidden it, therefore I cannot do it, and sin against Him
 
 74 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 Who made me and daily continueth these peaceful bless- 
 ings to me ;" but, " Ye shall not eat thereof, neither 
 shall ye touch it, lest ye die" She speaks of God as 
 an austere Master, and forgets all His love. 
 
 Satan saw his advantage and seized it. Eve, thinking 
 of the penalty to herself, not of her allegiance to her 
 God, laid herself open to and invited the bold lie, " Ye 
 shall assuredly not die." Nay, it was impossible that 
 they should die. It was in contradiction with other 
 certain truth, with the very name, which God Himself 
 had given to the fruit, which He forbade, " the tree of 
 the knowledge of good and evil." " For the Deity doth 
 know, that in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall be as the 
 Deity Himself, (i.e. thus far, in this point of knowing 
 good and evil, which, Satan suggests, God had grudged 
 His creature) " knowing good and evil." If, then, the 
 knowledge of good and evil was to be the result of eat- 
 ing the fruit, then death could not anyhow be the imme- 
 diate consequence of the act ; else there would be no 
 room or scope for those immediate effects, of which 
 God spake by the very name. Yes, it could not be. 
 There was a long future before them, a future, in which 
 they should exchange their holy simplicity, or rather 
 (as she would think) engraft upon it a knowledge, in 
 its degree, like to that of God Himself Who forbade it, 
 the knowledge of good and evil. But therewith he in- 
 sinuated also that God withheld that knowledge, not 
 in mercy but grudgingly. He Who made man in His 
 likeness, willed not (Satan would have it) that he should 
 be altogether like Him. He held back something, 
 which would be good for His creature. Eve had lost 
 sight of the thought of her allegiance and loving rela- 
 tion to God, in the thought of the penal consequences. 
 The contradiction was plausible in itself so soon as it
 
 v.] Eve, 75 
 
 was out of her mind, Who had said it. It had, as have 
 most of Satan's lies, a mixture of truth, which gave 
 colour and gained entrance to the lie, which it dis- 
 guised. So far they were to become like to God, that 
 they should " know good and evil." But how ? By 
 losing their Divine likeness to God, Who had made 
 them "very good," and united them to Himself by 
 His grace ; knowing evil, not, as He does, objectively, 
 as something wholly alien from Himself and excluding 
 Himself, but by becoming evil. Just as now Satan offers 
 freedom by breaking God's law, and substitutes real 
 slavery, the gradual weakening and almost destruction 
 of free-will, the slavery to evil habits, for the glorious 
 liberty of one-mindedness with God. Then followed 
 the typical course of sin. She looked, she considered, 
 she weighed, but the one side only, the side of tempta- 
 tion. " She saw that the tree was good for food and 
 that it was a desire to the eyes, and a tree to be de- 
 sired to make one wise, and she took of the fruit thereof 
 and did eat." Holy Scripture probably veils the fiery 
 consequences of that eating, and tells us only how 
 Satan's promise was fulfilled. " Their eyes were opened, 
 and" as the fruit of the tree of knowledge, " they knew" 
 what ? "that they were naked." "They had become 
 like God," but severed from Him. They knew good 
 and evil. But instead of knowing evil afar, from the 
 free height of good, they now know good only from 
 the deep abyss of evil, wherein they had fallen. " Their 
 eyes were opened." " Had they been blind before ? 
 They had been blind only to the mere sight of sense. 
 They saw that they were naked and saw it not ; for 
 they saw themselves in God, saw all in Him, referred 
 all to Him ; nought of sense occupied their minds; in 
 all they saw, they looked beyond to God ; a mantle
 
 76 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 was over all, and that mantle was the glory of God h ." 
 The flesh was fallen away from the might of the spirit ; 
 the spirit from the life in God. Broken was the band 
 between the spirit and tjod ; broken the band of the 
 spirit and the flesh. This alone remained, that, having 
 lost that robe of original righteousness, with which God 
 created them, they felt shame ; that, having sinned 
 against their conscience, they did no violence to the 
 conscience which testified against their sin. 
 
 God has retained in us such likeness to Himself, even 
 amid our self-made unlikeness, such traces of His image 
 even amid our defacing of it, such secret unintelligent 
 longing for Himself, even while we are wandering far 
 from Him among His creatures, that, if we will not 
 seek Himself, we must seek some perverted likeness 
 of Himself. The soul must willingly or unwillingly 
 own its Creator. If she turn from Him, she must 
 still seek, without Him, what she findeth not pure or 
 untainted, till she return to Him. " In her very sins 
 she seeks but a sort of likeness to God, in a proud and 
 perverted, and therefore slavish, freedom 1 ." She could 
 not, at first at least, be deceived but by " a false and 
 shadowy beauty k ." Pride, ambition, false tenderness, 
 curiosity, sloth, prodigality, covetousness, anger, alien 
 as they are from God, what seek they but to be as 
 God ? So S. Augustine traces out the deep thought. 
 " Pride doth imitate exaltedness, whereas Thou Alone 
 art God, exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, 
 but honours and glory ? whereas Thou Alone art to 
 be honoured above all, and glorious for evermore. The 
 tendernesses of the wanton would fain be counted love ; 
 yet is nothing more tender than Thy charity, nor is 
 
 h Delitzsch, ad loc. ' S. Aug. de Trin., xi. 8. 
 
 k Id. Conf., ii. n. 12.
 
 v.] Eve. 77 
 
 ought loved more healthfully than that, Thy truth, 
 bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity makes sem- 
 blance of a desire of knowledge, whereas Thou su- 
 premely knowest all. Yea, sloth would fain be at rest, 
 but what stable rest besides the Lord ? Luxury af- 
 fects to be called plenty and abundance ; but Thou 
 art the Fulness and never-failing plenteousness of in- 
 corruptible pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow 
 of liberality ; but Thou art the most overflowing Giver 
 of all good. Covetousness would possess many things ; 
 and Thou possesses! all things. Anger seeks revenge ; 
 who revenges more justly than Thou ? Grief pines 
 away for things lost, the delight of its desires, be- 
 cause it would have nothing taken away from it, as 
 nothing can from Thee 1 ." 
 
 Wonderful nobility and community with Himself, in 
 which God created us ! marvellous circumscription of 
 our being by Him from Whom we evermore derive it, 
 that even in sinning, rebelling against God, turning 
 away from Him to His creatures, and turning them 
 away from their rightful use, we yet cannot wholly 
 emancipate ourselves from Him, we must seek some 
 distorted likeness of Him, the more hideous, because 
 it is distorted from so Infinite a Good. 
 
 But then look at the magnificent counterpart. Sin 
 is an aweful, in itself an irremediable, mistake. It is 
 to miss our real, our only, our everlasting Good, for 
 which our God in His love created us. It is to have 
 taken a fiery draught which burns through all our 
 veins, for "the rivers of pleasure at His Right Hand." 
 It is to have taken our enemy for our god, slavery for 
 freedom, a flickering meteor, an exhalation dancing 
 around morasses, for the true light ; it is to have lost for 
 
 1 Id. II)., n. I j. The original is fuller.
 
 78 Typical Persons of t/tc Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 eternity that, for which God in His Infinite love created 
 us. But then, if we have chased the ever-retreating 
 shadow, the substance is there ; if we have mistaken 
 the glass for the pearl, the counterfeit for the royal 
 image, the lie for the truth, still the counterfeit is the 
 pledge to us of the existence of the glorious original ; 
 the forgery, of the true God-stamped image ; Satan's 
 lie, of God's truth. God, Who made us for Himself, 
 made nothing in us, for which He provided not the 
 full contentment ; and that, not hereafter only, but now. 
 Long we for freedom ? He will make us " free indeed," 
 He will give us freedom, which they who have it know 
 to be real. Long we for knowledge ? He has spread 
 wide open for us the boundless variety of His creation, 
 but above all, He gives us a real knowledge of Himself, 
 He opens to us His own being and the mysteries of 
 His love, where our only darkness is from the excess 
 of His light. Long we for love ? Here, too, pure love 
 has an intensity of joy, an image of heaven ; so that 
 it has been truly said in a measure, that " love is heaven 
 and heaven is love ;" and we scarcely turn from sin to 
 God, but He sends a thrill of love into the soul, the 
 faintest touch of which is above all creation. And 
 beyond, 
 
 " The heart that loveth knoweth well 
 What Jesus 'tis to love." 
 
 In many things (would God I could think it was still 
 in all, my sons) ye must be in that first stage, in which 
 your temptation is to a forbidden fruit, as yet untasted. 
 In whatever degree it has not been, ye know that the 
 first stage is to think that there can be anything good 
 besides or against the expressed mind or will of God ; 
 the next is to question, " Can God indeed have meant
 
 v.] Eve. 79 
 
 to forbid this ?" ' Hath God indeed said ?" Can God 
 indeed have meant to lay such and such restrictions on 
 His creature ? To what end should He have placed 
 the tree of knowledge in the midst of the garden, unless 
 He meant us to eat thereof? The soul dares not at 
 once openly rebel against the known will of God. If 
 it will not be of the same mind with God, it must set 
 itself to persuade itself that God is of the same mind 
 with it. It is a necessity of our being, until we are 
 lost, to be in harmony with Him Who is the end of 
 our being, God. It is not all fear of punishment ; still 
 less, slavish fear. It is a holy dread to burst the band 
 of union with God. Self-deceit is the soul's screen to 
 hide from its eyes its severance from God. It dares 
 not look its deed in the face, and do it. It snaps the 
 bond of love, but looks away. The heathen persuaded 
 themselves of old that the gods were the patrons of 
 their sins. " Shall I not do, what the great Jove did ? 
 I did it gladly m ." They consecrated their sins to their 
 desecrating gods. The worst sins were, in nature-re- 
 ligions, the most consecrated. They said, " The gods 
 meant this or that." In Christianity, men say more 
 modestly, " Must not the God of nature have meant it ?" 
 After habituation to sin, the aKparfy becomes the O.KO- 
 XaoTo?, and says boldly, " God did mean," what God 
 in the most express terms forbade. 
 
 And so, as to faith. Hath God indeed said, that, on 
 this very day Almighty God took our poor human flesh 
 to k be united co-eternally with His Godhead, and that, 
 in the humility of the Virgin's womb ? has God indeed 
 said, that He Who, in our human time, was two days 
 old, was Almighty God ? or that God Himself, in our 
 Flesh, was crucified ? or has He indeed vouchsafed to 
 
 m Terence.
 
 8o Typical Persons of tlie Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 tell us how He Himself exists in His Co-eternal Love, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ? Or has God indeed 
 said, that He has set Himself as our free choice, freely 
 by His grace to choose Him, or freely, despising His 
 grace, to reject Him, to be (oh, misery of miseries !) 
 eternally miserable by eternally rejecting Him, Whom 
 the soul knows to be the end and centre of its being ? 
 Indurated unbelief decrees peremptorily, "There is no 
 god," or " human nature is god," or " we have no free- 
 will or no immortality, but are like the beasts which 
 perish." But unbelief ever begins, " Hath God indeed 
 said ?" meaning, We cannot or will not think that He 
 hath said it ; and quickly there follows that further 
 thought, " He ought not to have said it, or so to have 
 circumscribed the judgment of His creature." 
 
 Then follows, or is almost one with it, " Assuredly 
 thou shalt not die." For God plainly cannot punish 
 what He has not forbidden, or count it to be a rejection 
 of His declared truth, to deny what His creatures have 
 ruled for Him, that He cannot have meant to reveal. 
 Only Almighty God and we are somehow to change 
 places. We are to be His critics and judges, not He 
 our Judge ; we are to rule for Him, what He shall re- 
 veal to us. We are (which it comes to) to make our 
 God, instead of having as our God, Him before Whom 
 the Seraphim with their burning love veil their faces, 
 from Whom the highest Intelligences are content ever 
 to receive something of His exhaustless Fulness ; Him, 
 in whose tender love we reposed in our childhood ; 
 Who never failed us ; Him Who made us ; and to 
 depend on Whom was our peace, and the full con- 
 tentment of our joy. 
 
