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 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
 
 KINGSLEY'S 
 
 NATIONAL SERMONS. 
 
 SECOND SERIES.
 
 UNIFORM VriTH THIS VOLUME, 
 
 Price 5s. each, 
 
 SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 BY CHARLES KINGSLEY, 
 
 Rector op Everslet. 
 
 first series. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 BY ROBERT JAMIESON, D.D., 
 Minister of St Paul's, Glasgow. 
 
 THE DIVINE LOVE: 
 
 A Series of Connected Expository Discourses. 
 
 BY JOHN EADIE, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 Pi'ofessor of Biblical Literature to the United Presbyterian Churcii. 
 
 THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 BY THE REV. JOHN STUART, 
 Minister of East Church, Stirling. 
 
 THE HARMONY OF SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE. 
 
 BY THE REV. CHARLES P. MILES, M.A., 
 Minister of St Jode's, Glasgow.
 
 SERMONS 
 
 ON 
 
 NATIONAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 BY i 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY, 
 
 RECTOR OF EVERSLEV. I 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 A Gift FROM 
 J. ACKERMAN COLES. M. D., L. L. 0. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF HIS SISTER 
 MISSEMILIE S. COLES 
 
 LONDON AND GLASGOW : 
 RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY. 
 
 1854. 
 
 299G8
 
 Gl ASGOW : 
 
 pbinted bt s. and t. dunn, 
 . pkinCe's square.
 
 , 4 ?4 X 
 
 PEEFACE. Ji-ej<-0!^ 
 
 1 
 
 The reception wtich has been given to tte First 
 Series of my ' National Sermoks ' has emboldened 
 me to put forth a Second, in which, as in the first, 
 I have tried, clumsily and weakly enough, but still 
 earnestly, to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ, as the 
 scriptures, both in their strictest letter and in their 
 general method, from Genesis to Revelations, seem 
 to me to proclaim Him ; not merely as the Saviour 
 of a few elect souls, but as the light and life of every 
 human being who enters into the world ; as the 
 source of all reason, strength, and virtue in heathen 
 or in christian ; as the King and Ruler of the whole 
 universe, and of every nation, family, and man on 
 earth ; as the Redeemer of the whole earth and the 
 whole human race ; His incarnation, as at once the 
 manifested ideal of humanity and the manifested 
 likeness of God, an eternal proof, in time and space, 
 that man is the image and glory of God ; and His 
 death, as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, obla- 
 tion, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, 
 by which God is reconciled to the whole human race. 
 Therefore I have called these National Sermons, 
 because it seems to me that on these truths must be 
 grounded any logical belief that nations, and human 
 society in general, are anything but the artificial and
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 immoral creations of man's selfishness, of a ' contrat 
 social ' such as Rousseau spoke of, for the mere con- 
 servation of body and goods ; because it seems to me 
 that on these truths alone can be founded any logical 
 rules for well-doing toward our fellow-citizens, or 
 toward our rulers, or toward foreign nations, or 
 savage tribes ; and finally, because it seems to me 
 that by these truths the nation and the National 
 Church of England were regenerated at the Refor- 
 mation, and that the Prayer Book, if read without 
 their light, becomes one of the most incoherent and 
 unsatisfactory of books, as in fact it does become to 
 all those, whether Protestants or Romaiiisers, who 
 value the gospel of Jesus Christ, and virtue itself, 
 chiefly as affording them means for obtaining pleasure 
 and escaping pain after they die. 
 
 I hope hereafter to put forth short and simple 
 Lectures on the Church Catechism, grounded on the 
 sa,me view — the only one, I think, upon which that 
 most precious document can be either safely defended 
 or rightly valued. 
 
 And so I send forth my little book, with hopes 
 and prayers that it and its predecessor, in spite of all 
 defects and errors, may help, at least some few, 
 toward deeper and clearer conceptions of the ground 
 of England's life, and toward safer, if not more san- 
 guine, hopes for her salvation during that great crisis 
 which seems so near at hand. 
 