 Such were the forerunners of the fall. Then followed 
 the, alas ! so often-repeated history. " She saw," " she
 
 V.] Eve. 8 1 
 
 took," " she ate," " she gave to eat." She had got rid 
 of the fear of God. Why should He, how could He, 
 punish so disproportionably an act so slight ? She had 
 seen His bountifulness ; she had not seen its withdrawal. 
 The seducing spirit who spake with her had disobeyed 
 and had not died. All other fruits in the garden had 
 been harmless : the fruit of the tree of life had, by God's 
 appointment, some mysterious influence for good ; why 
 should not the fruit of the tree of knowledge ? She had 
 not our experience, to which everything speaks of the 
 death of the body ; the sun shone on no new-made 
 graves then ; no parent's loss foretold the death of the 
 child. She would " rather believe that God could for- 
 give the sin," that He could threaten what He would 
 not fulfil, " than endure not to know, what this thing 
 was, which He had forbidden," or why He had for- 
 bidden to eat thereof. Satan cannot persuade us, 
 against our daily experience of human mortality, that 
 we shall not die the death of the body. But it is the 
 self-same argument, by which he prepares our falls ; "Ye 
 shall not die eternally." God threatens "the worm 
 which shall never perish," " the inextinguishable fire." 
 God is disbelieved, His creature's lie is believed. 
 
 Secure, then, from harm (as she thought), she saw. She 
 looked what it could be. Alas, if one were to name in 
 one word, the parent of sin, the ante-dater of all other 
 temptation, the destroyer of purity of soul, the cor- 
 rupter of the senses, the disputer with God the Holy 
 Ghost for the possession of His temple, the soul, 
 earlier, mightier than all passion but that which gives it 
 its food and nourishment, and strengthens its mastery, 
 it is, ye know, my sons, what I mean (Oh, how Satan 
 repeats his hellish triumph over Eve, when he has 
 awakened it) Curiosity. Victory were, by God's grace, 
 
 G
 
 82 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 comparatively easy, were it not that the devil's porter", 
 curiosity, opened the gates, and brought in those beasts 
 of hell which lay waste the soul. They who have not, 
 in boyhood, indulged curiosity are blessedly exempt 
 from a whole embattled army of trials which it lets 
 in on the poisoned soul. The baleful poison of the 
 tree of knowledge has not spoiled the imagination, 
 stirred up passions by nature happily asleep, created 
 longings which belong not to its age, nor taken the 
 will captive, when innocence would still start back from 
 completed guilt. 
 
 " Curiousness, first cause of all our ill, 
 Is yet the plague which most torments us still." 
 
 Sins within the soul sometimes wound more gravely, 
 are more perilous, can, in the nature of things, be more 
 indefinitely multiplied than outward sins, though the 
 outward sins of the same kind are seldom wanting. 
 " Every man is tempted, being drawn forth and en- 
 ticed by his own sin ; then lust, having " by union 
 with the will, "conceived, bringeth forth sin ; but sin 
 being perfected, bringeth forth death ." 
 
 Eve saw that the fruit had its threefold attractions. 
 She had seen it before, but without the desire to eat ; 
 now she gazed outwardly at the lusciousness of its look, 
 the invitingness of its beauty ; and inwardly she saw all 
 those tempting properties, of which the serpent had told 
 her, the promised knowledge ; and, gazing on these, 
 she (as we have learned from her) forgot all besides. 
 All other delights which God had spread so bountifully 
 around her, the delights of every sense, when the senses, 
 too, were pure, and everything of earth was transparent 
 with the beauty of heaven ; her innocent love for him, 
 
 n S. Thos. Aq. in Gen. James i. 14.
 
 V.] Eve. 83 
 
 from whose being her own was derived ; her immediate 
 relation to God her Creator ; her intercourse with God 
 as a Friend all was forgotten in that long, curious, 
 empassioned gaze. " Why gazest thou," says S. Ber- 
 nard p , " so intently on thy death ? Why cast thither 
 so often thy straying eyes ? Why love to gaze on 
 what thou mayest not eat ? Sayest thou, ' I stretch 
 my gaze, not my hand ; to see is not forbidden me, 
 only to eat.' Fault though it be not, it is fault's index. 
 For whilst thou art intent on one thing, the serpent 
 secretly glides into thy heart, speaks blandly to thee, 
 holds thy reason by his blandishments, thy fear by 
 his lies, saying, ' Thou shalt in no wise die.' He aug- 
 ments thy anxiety, while he stimulates appetite ; he 
 sharpens curiosity, while he suggests cupidity ; at length 
 he offers what was prohibited, and robs of what was 
 allowed ; he offers an apple, and steals away paradise ; 
 thou drinkest deep the poison, thyself to perish and to 
 be the mother of the perishing !" 
 
 " She ate and she gave to her husband with her, and 
 he did eat" O horrible aggravation of sin, with its 
 almost impossibility of perishing alone. Eve was eman- 
 cipated from the yoke of the prohibition which she had 
 never felt until she rebelled against it ; she was proud 
 of her liberty, her progress, her independence ; she was 
 all in all in herself; she had eaten and she had not 
 died ; no remonstrance of God pleaded against her, 
 no sentence of God had condemned her, the echoes 
 of the " in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
 surely die," had faded away. God's threatenings were 
 not so real. Intoxicated with her impunity, with a 
 whole wide future of successive triumphs before her, 
 with proud hopes of her self-acquired likeness to God, 
 
 f De gradib. humilit., c. 10. n. 30, Opp. p. 578. 
 G 2
 
 84 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 she sought to associate her husband in this her new 
 career, the partner of that glorious course which she 
 had opened to him. "He ate." The fall of humanity 
 was completed ; the robe of righteousness was gone ; 
 Adam had become her partner again, but in shame. 
 Dreadful fascination of sin ! It is a miracle of mercy 
 if a sinner escape spreading the feverish infection of 
 the leprosy of his sin. 
 
 Such is the oft-repeated history ; such the sad wailing 
 note of warning, floating down, but too often unheeded, 
 from the closed gates of our lost paradise. " If thou 
 wouldest avoid completed sin, flee from beginnings ;" 
 tamper not with it ; let Christ's Cross, the seal on 
 thy brow, fortify thee against imaginings ; trust not 
 thyself to rule for thyself, that God may not have 
 meant what, as His Word is true, He has plainly said. 
 Remember the closing words of God's revelation to 
 man : " If any one shall take away from the sayings 
 of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away 
 his portion from the book of life V 
 
 Such was the fall. In the mystery of to-day r is the 
 restoration. " In very truth," says S. Augustine 8 , " we, 
 too, confess it, that had the Lord willed in such 
 wise to become man, as not to be born of a woman, 
 this had been easy to His Majesty. For as He could 
 be born of a woman without the man, so could He be 
 born, not even through a woman (as was Adam). But 
 this He did, that in neither sex His creature man might 
 despair. If being man, as He was to be, He had not 
 been born of a woman, women might despair of them- 
 selves, remembering their first sin, that the first man 
 
 i Rev. xxii. 19. 
 
 r March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation of the B. V. M. 
 
 Serm. ad pop. 51, n. 3, Opp. v. 284.
 
 V.] Eve. 85 
 
 was deceived through a woman, and they might think 
 that they had no hope whatever in Christ. He came 
 then as man, but born of a woman, as though saying to 
 them, ' That ye may know that the creature of God is 
 not evil, but sinful pleasure perverted it ; lo, I am born 
 as Man, lo, I am born of a Woman. I do not then con- 
 demn the creature which I made, but the sins which 
 I made not. Let each sex behold its glory, let each 
 confess its iniquity, and each hope for salvation.' The 
 poisoned draught was given by a woman to man for his 
 deceiving ; let salvation be given to man to drink through 
 a woman for his salvation. Let woman compensate for 
 the sin that, by her, man was deceived, through con- 
 ceiving Christ. Thence also women first announced 
 to the Apostles the risen God. The woman announced 
 death to her husband in Paradise ; women, too, an- 
 nounced to men salvation in the Church. The Apo- 
 stles were to announce to the nations the Resurrection 
 of Christ ; women announced it to the Apostles." 
 
 And not only so, but as our Blessed Lord overcame 
 for us, in fact and in ensample, the threefold temptation 
 of Adam, the eating the forbidden fruit in the " com- 
 mand these stones that they become bread :" the vain- 
 glory, "Ye shall be as God," in the "cast thyself 
 down ;" the covetousness, " Knowing good and evil," 
 in "the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them ;" 
 so He vouchsafed to His Mother, at the vestibule of 
 the Incarnation, to reverse the temptations and dis- 
 obedience of Eve. The vainglory of Eve was reversed 
 in the God-given humility of Mary, when she was will- 
 ing, if such should be God's Will, to become the scorn 
 of man ; the disobedience of Eve by the obedience of 
 Mary ; the faithlessness of Eve by the faith of Mary. 
 In the well-known words of the Father 1 , "With a fit- 
 
 1 S. Grey. Horn. 1 6. in Evang.
 
 86 Typical Persons of tlie Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 ness, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, ' Behold 
 Thy handmaid, O Lord, be it unto me according to 
 Thy word ;' but Eve was disobedient, for she obeyed 
 not, while she was yet a Virgin. As she, becoming 
 disobedient, became the cause of death both to herself 
 and the whole human race, so also Mary, having the 
 predestined Man, and being yet a Virgin, being obe- 
 dient, became to herself and to the whole human race 
 the cause of salvation. The knot of disobedience re- 
 ceived the unloosing through the obedience of Mary ; 
 for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, 
 a virgin, unloosed by faith. Eve disbelieved through 
 vainglory, longing to be as God, and lost her place in 
 the creation ; Mary, through humility, blindly believed 
 God's Word by Gabriel, ancl was placed above all 
 simply created beings, or all possible creations, in a 
 nearness of love and glory which cannot be repeated 
 in any other creation of God hereafter, cannot be ima- 
 gined, as Theotokos, the Mother of God." 
 
 She was the Mother of our Redeemer, and so from 
 her, as the fountain of His Human Birth, came all which 
 He did, and was, and is to us. She, being the Mother 
 of Him Who is our Life, became the Mother of Life ; 
 she was the Gate of Paradise, because she bore Him 
 Who restored to us our lost Paradise ; " the gate of 
 Heaven," because He, born of her, " opened the king- 
 dom of heaven to all believers ;" she was " the all- 
 undefiled Mother of holiness," because " the Holy One 
 born of her was called the Son of God ;" " the light-clad 
 Mother of Light," because He who indwelt her and was 
 born of her, was the true Light which lighteth every 
 man that cometh into the world. 
 
 Such is the contrast, my sons, which this day sug- 
 gests, of faith and faithlessness, of self- elation and 
 humility, of receiving all things from God, or trying
 
 V.] Eve. 87 
 
 to wring them from Him : of dependence on God, or 
 a would-be independence of Him. Eve willed to re- 
 ceive from Satan what God for the time gave in mea- 
 sure only, and sunk our race in depths which we see 
 around us, which we feel, alas ! in ourselves, the bondage 
 of this death, and, although saved, is a by-word. Mary 
 willed blindly to receive whatever God should give, 
 whatever He should appoint. And where is she ? What 
 has been, cannot cease to be. She who was the Mother 
 of God-Man here, must be His Mother still. Little were 
 it to be Queen of Angels. The special bliss must 
 be the special love of the human Mother and the 
 Divine Son. 
 
 Men tell you much of the grandeur of progress, the 
 glory of independence, the bursting of trammels, the 
 laying aside of antiquated notions, the being lords over 
 yourselves. God grant that ye may be lords over your- 
 selves, by being subject to the Infinite. God give you 
 to burst every trammel which binds you. For His ser- 
 vice is perfect freedom. God give you true progress, 
 progress in God to the Infinite Wisdom in God. It is 
 not the question what ye shall seek, but from whom ye 
 shall seek it, from him from whom Eve sought it, who 
 can give you but a lying semblance of the Gifts of God, 
 or from Him Who alone hath true Knowledge, true 
 W T isdom, true Light, true Riches, true Love. 
 
 Choose really, truly, fixedly to whom you will belong, 
 whom you will be, whom ye will have, and may He 
 direct and fix your choice, Who will be the everlasting 
 Portion and Joy of those who choose Him.
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 HEBREWS xii. 2. 
 " Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith." 
 
 ALL the teaching of God's Church throughout the 
 whole world points to Christ. He is the theme, 
 all other persons and things are the preachers. He is 
 the centre, upon Him all lines of light and evidence 
 converge. He is the melody, which every harmony of 
 psalmist or prophet accompanies and sustains. He 
 is the reality, whose shadow (cast over the past and 
 coming ages) makes the types and symbols of eternal 
 truth ; and teaches mortals in their softened light what 
 eye hath not seen nor ear heard of the hidden things 
 of God. From the day that man was made, the re- 
 velation of Christ began. In His image was he formed, 
 the body that he bears was fashioned after the model 
 of the first-born of every creature. From His lips in 
 the garden in the cool of the day man learnt the first 
 lessons of truth. From the tree that was Christ's sym- 
 bol, by daily feeding on that sacrament of life, man's 
 deathless being was renewed, and we can well believe 
 that, had he remained faithful and unfallen to the end, 
 Christ, as his companion and his friend, would have 
 trained him on unto perfection ; preparing for a crown 
 without the sorrows of a cross ; and translating to heaven
 
 90 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 the being so sublimed and purified, without the need of 
 passing through the shadow of the grave. 
 
 But sin came, and these dreams of bliss melted away 
 before it ; and from ruined man, but for the enduring 
 love of Christ, all hope of heaven was gone. Life for- 
 feited, innocence lost, the image of his Maker broken 
 and defiled ; no more walking with God in the garden, 
 no more eagerness of conscious purity to meet the eternal 
 eye, no more gathered food of life beneath that sacra- 
 mental tree. Paradise lost, and peace, which is man's 
 perpetual paradise, lost too. Stript of the seamless 
 robe of innocence, which they had hitherto worn in 
 their unconscious nakedness ; and clothed in the skins 
 of beasts that proclaimed that nakedness to all ; the first 
 parents of mankind went forth upon an accursed world 
 to learn in labour and sorrow the lesson they had neg- 
 lected in gladness ; that one solemn lesson of truth, to 
 learn which life is given, the lesson of obedience. To 
 the paradise of their primal years they were to return 
 no more. Sorer and heavier duties were henceforth to 
 be essayed than the tilling and dressing of a weedless, 
 thornless garden. Greater trials of faith than the pass- 
 ing by untouched one tree amid thousands rivalling it 
 in fruitfulness and beauty. But when the discipline, 
 which their passage through the world would bring, 
 had done its bidding ; when " the lust of the flesh" had 
 been purged out in mortification and penitence, and 
 prayer ; and " the lust of the eye" in sorrow, and self- 
 abasement, and self-sacrifice ; and " the pride of life" 
 amid the ruins of all human hope and joy: then, 
 again clothed in the raiment of light lost at the fall ; 
 aad again conscious of an indwelling purity which 
 would let them once more see their God ; and again 
 hungering and thirsting for righteousness, instead of
 
 VI.] Joshua. 91 
 
 for the meat that perisheth ; they shall enter in at the 
 gate of the city, and eat again of the tree of life which 
 is in the midst of the paradise of God. And all the 
 Church's teachings and trainings are to prepare for 
 this. To seek out God's children in the midst of this 
 naughty world, and wait by them, and watch over 
 them, and cling to them, until they are saved for 
 Christ ; until His death has broken their hearts, and 
 His life bound them up again ; until patience has had 
 its perfect work ; until the old man with his deeds be 
 put off, and the new man put on, which is renewed in 
 knowledge after the image of Him that created him ; 
 until Christ be all, and in all. 
 
 This has been, since the day in which the first pro- 
 mise of His coming was made, the mission of His 
 Church ; and here and there through the long dark 
 ages that followed the fall, light after light rose on 
 the world in the persons of God's holy people. Lights, 
 which, like the morning stars, lighten with their bor- 
 rowed beams the darkness of the sleeping nations, re- 
 flecting on the earth a glory which they receive direct, 
 but which has not yet risen upon man. 
 
 The first Adam, the figure of Him who was to 
 come, the shadow of the Second ; Eve, the mother of all 
 living, her type who was to be " the mother of Jesus," 
 as well as her type also, who, as the Bride of Christ, 
 was to rear "brother and sister and mother" for Him ; 
 Abel, the offerer of a better sacrifice, "who being 
 dead yet speaketh," pointing "to Jesus, the Mediator 
 of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, 
 that speaketh better things" than his own could do ; 
 Noah, " who being warned of God of things not seen 
 as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving 
 of his house;" the great type of Him in whom alone
 
 92 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 is safety, when the wrath of God cometh on the chil- 
 dren of disobedience ; Melchizedek, " the king of peace, 
 and priest of the most high God," who " without father, 
 without mother, without descent, having neither begin- 
 ning of days, nor end of life, but, made like unto the 
 Son of God, abideth a priest continually," mysterious 
 shadow of Him who, a high-priest for ever after that 
 wondrous order, was to do for the faithful what for the 
 father of the faithful was done of old, feed them under 
 the symbols of bread and wine with His own most 
 precious Body and Blood : These, up to the time of 
 Abraham, kept before the eyes of the believing amongst 
 men the promise of salvation in Christ. They stood 
 out from the felt darkness of the surrounding world. 
 They uttered great truths, prolonging, each through 
 a life, their utterance, that the echoes of what they 
 taught might sound through all ages, go out into all 
 lands, and their words unto the ends of the world, 
 everywhere preaching Jesus ; His humanity in Adam, 
 His Church in Eve, His sacrifice in Abel, His re- 
 demption in Noah, His priesthood in Melchizedek ; 
 the new man, the child of God, the life and death 
 of faith, safety in Jesus, and life in the communion 
 that ever lives on Him : these the great truths of the 
 Gospel of Christ, which lives more than lips proclaimed ; 
 which, before the written word, were spoken out through 
 man to man ; and written with the finger of God on 
 the fleshly tables of the heart. 
 
 But from the day in which Abraham was called, 
 a more separate and clearly defined line was drawn 
 round the Church of God. Called out of the world 
 to be His witness, she must henceforth walk apart 
 from its uncleanness, keeping herself unspotted, for the 
 work her God had given her to do. She has a pro-
 
 VI.] Joshua. 93 
 
 mise to hold, a written word to keep, a sacrifice to 
 point to, a people to sanctify. To her the covenant 
 is renewed, and the seal of Christ's suffering stamped 
 upon it. Blood is shed upon the threshold over which 
 each soul enters the Church of the living God. She 
 is henceforth to be in the world, but not of the world, 
 and to watch and wait for the coming of her Lord. 
 She is to be made, in her future life, from its begin- 
 ning to its close, a great lesson to man, a parable under 
 which he may read all God's dealings with His people. 
 She goes into bondage, that we may know the slavery 
 of sin ; and is brought out of it with a mighty hand 
 and stretched-out arm, that we may know the bless- 
 ing of salvation in Jesus. She is baptized in the 
 sea, to figure to us thereby Holy Baptism ; and in 
 the pillar of cloud and fire she preaches the Presence 
 of God. 
 
 In the wilderness, her wanderings and waywardness, 
 her murmurings and rebellions, so often forgiven, and 
 so often returned to again, teach us lessons of our own 
 heart corruptions, which, looking so ungrateful as they 
 do in others, may haply make us disgusted with our- 
 selves, and turn our horror and our confusion in upon 
 our own ungodly souls : and yet, through all those 
 wanderings and waywardnesses, how wondrously were 
 her children preserved. "They did all eat the same 
 spiritual meat : they did all drink the same spiritual 
 drink ; for they drank of that spiritual rock that fol- 
 lowed them ; and that rock was Christ." And though 
 with many of them God was not well-pleased, so that 
 they were overthrown in the wilderness, still His cove- 
 nant with His Church was unbroken and sure, and Israel 
 was saved. The law had proclaimed its terrors and 
 done its work ; had lifted up its standard, but could not
 
 94 Typical Persons of the PcntatcucJi : [SERM. 
 
 lift the life of man to it ; had shewn what was wrong, 
 but had failed to lead to what was right ; had terrified, 
 but had not drawn. But what the law could not do in 
 that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His 
 own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, did for man. 
 What Moses could not, Joshua did do. He became the 
 Finisher of their faith, who, under his guidance, entered 
 into the promised land. And that which He who is 
 " the author as well as finisher of our faith," does in 
 and by Himself for His Church, and every individual 
 member of His communion, from the first to the last, 
 from the font to the grave, Joshua, but a part of the 
 great symbolic whole, did for that symbolic Church, 
 which had so long worshipped in the wilderness. It 
 took generations to tell out the one story, to perfect the 
 one work of which Jesus is the author as well as finisher 
 for men. Abraham, the father of the faithful, the giver 
 of his only son : Isaac, the child of promise, the willing 
 victim : Joseph, the betrayed and sold by his brethren, 
 yet in the day of death the " Saviour of all men, spe- 
 cially of them that believe:" Moses, the deliverer, the 
 lawgiver, the mediator, the comforter, the guide, the 
 friend : Aaron, the high-priest, entered within the veil, 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted as 
 we are : and lastly, Joshua, the saviour, the captain 
 of Israel's salvation ; not the author, but the finisher of 
 the great work of faith which God had appointed them 
 to do. 
 
 These all, each a part of the great whole which 
 stretched over ages, wrought out, each in his appointed 
 time and way, the salvation of God's Church on earth ; 
 and brought the children into the fulness of the promise 
 made unto their fathers. 
 
 All helped toward their salvation, but to the last the
 
 VI.] Joshua. 95 
 
 name of Saviour seemed more naturally to belong. 
 Oshea, or Saviour as named from his birth ; Jah Oshea, 
 or the God-Saviour, as named anew by Moses, in the 
 spirit of prophecy ; every feature of his life and office 
 typified the great Jah Oshea, or Jesus, the Saviour of 
 the world. In bondage with his brethren, suffering 
 with them, side by side, in all their wanderings and 
 woes, bearing the yoke in his youth, the purest and 
 most perfect of men recorded in Scripture. He who 
 went to spy out and prepare a place for them, and 
 came back to take them himself to that place : the 
 bearer of grapes from Eshcol, whose wine they would 
 one day drink new in their Father's kingdom. He 
 to whom the law, as a schoolmaster, led ; who did 
 what it could not do ; whose office on the banks 
 of Jordan began, ere he entered into warfare for his 
 people ; who honoured not himself, but his great Mas- 
 ter, whose work he had been commissioned to do ; 
 fulfilling to every tittle the whole law, and holding up 
 that to men as their only rule and standard. He went 
 down into the grave of the waters, and led up his people 
 out of them with a glorious resurrection. His twelve 
 memorial stones, his Apostles to generations unborn. 
 The driver out of the enemies of the Lord, the saviour 
 of publicans and harlots, the gentle heart -searching 
 judge, the purifier of sin from his people, the divider of 
 many mansions, the renewer of covenants forgotten, the 
 bestower of the blessing of peace. There is not a phase 
 or feature of his character which does not, as the light 
 of revelation falls upon it, shew forth Jesus. 
 
 And it is from him, and his work amongst his people, 
 that we are this evening to endeavour to learn a lesson 
 of truth. We, who are many of us still in the wilder- 
 ness, unable to enter into the promised land because 
 of unbelief.
 
 9/6 Typical Persons of the PcntateucJi : [SERM. 
 
 That promised land is not heaven above only, but 
 heaven also below. It lies not all on the other side of 
 Jordan, (if, indeed, Jordan mean that " Death's dark 
 stream," of which the poet sings,) a portion of it is on 
 this side of the cold river, a foretaste of the rest which 
 is beyond. And into it we should all enter before this 
 mortal puts on immortality. We should not be waiting 
 for heaven till we die, but living in heaven while we live. 
 " For we which have believed do enter into rest," that 
 " rest which remaineth for the people of God." 
 