 ToKQUAT, Passion Week, 1854.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ■f' 
 
 Page 
 SERMON I. 
 
 David's Victory, 1 
 
 SERMON II. 
 David's Education, 17 
 
 SERMON III. 
 The Value of Law, 32 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 The Source of Law, 45 
 
 SERMON V. 
 The Education of a Heathen, . . . • 61 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 Jeremiah's Calling, 75 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 The Perfect King, 86 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 God's Warnings, 99 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 Pharaoh's Heart 112 
 
 SERMON X. 
 The Red Sea Triumph, 128 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 Christsias Day, . . ; . . . . 140 
 
 SERMON XIL 
 New-Ybar's-Day, 151
 
 VUl CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XIII. ^*^* 
 
 The Deluge, . 162 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 The Kingdom of God, 176 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 The Light, 190 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 The Unpardonable Sin, 205 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 The Spirit of Bondage, 216 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 The Fall, 228 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 God's Covenants, ... ... 243 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 The Mystery of Godliness, 267 
 
 SERMON XXI. 
 The Work of God's Spirit, 273 
 
 SERMON XXII. 
 The Gospel, 286 
 
 SERMON XXIII. 
 God's Way with Man, _ . 298 
 
 SERMON XXIV. 
 The Marriage at Cana, 312 
 
 SERMON XXV. 
 Parable of the Lowest Place, .... 322
 
 n'ational sermons. 
 
 T. 
 
 DAVID'S VICTORY. 
 
 1 Samuel xvii. 45. 
 
 ' Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and 
 with a shield: hut I come to thee in the name of the 
 Lord of armies, the God of Israel, whorn thou hast 
 defied.' 
 
 We have been reading to-day the story of David's 
 victory over the Phihstine giant, GoHath. Now 
 I think the whole history of David may teach us 
 more about the meaning of the Old Testament, 
 and how it applies to us, than the history of any 
 other single character. David was the great 
 hero of the Jews ; the greatest, in spite of great 
 sins and follies, that has ever been among them ; 
 in every point the king after God's own heart. 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not disdain to 
 be called especially the Son of David. David 
 was the author, too, of those wonderful psalms
 
 Z SEKMON I. 
 
 which are now in the mouths and the hearts 
 of christian people all over the Avorld ; and 
 will last, as I believe, till the world's end, 
 giving out fresh depths of meaning and spiritual 
 experience. 
 
 But to understand David's history, we must go 
 back a Httle through the lessons which have been 
 read in church the last few Sundays. We find 
 in the eighth and in the twelfth chapters of this 
 same book of Samviel, that the Jews asked 
 Samuel for a king — for a king like the nations 
 round them. Samuel consulted God, and by 
 God's command chose Saul to be their king ; at 
 the same time warning them that in asking for a 
 king they had committed a great and fearful sin, for 
 ' the Lord their God was their kmg.' And the 
 Lord said unto Samuel, that in asking for a king 
 they had rejected God from reigning over them. 
 Now what was this sin which the Jews com- 
 mitted? for the mere having a king cannot be 
 wrong in itself; else God would not have anointed 
 Saul and David kings, and blessed David and 
 Solomon ; much less would He have allowed the 
 greater number of christian nations to remain 
 governed by kings unto this day, if a king had 
 been a wrong thing in itself. I think if we look 
 carefully at the words of the story we shall see 
 what this great sin of the Jews was. In the first 
 place, they asked Samuel to give them a king —
 
 David's victory. 
 