 But having once, by this portion of the metaphor, 
 brought out this truth which I would desire earnestly 
 to press upon all hearts, I purpose not to pursue the 
 symbol too closely, knowing how hard it is to make any 
 metaphor work out in all things accurate and true ; and 
 longing rather for the one great object I have set before 
 me, to make Jordan mean those waters of penitence 
 through which men must pass, who have lost in the 
 wilderness of sin the purity of their baptismal cove- 
 nant ; the cleansing which the passage of the Red Sea 
 brought them from Egypt's defilements; and who must, 
 through the deep waters of tribulation, enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Then our thoughts would pass on naturally from re- 
 pentance to progress in divine things, renewal of divine 
 life, triumph over spiritual enemies, entering into rest 
 and peace, and all that blessed consciousness of being 
 saved not to be saved, which is the too often life- 
 long unused privilege of the Christian. 
 
 To this, our Joshua, our Jesus, the great Captain of 
 our salvation, alone can bring us. But if we range 
 ourselves under His banner, He is pledged to bring 
 us in safe. Yet not without some cost and toil and 
 travail as borne by us. 
 
 Not without their implicit obedience did Joshua
 
 VI.] Joshua. 97 
 
 bring in Israel. They had to " go forward" when the 
 waters were at their highest, and believe, that the pas- 
 sage might be free. They had to cast away the filth of 
 the flesh, and get back into covenant with God, as the 
 first evidence of their repentance ; and though their 
 wounded bodies made them an easy prey to the sword 
 of the enemy, they had to trust Him who can keep the 
 body safe when the soul leans on Him. They had to 
 gather in strength in the Holy Communion of the Pass- 
 over, before they could dare to face their enemies, and 
 to cherish their hope of what in Canaan God would do, 
 by their memory of what in Egypt He had done. Be- 
 fore the walls of Jericho they had to be as unarmed, 
 though they were all well armed, men ; and shewing 
 themselves as nothing, a voice only crying in the 
 wilderness, thus to magnify the more His name and 
 power, whose word laid those walls in the dust. They 
 had to learn in the discomfiture of Ai, what secret sin 
 does to paralyse the powers of the Christian ; and in 
 the awful death of the sinner, the perfect holiness of 
 God. In the one altar reared at Shiloh for their 
 common worship, they were to learn the unity of faith 
 which was to bind them all to one God, in one sacred 
 rite ; and in the alarm raised by the other altar, built 
 through imprudent and too independent zeal, with 
 honest purpose, but with great danger of sin, they 
 were to learn that good intentions are not enough, when 
 God's will may be consulted and known. In the share 
 which those on this side Jordan took with those on that 
 side, in the conquest of the land, they were to learn and 
 to teach the link of love which binds together the one 
 family in heaven and earth in one great community of 
 interest ; how they who have crossed the river still 
 need the sympathy of those who wait on this side, and 
 
 H
 
 98 Typical Persons of tlie Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 how our spiritual warfare on earth hastens the time 
 when the souls that under the altar now cry " How 
 long, O Lord, faithful and true?" shall pass into the 
 blessedness of heaven. And lastly, in that solemn re- 
 newal of their covenant with God under the oak of 
 Shechem, where to Abraham of old the promise of the 
 land had been renewed, and by Jacob on his return 
 from exile, the strange gods and idol snares which 
 had clung to some of his family, were buried out of 
 sight ; they taught the Church of Christ in all ages, that 
 a covenant has two parts, duties to perform, as well as 
 privileges to enjoy, and if the peace would be kept 
 which God has given, it must be kept by His people's 
 obedience. 
 
 These are our lessons to learn ; God teach them to 
 us in truthfulness and love. 
 
 So, then, turning altogether in upon our own hearts, 
 and thinking only of our own spiritual condition, let us, 
 by the light which the past has let into our souls, judge 
 ourselves. 
 
 Where are we ? in the wilderness, unmindful of our 
 vows ? looking back on the flesh-pots of Egypt ? aim- 
 less, and restless, and unsatisfied, tossing to and fro in 
 a hopeless purposeless life ? 
 
 Or are we turning to our Jah Oshea, our Jesus, 
 and lifting up our eyes unto the hills whence cometh 
 our help preparing with earnest heart and full purpose 
 of love to follow Him ? To follow wherever He may 
 lead ? Through deep waters, if need be, through pain 
 and suffering and self-denial, through whatever He 
 may appoint as the fire which is to purify, as the water 
 which is to cleanse ? Or have those deep waters of 
 penitence been past already through, during this now 
 nearly ended Lenten season ? and have we risen up out
 
 VI.] JosJuta. 99 
 
 of them on the other side, our feet standing on the very 
 borders of the land of peace ? 
 
 Or have we gone on unto perfection, putting down 
 Satan under our feet, subduing our enemies under us ? 
 the passion of our penitence past, the high walls of 
 our pride level in the dust, the accursed thing wholly 
 put away, no peril to the Lord's host through our 
 hidden disobedience ? but the land of promise our own> 
 with its richness, its abundance, its beauty ? its corn 
 and vintage, its milk and honey, its upper and its nether 
 springs, its altar in Shiloh our rest ? its peace in the 
 Sliiloh our God ? " Knowing in all our hearts and in 
 all our souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the 
 good things which the Lord our God spake concerning 
 us ; all are come to pass unto us, not one thing hath 
 failed thereof." 
 
 Is this indeed our portion ? or do men when they 
 hear it spoken of, look up in wonder, as if it were far 
 beyond our reach on earth, and only to be found amid 
 the everlasting hills of heaven ? Do they dream of it 
 as a possible future, when the hindrances of mortality 
 are gone, when the Cherubim (their flaming swords 
 quenched in the deep springs of eternal love the blood 
 of a crucified Redeemer,) drop them in the homage of 
 a royal salute, to let the Redeemed, with their Re- 
 deemer, enter into the gates of a paradise closed against 
 them so long ? 
 
 Then, and then only, do they imagine that the peace, 
 the perfect peace, in which he is kept whose mind is 
 stayed on his God, the peace which passeth all under- 
 standing, of which they had heard so often, but never 
 yet had felt it, do they imagine that this is to be 
 found only in heaven, and is no necessary part of the 
 heritage of Christ's people upon earth ? 
 
 II 2
 
 ioo Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! what dishonour we do to the love, and 
 the truth, and the power, and the glory of our covenant 
 God! 
 
 Hath He not said ? and can He not do it ? Hath 
 He not promised ? and will He not make it good ? 
 
 Where is your faith ? the faith that could remove 
 mountains as well as lay low walls ? that could fill up 
 seas, as easily as dry up rivers ? Where is that sub- 
 stance of things hoped for, on which here we may lean, 
 that evidence of things not seen, on which, more than 
 our senses, we should rely? Where is that rest in Jesus, 
 in which we are saved ? that calm, quiet confidence 
 which is our strength ? that sweet perpetual song of 
 heavenly devotion, " My beloved is mine and I am 
 His : He feedeth among the lilies," which cheers the 
 heart and makes glad sunshine in the soul, "until 
 the day break, and the shadows flee away?" Where 
 are all these gracious evidences of the life of Christ 
 within ? If we want them, it is not through His fault, 
 He is not less able to be a captain of salvation to us, 
 than He was to make Joshua a captain of salvation to 
 His people of old. 
 
 The sensible things of earth are not the only real 
 things nay, they are not, truly speaking, real things 
 at all. All that story of Joshua and Israel (though 
 a perfectly true story of a true people who won a true 
 land), is still nevertheless but the shadow of things 
 a thousand-fold more true. The conqueror and his 
 myriads are dead, the land they conquered is deserted, 
 in the pages of history only we now find the traces of 
 what was done. But the true land is rich, and fadeless, 
 and beautiful as ever, and the true Conqueror, "the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," is by our side. 
 We may enter in, and ever remain in the peaceable
 
 VI.] Joshua. 101 
 
 possession of our inheritance, whose riches and whose 
 verdure can never perish, for they are as enduring as 
 the everlasting hills from whence they come. 
 
 O if unhappily it should still be that we know not as 
 yet that we are saved in Jesus, let us rest not until 
 we are found in Him ; found in Him without spot and 
 blameless. He is the Author, let us rest not until we 
 know Him to be the Finisher of our faith. The Alpha ! 
 why not the Omega ? The beginning ! why not the end ? 
 The first ! why not the last ? The all in all ! able to save 
 to the uttermost all who come to God through Him. 
 
 " Look unto Him, then, all ye ends of the earth, 
 and be ye saved." Look unto Him through those days 
 of darkness whose shadow will be over us so soon. 
 Look unto Him on that accursed tree on which He 
 died, that it might be the tree of life for man. Look 
 unto Him as rising from the grave He tramples death 
 under His feet. Look unto Him as, ascended up on 
 high, He asks for grace to guide, and promises to come 
 again, and crown that grace with glory. Look unto 
 Him, as standing at the doors of your hearts, and knock- 
 ing, and asking you to open and let Him in that He 
 may dwell for ever there. Look unto Him, as looking 
 even now on you, as He once turned and looked upon 
 Peter, that by the moving passion of His tender love 
 He may melt the sinner into tears. Look unto Him, 
 and be saved by that very look of love, and enter into 
 the rest of the redeemed. " Looking diligently lest any 
 man fail of the grace of God." " Looking for the mercy 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ." " Looking for and hasting 
 unto the coming of the day of God." " Looking for 
 that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
 great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ." " Looking 
 unto Jesus, the AutJior and Finisher of our faith."
 
 IO2 Typical Persons of the Pentateuch : [SERM. 
 
 Rest not contented with a religion of dreams and 
 wishes, of sighs and longings, of sickly hopes and fears. 
 Take not as your motto the melancholy experience 
 of the poet, who though he may have drank deeply of 
 the nether, had never tasted of the upper springs, or 
 else he could not have left behind him this sad proof 
 of his unsatisfied longings : 
 
 " Man never is, but always to be blest." 
 
 " We which have believed do enter into rest." " My 
 blessing is upon My people." "Thou hast given him 
 his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request 
 of his lips." "Thou preventer/ him with the blessing 
 of goodness." "Thou settest a crown of pure gold 
 upon his head." 
 
 Pass on into the present possession of these gifts of 
 the Spirit. Pass on into the enjoyment of that good 
 land and large, which the Lord hath given unto you ; 
 that land, in which their days shall be long, who in 
 a life of obedience and duty claim the gift which waits 
 on those who keep the first commandment with pro- 
 mise. For "he asked life of Thee and Thou gavest 
 him a long life, even for ever and ever." 
 
 Lose not, through your own want of faith, one mo- 
 ment of that heaven below, much of which lies on this 
 side Jordan ; into which we may pass through the gate 
 of life, long before the gate of death hath opened to 
 receive us. Then when the end comes to the struggle 
 and warfare of earth, and down into the valley of the 
 shadow (but remember only the shadoiv) of death, we 
 shall go ; then the consciousness of the presence of 
 peace will never pass away. And that awful change, 
 through fear of which thousands upon thousands of 
 God's redeemed and sanctified are 'all their lifetime 
 subject to bondage, will be found to be only the open-
 
 VI.] Joshua. 103 
 
 ing of a cage to let the prisoned bird go free, and pass 
 up into that glorious privacy of light which veils the 
 invisible God. The unfolding of a door, whose shadow 
 is only on this side, and that for the simple reason that 
 sunshine is for ever on the other. The closing of the 
 eyes in sleep after a busy and toilsome day, to open 
 them on the freshness of a morning whose sun shall 
 no more go down. The passing into the peace of 
 Paradise. 
 
 Unto which may God vouchsafe to bring us all in 
 His infinite mercy.
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 belief in a ILi&ing <otr essential to tfje 
 Erue 3Ltfe of JHan. 
 
 PSALM xlii, 2. 
 
 " My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God : when 
 shall I come to appear before the presence of God ?" 
 
 BY whom this expression of passionate longing for 
 the presence of God was first uttered, I will not 
 now enquire. It was by the Holy Spirit that the words 
 were taught, whether to David himself, or (as seems 
 more probable) to ministers of the sanctuary in a later 
 age. The forty-second and forty-third Psalms are the 
 language of men who have lost what was dearer to them 
 than anything in the world besides, and who cannot 
 content themselves with new employments and another 
 kind of life. Banished from home, they look back to 
 their native hills ; and as they look, their eyes are filled , 
 with tears. But chiefly they remember the glad solem- 
 nities which they kept in happier times, when they went - 
 to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, 
 with the multitude that kept holyday ; and, as they 
 remember these things, their souls are vexed, their 
 hearts disquieted within. Yet there is hope : this dis- 
 quiet must not be suffered to possess the servants of 
 God. He will yet send out His light and His truth, 
 and bring them to His holy hill: they will go to the
 
 io6 Belief in a Living God [SERM. 
 
 altar of God, the God of their joy and gladness, yet 
 again. 
 
 Need I say that these Psalms have ministered to the 
 longings of Christian hearts, too, in every age of the 
 Church of Christ ? Strangers in a foreign land, we 
 long for our true home. We cannot be satisfied in 
 our banishment. We do not see the God of our joy 
 and gladness as we desire to see Him. He is present 
 to us, indeed, sometimes, and for a while we have found 
 delight in His presence. Then came a darker time ; 
 the sky was overcast with clouds : we prayed for light 
 and truth that seemed wholly to have been lost. Even 
 at the best, we have not that full communion with God, 
 which we believe to be our true comfort and joy. We 
 long to know Him better : we are tired of the world, 
 and its heartless mockery, while they say daily unto us, 
 "Where is now thy God ?" He is about our path and 
 about our bed, we could reply ; but we want a deeper 
 consciousness of His nearness. Hope soars above these 
 poor experiences of ours : we will yet give him richer 
 thanks, who is "the health of our countenance, and 
 our God." 
 
 It may be said, indeed, that thoughts and feelings 
 such as these are satisfied by material things. The 
 look of the old church in which we worshipped long 
 ago, the familiar chime of the bells we have heard in 
 youthful days, the storied windows at which we have 
 so often gazed with childish curiosity, these things 
 supply the comfort for which the exile longs. Give 
 him these consolations, men say, and his craving will 
 be set at rest. It is a mere sentiment, we are told, 
 a fancy to be expressed by the poet's or the painter's 
 art, not a reasonable desire approved by the sober 
 judgment of wise men, which thus thirsts and craves
 
 VII.] essential to the True Life of Man. 107 
 
 after sacred scenes and holy things. So say this world's 
 critics ; and there is some truth, of course, in what they 
 say. I do not deny that love of art, and refined taste, 
 and fondness for antiquity, nay, that superstition her- 
 self, may breed a craving in the heart for the objects 
 on which it has been taught to dwell. Some men are 
 the slaves of these feelings and tastes, and men not 
 always the worst or most foolish of their race. Among 
 the less cultivated, again, we know how easy it is for 
 strong affection to lay hold of the most trifling, or the 
 most grotesque, of the circumstances connected with . 
 a sacred name. The aesthetics, as the phrase is, of re- 
 ligion do constitute some part of its influence, do some- 
 times thrust themselves into its place. 
 
 But why is it, we must still ask, that these tastes and I 
 feelings, these longings and affections, so persistently 
 wear the garb of religion, so constantly speak its lan- 
 guage and adopt its style ? You know what answer 
 to give. It is because there does exist, deeper than 
 these fancies and accidental feelings, that which cor- 
 responds to a real craving of man's heart, which he 
 cannot but acknowledge to himself as true, which 
 he tries in vain, if he is so unhappy as to try at all, 
 to reason away. The poor orphan child, who has never 
 known a father's love, has something in him which 
 yearns after it, and would embrace it, if only he could 
 be so blessed as to enjoy it. And shall the children 
 of our Father in heaven have no capacity for loving . 
 Him? Is it conceivable that He created them to be 
 ignorant of their Maker, with no inward witness to 
 His existence, and to His claim upon them for filial 
 love ? Easier it were to think with the infidel that 
 man had been the offspring of some blind fate, some ' 
 unintelligible necessity, than to believe him to have
 
 io8 Belief in a Living God [SERM. 
 
 been the work of a Divine Creator, yet destitute of 
 the power to love that Creator, and the wish to know 
 Him in truth. 
 
 What shall we say, then ? that, gifted with the power, 
 burning with this desire, man may still be satisfied to 
 live in ignorance of God ? This, surely, is the strangest 
 conceit of all. We are bidden to cherish what is called 
 the religious sentiment : it is a valuable influence ; it 
 will elevate and refine those who yield to it ; but it is 
 to centre in itself. Our philosophical instructors, in 
 their wisdom, desire to give us all the benefit of it ; 
 they are sensible of its advantages ; they have observed 
 that, without it, human society is apt to degenerate : 
 for the mass of mankind, at all events, whatever they 
 may say as to their own condition, religion of some 
 sort is a necessity of life. Only it must never go be- 
 yond the domain of sentiment : they will not tolerate 
 it when it appears in the character of faith. They bid 
 us enjoy its consolations, and please ourselves with its 
 hopes : we may have tender thoughts, pious medita- 
 tions ; the religious enthusiast may be pardoned if he 
 should even relate his spiritual experiences, if he 
 should talk of heavenly raptures, or attribute some 
 supernatural influence to his visionary dreams. More 
 than this he must not do. If in the hour of trial he 
 is conscious of a living Comforter, he must hold his 
 peace. He may loolT~up toTieaven as steadfastly as 
 he will ; but if he see the glory of God there, and Jesus 
 standing on the right hand of God, and if he repeat 
 what he has seen, they will stop their ears, and run 
 upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the 
 city where they dwell. 
 
 But we have a right to know why it is if God be 
 indeed that Lord of all, in whom we live, and move
 
 Vil.] essential to the Trite Life of Man. 109 
 
 and have our being that we are to hold no conscious 
 relations with Him. We can understand those who 
 deny His existence altogether; however their denial I 
 may shock or distress us, we can see what it means. 
 But to confess His power and goodness, nay, even to 
 acknowledge His existence, and yet to separate our- 
 selves from Him, is to act upon a principle which, in 
 every other case, would be reckoned the greatest folly 
 imaginable. If it were but some material force with 
 which we had to deal, we should assuredly study its 
 laws and manifestations : we should at least wish to 
 have that familiarity with its operations which would 
 enable us to avoid any evil consequences resulting from 
 them, and to witness them without alarm. If it were 
 a moral power, some leader of thought and action, 
 a hero or a saint, we should watch every indication of 
 character, try more and more to understand this lofty 
 nature, superior indeed, yet brought within our own t 
 sphere of conduct : we should find something to imi- 
 tate, something to admire ; we should desire earnestly 
 to have friendly relations with the object of our ad- v 
 miration, long ardently to approve ourselves in his eyes. 
 To stand apart, refusing to look upon a noble life, 
 busying ourselves with any trifling subject that could 
 be employed to shut out the fair sight from our eyes, 
 this would be a wilful blindness which all men would 
 condemn. 
 
 Is it, then, that we are unable to know God perfectly, 
 and therefore that we must give up the attempt ? Some 
 such notion there is perhaps in the minds of those who 
 set themselves in opposition nowadays to religious faith. 
 The divisions among religious persons are so many and 
 so grievous, there is so little agreement even as to the 
 fundamental articles of religion, that it cannot be alto-
 
 1 10 Belief in a Living God [SERM. 
 
 gether a matter of surprise if lookers-on are discouraged 
 by an apparent want of unity, and therefore of success. 
 They will wait, they say, until the professors of divine 
 knowledge are united among themselves, before they 
 devote their own energies to its pursuit. Without some 
 prospect of certainty, they have no heart to enter upon \ 
 the undertaking. These things are said sometimes in 
 all honesty ; they are not always mere excuses for un- 
 belief. Unless I am much mistaken, there is no single 
 cause which keeps back so many from the knowledge 
 and love of God as the variances that exist the dis- 
 putes that wake such clamorous echoes among those 
 who are reputed to believe and love. Would to God 
 that we could meet the objection \vith a simple denial 
 of its truth ! No plea in behalf of religion would be 
 more cogent than an argument drawn from the loving 
 agreement everywhere to be found among Christians, k 
 and the unclouded certainty of their common faith. , 
 
 But do not let us exaggerate the objection. If the 
 human soul be indeed "athirst for God," it is nothing 
 to the purpose to say that the thirst has often failed to 
 lead men to the living fountain, or even that, in the 
 very attempt to quench it, they have fallen out by the 
 way. How many times has thirst impelled the poor 
 victim of it to seek relief from troubled waters, or even 
 to take some dangerous draught, rather than continue 
 to bear his pain. The thirs't was a real thirst : some- 
 where there was a pure stream, at which it should^ have 
 been quenched, and the existence of that stream is not 
 the less to be believed because some sufferers doubted 
 of it, and others, wandering in their search, fell down 
 fainting on the bye-paths they had been persuaded to 
 take. Nay, the very thirst, not slaked, as it ought to 
 have been, with water from the pure spring, may have
 
 VII.] essential to the True Life of Man. 1 1 1 
 
 weakened the man's capacity for the search ; feverish, 
 impatient excitement may have succeeded the calm, 
 steadfast longing of health ; he may be dying of thirst, 
 yet unable to explain his need, incapable of judging 
 what would give him true relief. 
 
 Brethren, in this matter we have much reason to take 
 care that we do not deceive ourselves. Once we are , 
 satisfied that God has made us for Himself, and we ' 
 have nothing more to do with objections. Are we pre- 
 pared to deny, do we really doubt, that God is, and 
 that He is a revvarder of them that diligently seek 
 Him ? Could we persuade ourselves for a single moment 
 to believe that there is no existence beyond that which 
 our bodily senses take note of? Or rather, are we not 
 as sure of the existence of Almighty God as of our . 
 own ? And would not life be intolerable if, by some 
 strange disease in our minds, we could doubt or dis- 
 believe its truth ? Objections, then, are idle : it is too " 
 late to produce them ; the cause is decided ; whatever 
 difficulties occur, we are sure that some way there must 
 be by which they can be set at rest : if they are for- 
 midable, it is only because we have not yet viewed 
 i . , \ \ \ - - * 
 
 them aright. V\' N - 
 
 It comes to this then, brethren, that we find ourselves 
 in the presence of God. We are not concerned with 
 tastes or sentiments, but with a fact ; we, living men, 
 are in the presence of a living God. I ask you in all 
 simplicity, must it not be a matter of infinite moment 
 to us, whether we rightly perceive who this is in whose | 
 presence we stand ? Must not our spiritual health, nay, 
 our very life, depend on a right apprehension of Him 
 and a suitable behaviour towards Him ? Let me answer 
 in the solemn words of our Lord Himself: "This is 
 life eternal, that they should know Thee the true God,
 
 U2 Belief in a Living God [SERM. 
 
 and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." To be in the 
 presence of God and not to know it, rather, let me say, 
 not to know Him, this is spiritual death ; for it is a wil- ' 
 ful ignorance. Above us, around us, within us, are the 
 evidences of His presence. His Spirit " beareth witness 
 with our spirit" that we are His children. Our hearts 
 tell us that there is nothing hidden from Him there. * 
 In a thousand ways we have been reminded of Him ; 
 it must have been our own fault if He is not in all our 
 thoughts. You cannot stand in the blaze of the sun's 
 noontide heat and be unconscious of it ; you may, in- ' 
 deed, shroud yourself in some secret place from his 
 light and warmth, but, in the full sunshine, it is only 
 the dead corpse that feels no influence from the ray. 
 
 Do not suppose, brethren, that I am pleading with 
 you as with unbelievers when I thus speak. You do 
 not deny the reality of God's presence ; you have not, 
 perhaps, even the wish to forget it : but observe, that ' 
 we are all under a temptation to forget, and that even 
 a partial forgetfulness is inconsistent with true faith.* 
 It may have happened to any one of you to find himself 
 in a vacant room, or to have rested on a journey in what 
 seemed a solitary place. If you suddenly became aware ' 
 that there was another beside yourself in the chamber, 
 or that the place of your rest was not as solitary as you 
 had supposed, did you notice how your whole feeling 
 and manner and look underwent a change ? It was 
 not that you had been doing anything for which you 
 desired concealment, not that you had any special con- 
 cern, perhaps, with the stranger of whose presence you 
 had become aware, but that the very consciousness of 
 not being alone has a subtle influence which no one 
 can resist. It may be sympathy, or reserve, or cour- 
 tesy, or fear, I am not concerned to analyse the feel-
 
 VII.] essential to the True L ife of Man. \ \ 3 
 
 ing; I do but recall a matter of ordinary human expe- 
 rience to help me to enforce the truth, that a vigorous 
 spiritual life does not consist with even a partial forget- 
 fulness of God. 
 
 But I am using altogether inadequate words. It is 
 not a question of remembrance and forgetfulness ; the 
 text should have taught me better than thus to speak. 
 The soul that lives truly to God is not content to re- . 
 member Him ; it is filled with a longing desire to enjoy 
 His presence more and more. It is ashamed of having 
 been so much occupied with lower thoughts. It is sen- 
 sible of the meanness and vanity of this earthly life ; 
 it feels itself capable of higher things ; it is vexed to 
 be so burdened and kept down by common cares. Ever 
 seeking to know Him better, it desires to go through 
 life in His company, to view all things as He regards 
 them, to choose and refuse, to love and abhor, as His 
 guiding Spirit directs. " I am alway by Thee : for 
 Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt 
 guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me 
 with glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee : and 
 there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison 
 of Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth : but God is 
 the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." 
 
 It is our desire, brethren in Christ, that these thoughts 
 should, during this season of Lent, be brought home to 
 your hearts. You do not deny, or wish to deny, that 
 you are in God's presence every day. We wish you 
 to meditate on the truth you have already confessed, 
 to cultivate the affections that belong to it, to get your 
 inward sight purged so as to see Him, in whom you 
 believe, more clearly. It is in the Gospel that He will 
 be revealed to you, not through the dull atmosphere 
 of natural religion, but in the person of Christ, the Only- 
 
 i
 
 H4 Belief in a Living God [sERM. 
 
 begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, 
 a revelation which comes home to simple souls not in 
 power only, but in sweetness, and light, and joy. We 
 wish you to consider well what this earthly life of yours 
 is, how lately begun, how soon to pass away ; and then 
 to set over against it the life of Him " whose goings 
 forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity." 
 We wish you to take the true measure of your own 
 feebleness, and then to look upon the majestic power 
 of the Almighty, King of kings, and Lord of lords. 
 We would have you to meditate on His essential holi- 
 ness, that you may be the more ashamed of your own 
 defilements, more moved to desire His cleansing grace. 
 You are cowards in your spiritual life, afraid to speak 
 out manfully of the faith that is in you, shrinking from 
 a comrade's laughter, fearing the ordeal of a scornful 
 jest ; you will be bolder if you think on the calm, settled 
 purposes of God, true to His promise, steadfast in His 
 faithfulness to irresolute, vacillating man. You find it 
 irksome to pray, a weariness to keep the ordered round 
 of devotion, even with its long intermissions, its large 
 concessions to your infirmity and want of zeal. You 
 will pray better when you have reflected earnestly on 
 God's loving readiness to listen to your prayer. You 
 are ever deceiving yourselves with pretences of religion, 
 with sham motives, specious pretexts, false excuses ; 
 have you considered that there is not a word in your 
 tongue but He knoweth it altogether ? You are wilful 
 and perverse, throwing back with strange stubbornness 
 the love that is ever seeking to win you to itself ; we 
 wish you to dwell, in the light of the Gospel, on the 
 depth and fulness of that divine love. Above all, we 
 desire you, at this time of penitence, to contemplate 
 the untiring, unbounded mercy of God, so encouraging
 
 VII.] essential to tlie True Lift of Man, 115 
 
 in its offers, so beautiful in its condescension, so helpful 
 to that personal work of repentance for sin which has 
 to be done in every sinner's heart. And what, brethren, 
 is to be the issue of these contemplations ? Surely, as 
 Easter draws near, you should be found in that closer 
 communion with heavenly things which we call in the 
 old Scripture language "walking after the Spirit," "walk- 
 ing by faith," " walking with God." You cannot think . 
 much of Him, and not wish to be much with Him. 
 Your meditations on the poverty, and weakness, and 
 meanness of your own condition must have been shallow 
 indeed, if they have not made you more enamoured of 
 the better, higher life, which is hid with Christ in God. 
 But you will not be satisfied even then ; nay, your walk 
 with God, every step you take in it, will fill you with 
 longings which in this world cannot be gratified to the 
 full. Here all is imperfection, everything fragmentary, 
 one-sided, incomplete ; there only, in that future life, 
 is the perfection which really meets the craving im- 
 planted in these souls of ours by Him who made them 
 for Himself. 
 
 Dear brethren, I pray you be faithful to yourselves, 
 to your better instincts, your true desires ; for this is 
 to be faithful to God from whom they come. He has 
 not left you to yourselves. In the midst of this busy 
 life of work, and duty, and pleasure ; amidst these trials 
 and honours, these friendships and rivalries, these san- 
 guine hopes and passing fears, there is a Presence, calm 
 steadfast, bright ; a hand stretched over you to bless, 
 a countenance so sweet that you cannot look on it and 
 not be thankful to Him who has given you such high 
 grace as to behold Him, though darkly, here; nor fail 
 to pray that you may gaze upon Him in His beauty 
 face to face. 
 
 i >
 
 1 1 6 Belief in a Living God, &c. [SERM. VII. 
 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that 
 when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we 
 shall see Him as He is." Do not lose sight of Him 
 now, that you may not fail to win, by His infinite mercy, 
 that vision and that likeness in the resurrection day.
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 's SHeafcncss ano (Soft's 
 
 2 OOKDfTHIANS xii. 9. 
 
 " And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee : for My i 
 strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 
 THE subject appointed for our meditation to-night 
 is thus expressed : " Man's weakness and God's 
 omnipotence." 
 
 I think, my brethren, we shall best sustain the inten- 
 tion of the course, if we try, by God's help, to pursue 
 the train of thought herein suggested in no abstract 
 way, but in the closest relation to our faith as Chris- 
 tians and our need as sinners. And the text offers the 
 best guidance ; best, not only because we believe it to 
 be irjspired, but because it leads directly to the reflec- 
 tion that the greatest and most important illustration 
 of the bearing of God's omnipotence upon our weak- 
 ness is to be found in that revelation which alone has 
 ever satisfied the yearning of man's helplessness for 
 One able and willing to save. 
 
 What is this holy voice to St. Paul but the Voice of 
 the Deliverer to lost mankind ? Is it not the everlast- 
 ing Gospel in a single verse? "My grace is sufficient 
 for thcc : for My strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 And so, can we wonder that no words are dearer to the 
 heart of Christendom, none, probably, more consulted 
 for practical use, as men resort to a trusted friend 
 whose advice has never failed.
 
 n8 Man's Weakness and God's Omnipotence. [SERM. 
 
 The confessedly difficult context is full of interest. 
 
 St. Paul has been replying to some ungenerous re- 
 ligious agitators, who, not content with inventing against 
 him charges of vacillation and priestcraft, even went so 
 far as to allege that his " bodily presence" was "weak" 
 \ and his "speech contemptible" "annihilated outright" 
 such is the full sense of the word. 
 
 The holy Apostle humbly yet firmly makes his own 
 apology in answer to these taunts. He reviews his 
 ministry, its singleness of aim, its freedom from a mer- 
 cenary motive, its ever-widening sympathies. 
 
 But, in the present chapter, he appeals to higher 
 evidences, to the actual proofs of God's favour vouch- 
 safed to him in certain religious experiences he had 
 enjoyed, first through "visions and revelations," se- 
 /) condly through distinct support under peculiar and 
 heavy affliction. 
 
 It would be beyond our present purpose to attempt 
 to explain the mysterious language a in which the Apo- 
 stle records a glorious rapture or spiritual ecstacy as 
 having happened to him fourteen years before the date 
 of this Epistle. That he had been specially favoured, 
 like Moses and Ezekiel, with certain entrancing ap- 
 proaches to the very court of heaven, that he had lis- 
 tened to ineffable sounds, had felt translated unac- 
 countably into regions of glory and of praise, this, 
 at least, we gather with some distinctness from the 
 . passage beginning : " I knew a man in Christ about 
 ' fourteen years ago." 
 
 But how little more we know ! Was he living in 
 
 * Ttvfs 5e <a(n TO, p'fi/j.ara irpay.uara tlvau.' f&piKtvai yap avrbf rov irapa- 
 Sflaov rb K<i\\os, Kal ras iv tut'ivi? TWV ayiuv xP f ^> K<*1 T V ir<ivapfji6viov 
 rf,s vftvipfilas tyuvrjV. 'AAAa roinuv TT}V tnKfjlfitiav avrvs o?5ej' & raCra Te#ea- 
 (itvos. 'H/^f?j 8e M rck (rvvfxrj rrjs ip/jL-qvtias ficfiiawufv. Theodoret, a. 1.
 
 f fcsAA &l 
 
 VIIL] Mans Weakness and God's Omnipotence. 119 
 
 solitude, or at Antioch with St. Barnabas ? Was it 
 after his ordination to the apostleship, or was it a gleam 
 of divine light sent to cheer the fast and brace the soul 
 in anxious vigil before the laying on of hands ? 
 
 What follows, however, is, if possible, even more 
 remarkable, since it suddenly unveils the private re- 
 ligious difficulties of the saint in the very midst of 
 these lofty spiritual privileges. 
 
 \Vith a frank and manly simplicity, which is ever 
 St. Paul's characteristic habit, he here relates how, " lest" 
 he " should be exalted above measure," there was given 
 him a " thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to | 
 buffet him." 
 
 It has been much debated what this acute trial may 
 have been, whether some wearing and distracting pain, 
 such as severe and prolonged headaches, according to ! 
 the tradition of St. Jerome's day b ; or whether some ~ 
 deep temptation of the spirit, some violent assault of 
 passion, as teachers of the Middle Ages c have almost 
 with one consent believed ; or was it, as others in more 
 recent times have (to their own satisfaction) proved, an 
 affection of cye-sigjit illustrated by such expressions as, '; 
 " Ye would have plucked out your eyes and given them 
 to me d ," and, " Ye see the size of the letters (?) in which 
 I have written with my own hand e ;" or might it be, 
 again, the sore trouble of false teachers piercing the 
 holy Apostle through with many sorrows ? Lastly, was 
 
 b St. Chrysostom, mentioning this idea, says, &AA.a /j.rj y^votro, and 
 rejects the notion of any bodily ailment, believing the Apostle to refer 
 to such adversaries as Alexander the Coppersmith. 
 
 c See Cornel. & Lap., Comment., a. 1. 
 
 '' Gal. iv. 15. 
 
 ' Gal. vi. II, iTTjA/Koir >f)du^oT' ; but cf. an interesting note appended 
 to Dr. l.ightfoot's dissertation on this subject, Kp. Gal., pp. 188-9, 
 cd. 3, isr- 9 .
 
 i2o Maris Weakness and God? s Omnipotence. [SKRM. 
 
 it, as an eminent living divine and scholar prefers to 
 think f , some recurring epileptic or other similar seiz- 
 ure, incapacitating St. Paul from work for the time, 
 rendering him, as it did our own Christian monarch 
 Alfred the Great, altogether weak and powerless, cast 
 down suddenly from his height of heroic energy to lie 
 a suffering invalid tinder the chastening hand of God, 
 until the attack should pass ? 
 
 Certainly it is not an improper subject for reverent 
 and cautious enquiry. Yet, brethren, how often in 
 the sacred Scriptures where curiosity is baffled, the 
 moral force of a passage remains unimpaired, its keen 
 light undimmed, its practical usefulness entirely un- 
 touched by the circumstance of our ignorance ! 
 
 Surely the master-truth here is not the nature of the 
 affliction, but the contrast between the Apostle's in- 
 firmity and the infinite Power which could comfort him 
 to the uttermost, and make his very weakness an occa- 
 sion of spiritual advancement. Whatever the affliction 
 was, its sharp agony, its prostrating weakness, its dis- 
 piriting effect on the mind, appear in the words which 
 describe it&. Its victim is like a wrestler caught by 
 an unseen arm from behind and hurled to the ground 
 in the moment of expected victory. 
 
 A "messenger of Satan" interrupts and "buffets" 
 him. He cries to God in prayer with the earnestness 
 of a thrice-repeated supplication. 
 
 Oh that it might please the great Head of the Church 
 to remove this all but intolerable hindrance to the daily 
 work of the ministry ! Oh that the same Saviour who 
 had but now caught his soul in a divine rapture to para- 
 
 f Dr. Lightfoot, ibid. 
 
 8 St. Chrysostom notes also the continuing distress, oAaci>7, not 
 Ko\i(pi<rrj. See Bengel, a. 1.
 
 VIII.] Mans Weakness and God's Omnipotence. 121 
 
 disc, and lifted him higher and higher to the very third 
 heaven, would now pity his misery and mercifully re- 
 move it ! But no such answer came ; only a voice of 
 far other meaning than that of release from suffering. 
 
 It is the Voice of Christ : for, be it observed, it ap- 
 pears from what follows to be Christ emphatically to 
 whom St. Paul offers his prayer h ; and so it is the Voice 
 of Christ Jesus, that Voice from out the throne of the 
 Ascended Humanity of the Eternal Son 1 which once | 
 before had called to Saul of Tarsus on the way to 1 
 Damascus. Then our Lord had identified Himself with 
 the Church in the persons of Saul's victims : " Saul, 
 Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" but now He iden- 
 tifies Himself with the Church in the person of that 
 same Saul himself: the same, yet how different! And 
 " He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee : for 
 My strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 
 Brethren, what a contrast is here ! Is it not man's 
 weakness met and corrected by the boundless and 
 triumphant omnipotence of God ? And this, not in 
 the world of nature, but where we are more deeply, 
 closely, personally, each of us, interested, in the world 
 of spirit, in life's battle, in the struggle of the mind to 
 meet what most it dreads, most shrinks from, most 
 longs for, power to face and to master. 
 
 We like to think of the majesty of God and the little- 
 ness of man in the world of nature. Even a thunder- 
 cloud streaked for a moment with dazzling lightning, 
 and the roar above us of heaven's artillery, these, if 
 they alarm with God's power, perhaps more often kindle 
 
 h Cf. Est. a. 1., " Otendit hie locus Christ! fuissc vcrba dicentis : suf- 
 ficit tibi," &c. 
 
 1 " Ecce obiter alteram revelationem divo Paulo factam & Domino." 
 Piconii Tripl. Expos.
 
 122 Mails Weakness and God's Omnipotence. [SERM. 
 
 ' thoughts of admiration and awe. But when we pass 
 to the region of the soul, and there, amid her struggles 
 with sin and sorrow, find the omnipotence of God in 
 support, and comfort, and the gift of inward peace, 
 a different sensation arises : do not we feel that this 
 discovery of God's grace being sufficient for us is the 
 one secret of life ? Do not we feel that if we are learn- 
 ing, however slowly, yet surely, to know this experience 
 of God's power confronting our feebleness in the secret 
 court of conscience, then the Gospel of a suffering, sym- 
 
 - pathizing Saviour is not lost to us ; we are within the 
 folds of the saving net ; we are of those to whom are 
 still breathed from the unspeakable glory of the throne 
 above the words of an all-powerful Friend : " My grace 
 is sufficient for thec : for My strength is made perfect 
 in weakness." 
 
 What, brethren, is our Lord's whole redeeming 
 work but the omnipotence of God girding Himself 
 with the garment of our weakness that He might suc- 
 cour the weak, and shew the strength of His love in 
 this weakness ? 
 
 The Shepherd leaving the ninety and nine to go after 
 the one lost world is Monarch of the universe, yet a 
 Shepherd ; Almighty Lord of all lords, yet wayworn 
 and suffering ; the Light of the world, yet waiting at 
 the heart's door as a lowly and homeless traveller ! 
 Mark how every part of His adorable life on earth illus- 
 trates this. The very weakness in which it pleased the 
 Everlasting Son to veil His omnipotence presents the 
 contrast at every step. Born in a manger, that same 
 night He fills all heaven with the herald-songs of count- 
 less choirs of angels ; growing up, as " a tender plant 
 out of a dry ground," yet He answers another prophecy 
 of the same inspired seer by being " the Mighty God,
 
 VIII.] Man' s Weakness and God's Omnipotence. 123 
 
 the Father of an everlasting age," hidden behind the 
 weakness of a retired boyhood and youth at Nazareth. 
 
 Again, consider the marvellous scene of the Tempta- 
 tion, to which our thoughts are led at the present season. 
 What a picture is here of God's Almighty power en- 
 abling man's natural weakness to triumph over all the 
 armies of hell ! Our Lord stands alone in the wild, 
 unbefriended, unsupported, unarmed, as regards any 
 visible sources of strength. He is met by the imper- 
 sonation of hell's utmost power. Every conceivable 
 temptation is concentrated and implied in the threefold 
 assault. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the 
 pride of life, appetite, covetous ambition, presumption, 
 what is not here included ? What of the secret, what 
 of the open assaults which had marred the life of 
 millions for ages ? Yet in vain : each poisoned shaft 
 falls blunted from the invincible shield. It is omni- 
 potence possessing man's weak frame in the person of 
 the Incarnate Lord, and teaching us that, in Christ, at 
 length our own human nature is gifted with the might I 
 of the Most High to quench all the fiery darts of the \ 
 wicked one. /// Christ first, afterwards in them that 
 are Christ's, Christ fighting with them, Christ victo- 
 rious in them, His strength made perfect in their 
 weakness. 
 
 We have pointed to the contrast between man's in- 
 firmity and God's ever-sufficient and boundless power. 
 But /';/ Christ we almost lose sight of the contrast in 
 the intimate living connection. We no longer think 
 of God's omnipotence apart from our weakness, for 
 the one is evermore linked to the other in the heavenly \ 
 chain of redeeming love. 
 
 We cannot reflect on God's infinite power without the 
 image of Christ rising up before our thoughts, suspend-
 
 124 3 fans Weakness and God's Omnipotence. [SERM. 
 
 ing at will the forces of the universe to prove His sym- 
 pathy, to shew how He exerts that resistless sway to 
 restore and comfort and save our else lost race. One 
 moment He treads the waves of the deep lake, the next 
 He lifts the sinking Apostle. Or He is meeting a fune- 
 ral procession at Nain, and quickening to life the son 
 of a widow. Or He is raising His own crucified and 
 buried frame from death to life for the salvation of the 
 world, rejoicing to reveal His perfect power in the weak- 
 ness of suffering man. 
 
 Oh, my brethren ! Oh, immortal yet suffering spirits ! 
 to whom I am permitted to speak to-night, what can 
 go beyond the comfort deep, satisfying comfort of 
 this revelation of the limitless power of God, whereon 
 we may lean to the uttermost in every conceivable 
 variety of trial, disappointment, and sorrow ? 
 
 May we not, in view of this most supporting truth, 
 apply the hymn - like words of St. Paul uttered on 
 another occasion ? " What shall we say then to these 
 things ? If God be for us, who can be against us ? He 
 that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for 
 us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us 
 all things ? .... Who shall separate us from the love 
 of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress ?" .... And 
 again : " I can do all things through Christ which 
 strengtheneth me k ." 
 
 This is surely the direct and practical influence of 
 the text on the mind of a humble and true disciple. 
 It leads at once to the thought of the impossibility 
 of any sorrow or temptation which can ever befal you 
 proving more than you can meet and bear, if only you 
 
 k Rom. viii. 31, 32, 35, and Philipp. iv. 13, tv TU iv5vva.iJ.ovvri ^ 
 compare this with St. Paul's use of SiWjuis and Suvarus, 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10.
 
 viii.] Maris Weakness and God's Omnipotence. 125 
 
 lean upon the strength of Christ revealed by God's 
 Spirit to the suffering heart. 
 
 What, then, says Christ's message to each of us but 
 this : Do not be surprised if your trials increase, and 
 even if the more you seem to learn the strength of 
 God, the more you are crushed with the feeling of your 
 own powerlessness. This is as it should be. It is thus 
 that you are to experience the sufficiency of the power 
 and love which made you, which died for you, which 
 lives to sanctify you. It is thus : not by tJie removal 
 of this or that perplexing, piercing 1 trouble, not by your 
 release from the poverty which seems to interfere with 
 your very religion and peace of mind, or from that 
 bitter trial of temper which threatens to undo all Chris- 
 tian life and effort, or from the protracted delicacy, 
 or recurring pain, or impending bereavement, or from 
 anxiety about disturbing questions of opinion which 
 agitate the Church and oppress your spirit, not by 
 the withdrawal of these will you learn the sufficiency 
 of Almighty grace ; but rather by their presence con- 
 tinually reminding you of your own weakness and need 
 of support. 
 
 How true are the familiar lines of Edmund Waller, 
 not of the effect of age only, but of the gradual up- 
 growth, as life goes on, of the knowledge of the real 
 uses of trial : 
 
 " The soul's dark cottage, battered and dccay'd, 
 Lets in new light through chinks that Time hath made. 
 Stronger by weakness, wiser men become 
 As they draw nigh to their eternal home." 
 
 " Yes," says this Scripture of St. Paul to all patient 
 and faithful hearts, " though you should be strained 
 
 ' ffit6\i>$, cf. I. XX. N'uin. xxxiii. 53 ; '-/ Nxviii. 24.
 
 126 Mans Weakness and God's Omnipotence. [SERM. 
 
 almost beyond endurance, though it be the_ trouble of 
 all others you have always dreaded, messenger of 
 Satan, harassing, disheartening, perplexing, buffeting 
 you, yet know, O sufferer, that herein you are to feel 
 God's power revealed to you as it never could have 
 been without this infirmity." 
 
 Only meekly accept the trial, and it will bear this 
 fruit "in due season" if you " faint not." Only endure 
 the thorn, and wait, it shall blossom as the rose. 
 
 To sum up, then, the one thought, the single precious 
 lesson : be our trial what it may, we are to take care 
 lest in even wishing it altered we miss God's intended 
 teaching for our particular case. We complain of our 
 circumstances : we say, This is so trying, that so de- 
 pressing : we wonder why, for example, we of all people 
 should be marked out for this or that form of delicacy 
 hindering us from active works of usefulness ; or we 
 fret because of some uncongenial influence in our home, 
 and think, Ah ! if it were different, / should be different. 
 Or some temptation of desire, or, perchance, of intel- 
 lectual doubt or restlessness about the controversies 
 of the time, these seem to mar our peace and make 
 us restless and discontented ; but, Oh Christian friends, 
 if we can only recollect the watchword of the text, if 
 we can but hide our poor wayward thoughts of self 
 in the one deep conviction of the sufficiency of God, 
 the one constant persuasion that He who tempers the 
 '"wind to the shorn lamb" will not suffer us to be 
 tempted beyond what we are able to bear, then, but not 
 till then, shall we discover life's greatest secret. We 
 shall learn that Christianity is not merely a noble senti- 
 ment about a Christlike purity, nor a mere system of 
 belief, but a life to be led for a living Person, depend- I 
 ing on Him, loyal to Him, evermore looking to His
 
 VIII.] Mans Weakness and God's Omnipotence. 127 
 
 glorified humanity as a fount of unfailing courage and 
 patience for every sort of work and trial, if by any 
 means we may master by lowly practice this one truth, 
 that in Christ, by the Eternal Spirit, God's omnipotence ' 
 is made perfect in_our weakness. 
 
 Then, as we look out from this world of toil to the 
 great future of futures before us, may we not hope 
 that to us, as to one of old, will be breathed the message 
 of assurance, " My Presence shall go with thee, and I 
 will give thee rest ?"
 
 SERMON IX. 
 JHan renefortr in Cjrist, foalfeittfl foitjj ffiotr. 
 
 PSALM cxix. 57, 
 11 Thou art my portion, Lord." 
 
 subject upon which I am appointed to speak 
 .-- to you to-night is that of " Man renewed in Christ, 
 walking with God." It comes as almost the closing 
 subject of the long series of subjects, each growing 
 out of each, which have been set before you during 
 the Lent now closing. To this they have all led up ; 
 through this they lead up further to the concluding 
 subject of all, viz. Man's future perfectness in the Pre- 
 sence of God. This circumstance defines the aspect 
 in which I am called upon to treat of it. For look, 
 man is not to live always in this world. He belongs 
 to this world for time ; he belongs to the next world 
 for eternity. Here he is in the bud ; there he will be 
 in the flower and fruit. Here, at the best, he is in- 
 complete ; there he is to be made complete in what- 
 ever form of perfectness God intends for him. But, 
 however different our condition in the other world will 
 be, we shall be the same persons there as we are here. 
 Yes, it will be you and I, our very selves, the self-same 
 selves, on the other side of death and the resurrection, 
 only that we shall be under different sets of circum-
 
 1 30 Man renewed in Christ, [SERM. 
 
 stances, under different influences. Just as a tropical 
 plant in our climate languishes, and when removed to 
 its own climate flourishes again, but is the same plant 
 still, though under different circumstances, so it will be 
 with us. We shall be under different circumstances, 
 and under new influences. So, then, the questions for 
 us are these : What is there in that other world which 
 is to make us perfect ? and, How are we to live in this 
 world so as to be capable of being made perfect when 
 we come to the next ? 
 
 It seems to me that men count with a strange and un- 
 reasoning confidence upon being perfectly good and holy 
 in that future state. I suppose that there is no one in 
 all this congregation who does not count upon it. Yet 
 why ? We know that we are not so here. Men con- 
 fess that they are not what they ought to be. They 
 say that they would like to be better, but they hardly 
 try to be. They hear of a future world of holiness, and 
 they put off being holy till they get there. They never 
 ask themselves, What is there in that other world which 
 is to make them complete in holiness ? They never 
 ask themselves if they are the kind of people who would 
 be made holy by what they would find in heaven. 
 
 Suppose that God were to take us there this moment, 
 without the trouble of dying, without the waiting for 
 the resurrection, do you feel so very sure that what 
 you would find there would render you complete and 
 perfect ? 
 
 And if not, what is to be our lot ? For " without 
 holiness no man shall see the Lord." And yet men 
 put off the being holy until the world to come, as 
 though when tJiey came there they would be made so, 
 as a matter of course, they know not how. 
 
 Brethren, there is that in the heaven of God which
 
 ix.] walking with God. 131 
 
 will cause His saints to blossom into beauty inconceiv- 
 able of divine holiness before His throne. There is 
 that in the heavenly Jerusalem which will cause divine 
 perfections to shine in and through the characters of the 
 redeemed, as eye to eye they meet at last the Saviour 
 \i whom they have seen by faith below ; and in the closing 
 sermon of this series, you will hear of what it is which 
 shall transform the struggling sanctity of earth into the 
 glorious perfection of the saints in bliss. It will be the 
 actual, visible Presence of God, from out of which shall 
 flow such strength of holiness as shall complete in every 
 saint that which before was but struggling into bloom. 
 
 Not more surely does the returning sun of summer 
 pour life into the struggling vegetation of winter, than 
 the sun of God's immediate Presence shall then bring 
 out to its completeness whatever form of half-developed 
 sanctity the man has won his way to here. It will be 
 the power of God's Presence that will do this. But 
 upon whom will it have this effect ? Will it have this 
 effect upon every one ? Transfer into the visible Pre- 
 sence of the Holy One that inhabiteth eternity a man 
 whose every thought has been of selfish indulgence, 
 what is there in him that should be drawn out into 
 completed goodness ? And yet men in general go on 
 taking it for granted that they will be perfectly good 
 in the next world, without considering whether they 
 are the kind of people who can be made good by 
 what they will find there. 
 
 Now the great work of this life is simply this, to bring 
 
 us up to such a point, that when death and the resurrec- 
 
 .' tion are over, we may be the kind of characters to be 
 
 drawn out into completed holiness by the Presence 
 
 of God. 
 
 This is the work of life.
 
 132 Man renewed in Christ, [SERM. 
 
 And it is just this which explains the whole outline 
 of the Christian life, as set before us in the Church. 
 For the whole idea of our life in the Church is based 
 upon two main thoughts : 
 
 (i.) That of the continual acquisition of at least a 
 commencing holiness, commencing and ever growing 
 here to be completed hereafter. 
 
 (2.) Of that holiness coming to us from actual contact 
 . and companionship with the Godhead now, even as it 
 shall be completed by our closer union with the God- 
 head then. 
 
 Our whole spiritual life itself is but a germ from hea- 
 ven planted in us here at baptism, which is to grow and 
 grow until transplanted afterwards to its native heaven 
 in the Presence of God. The way we grow in grace is 
 by actual contact and companionship with Him who 
 planted the germ of life within us ; a contact and com- 
 panionship veiled now, because our mortal eyesight 
 could not be"ar^the vision of it," but which is never- 
 , theless only the earthly counterpart of the unveiled 
 vision which shall make our graces bloom into glory. 
 
 Common life is but a parable of grace. Would you 
 make a youth grow like another who is better and more 
 resolute than himself, stronger in character, and more 
 confirmed in goodness ? You let them dwell together, 
 live together, walk together. If there is ever so little 
 goodness in him, it is drawn out and fostered by the 
 companionship of the one who has more, while the 
 evil is checked and stunted for want of anything to 
 bring it out. We have all felt this. There is none of 
 us but can recall times of living with some one higher- 
 . minded and nobler than we were, and how the mere 
 living wkh him lifted us above ourselves ; how if there 
 were a difference between us, if we wished to do any-
 
 ix.] walking with God. 133 
 
 thing he disapproved of, it did not need that he 
 should say so. We felt it. Something passed from 
 him into us which made us feel, without his saying 
 anything, what he felt upon the matter, and we were 
 checked. 
 
 Or if we agreed with him, if we of our own selves 
 wished what he wished, liked what he liked, did what 
 he approved, why we felt as if we caught goodness 
 from him, as if we caught steadfastness from him, as 
 if while he was by we could even feel our conscience 
 growing keener, our soul growing purer, our love of 
 holiness sinking deeper, so that we came to dread the 
 very thought of parting, as though the fountain of our 
 strength and goodness would be withdrawn. 
 
 As if we caught goodness, did I say ? Why, bre- 
 thren, you know that we do^ catch goodness in this 
 way, that this is just the way in which we do catch 
 strength and steadfastness and knowledge and purity of 
 heart, and that as deep answers unto deep, so in very 
 earnest soul answers unto soul, and that there is a con- 
 tagion of righteousness in the communion of saints. 
 And what is this but a parable of the ever-flowing 
 powers of life and goodness which overflow from Him 
 unto and into the souls of those His members who 
 walk with Him. It is no metaphor. He is our life. 
 Into those who live in Him, who walk with Tlim, His 
 powers for goodness pour as by a necessary law. The 
 sap in a tree cannot stop flowing. Because the tree \ 
 lives, the sap must flow. And so because Christ is our 
 living Head, therefore His powers for goodness and \ 
 for holiness must be ever overflowing into our spiritual 
 life. And the secret reason why, if you live with good 
 men, their goodness steals into your life as by a spi- 
 ritual electricity, is that their goodness is caught from
 
 \ 
 
 134 Man renewed in Christ, [SERM. 
 
 Christ, nay, it is Christ in them ; so that it is Christ 
 Himself who from them is passing into you, to mould 
 your character and stimulate your graces. The spi- 
 ritual man is himself in his measure a sacrament of 
 grace, a channel of divine virtue, communicating to 
 others that grace which has been poured into him, 
 and so drawing you at last to Him from whom his 
 graces came. 
 
 Why have I dwelt so long on this ? For several 
 reasons. 
 
 I. Because, like a parable, it serves to illustrate what 
 we mean when we say that it is only by actual walking 
 with Christ, and contact with Christ, that any good 
 whatever is ever nurtured in us. No faith of the merei 
 speculative intellect ever reared a single saint. Simple' 
 living with Christ, dwelling in the light of His eye, i 
 walking, acting, with Him ever at our side, and striving 
 to do all things as He would have done them, had He 
 been in our place ; this rears thousands into sanctity 
 who never know that they are saints. By this the 
 germ of our renewed life is fostered, its powers stimu- 
 lated, its growth developed. By this our commencing 
 holiness is kept increasing, so that it may be ready to 
 burst into its completed bloom when we shall be trans- 
 ferred at last, risen and exalted, to the Presence of the 
 Lord. As the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is 
 the counterpart of the adoration of the Lamb, so the 
 walk with Christ on earth is the rehearsal of, and the 
 preparation for, the life with God in heaven. 
 
 II. Second reason. Because in actual practice this 
 is the actual way in which most men are led up to the 
 walk with God on earth ; and it is most important to 
 notice God's providential order as a guide and sugges- 
 tion for our own practice. Nothing is more important
 
 IX.] walking with God. 135 
 
 than for the guide of souls to study God's ways and 
 strive to follow out His perfect guidance. And so we 
 note the fact that, practically, in a large majority of 
 cases, Christ does not draw men to Him by His own 
 immediate action. Sometimes He does. We all of 
 us have seen cases of it ; history tells of many ; holy - 
 Scripture shews us more. Still, for every Saul con- 
 verted by the overt action of the Lord Himself, there 
 is many a Philip led by his brother Andrew. So the t ' 
 usual case fs that He acts on us through His members, , 
 and through His Church. When first we walk with Him, 
 we are unconscious that it is He that we are walking 
 with. Some good man's life, some saintly woman's 
 companionship, has cast its spell of divine attraction * 
 over us. They draw us to them, we walk with them, 
 we cannot help being drawn nearer and nearer, and the 
 magic of spiritual forces influences and moulds us. At 
 first, we scarcely see or know what power it is we yield 
 to. At last our spiritual eyes begin to open, and we , 
 learn that there is in them a divine life working, which . 
 gives them their supernatural magnetic power over us, 
 and then we are led ourselves to seek the same divine 
 companionship which has made them what they are. 
 
 III. And, then, thirdly, if this be so, what a prodi- 
 gious argument it is why, in all our arrangements re- 
 specting the life and culture of those whom we are set to 
 teach and guide and govern, we should provide to the 
 uttermost that they should be placed within the sphere 
 of the supernatural influences which flow forth from 
 the lively members of Christ's Body. What a value 
 does this set upon the religious element in all places 
 and systems of education. Not that the young them- 
 selves are at the moment conscious of it. Perhaps the 
 less so the better. All vital processes go on almost ,
 
 1 36 Man renewed in Christ, &c. [SERM. ix. 
 
 unconsciously. The moment you begin to feel them, 
 there is something wrong. So we would train our youth 
 amid men of spiritual mould, and daily services and 
 frequent Eucharists, channels of His grace and Pre- 
 sence ; that as their soul's eye opens upon life and re- 
 sponsibility, it may rest at once on Him who walketh 
 amid the seven golden candlesticks, that they may then 
 take Him for their guide in life, and walk with Him in 
 preparation for the eternal Presence, which is the bliss 
 of eternity. Aye, and not only so. For remember 
 ' ? ,. | g that this is not only the bliss of eternity, but that this 
 , is the very object for which God created man, and 
 unto which He would have all men come. Heaven, 
 and the joy of heaven, sanctity and the bliss of holi- 
 ness, is not a thing apart, which God has devised for 
 a chosen few as favoured darlings of His grace. Not 
 so. The heights of heaven were meant for all, and 
 they will be for all who will but seek them, even as 
 His grace is freely offered to all who will walk with 
 Him here. No soul here to-night but has been "re- 
 newed in Christ" by the power of the Holy Ghost. No 
 soul here but may be walking through life with Christ 
 his Lord, and catching heavenly tempers from that 
 divine companionship each day that he "walks with 
 God." No soul, therefore, but may in the dawn of the 
 Resurrection, rise to the full fruition of the companion- 
 ship which budded here, and in the long ages of eter- 
 nity develope in limitless expansion the ever-growing 
 sanctities which shall be fostered in those who shall be 
 " for ever with the Lord." Amen. 
 
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