 not God. This was a sin^ I think; but it was 
 only the fruit of a deeper sin — a wrong way of 
 looking at the whole question of kings and govern- 
 ment. 'And that deeper sin was this : they 
 were a free people, and they wanted to become 
 slaves. God had made them a free people ; He 
 had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, 
 out of slavery to Pharaoh. He had given them a 
 free constitution. He had given them laws to 
 secure safety, and Kberty, and equal justice to 
 rich and poor, for themselves, their property, their 
 children ; to defend them from oppression, and 
 over-taxation, and all the miseries of misgovern- 
 ment. And now they were going to trample 
 under foot God's inestimable gift of liberty. 
 They wanted a king like the nations round them, 
 they said. They did not see that it was just their 
 glory not to be like the nations round them 
 in tliat. AVe who live in a free country do not 
 see the vast and inestimable difference between 
 the Jews and the other nations. The Jews were 
 then, perhaps, so far as I can make out, the only 
 free people on the face of the earth. The nations 
 round them were like the nations in the East now, 
 governed by tyrants, without law or parliament, 
 at the mercy of the will, the fancy, the lust, the 
 ambition, and the cruelty of their despotic kings. 
 In fact, they were as the Eastern people now are — 
 slaves governed by tyrants. Samuel warned the
 
 4 SERMON I. 
 
 Jews that it would be just the same with them ; 
 that neither their property, their families, nor their 
 liberty, would be safe under the despots for whom 
 they wished. And yet, in spite of that warning, 
 they would have a king. And why ? Because 
 they did not like the trouble of being free. They 
 did not like the responsibility and the labour of 
 taking care of themselves, and asking counsel of 
 God as to how they were to govern themselves. So 
 they were ready to sell themselves to a tyrant, that 
 he might fight for them, and judge for them, and 
 take care of them, while they just ate, and drank, 
 and made money, and lived like slaves, careless 
 of what happened to them or their country, pro- 
 vided they could get food, and clothes, and money 
 enough. And as long as they got that, if you will 
 remark, they were utterly careless as to what sort 
 of king they had. They said not one word to 
 Samuel about how much power their king was to 
 have. They made not the slightest inquiry as to 
 whether Saul was wise or foolish, good or bad. 
 They did not ask God's counsel, or trouble them- 
 selves about God ; and so they proved themselves 
 unworthy of being free. They turned, like a dog 
 to his vomit, and the sow to her wallowing 
 in the mire, cowardly back again into slavery ; 
 and God gave them what they asked for. He 
 gave them the sort of king they wanted; and 
 bitterly they found out their mistake during
 
 DAVID'S VICTORY. 5 
 
 several hundred years of continually increasing 
 slavery and misery. 
 
 There is a deep lesson for us, my friends, in all 
 this. And that is, that God's gifts are not fit for 
 us, unless we are more or less fit for them. That 
 to him that makes use of what he has, more shall 
 be given him ; but from him who does not, will 
 be taken away even what he has. And so even 
 the inestimable gift of freedom is no use unless 
 men have free hearts in them. God sets man 
 free from his sins by faith in Jesus Christ ; but 
 unless that man uses His grace, unless he desires 
 to be free inwardly as well as outwardly — to be 
 fi-ee not only from the punishment of his sins, but 
 from the sins themselves ; unless he is willing to 
 accept God's offer of freedom, and go boldly to 
 the throne of grace, and there plead his cause 
 with his heavenly Father face to face, without 
 looking to any priest, or saint, or other third per- 
 son to plead for him ; if, in short, a man has not a 
 free spirit in him, the grace of God will become 
 of no effect in him, and he will receive the 
 spirit of bondage, (of slavery, that is,) again to 
 fear. Perhaps he mil fall back more or less into 
 popery and half-popish superstitions; perhaps, 
 as we see daily round us, he will fall back again 
 into antinomianism, into the slavery of those very 
 sins from which God once delivered him. And 
 just the same is it with a nation. When God
 
 (5 SERMON I. 
 
 has given a nation freedom, then, unless there be 
 a free heart in the people, and true independence, 
 which is dependence on God and not on man ; 
 unless there be a spirit of justice, mercy, truth, 
 trust of God in them, their freedom will be of no 
 effect; they will only fall back into slavery, to be 
 oppressed by fresh tyrants. 
 
 So it was with the great Spanish colonies in 
 South America a few years ago. God gave 
 them freedom from the tyranny of Spain ; but 
 what advantage was it to them 1 Because there 
 was no righteousness in them; because they 
 were a cowardly, profligate, false, and cruel 
 people, they only became the slaves of their own 
 lusts ; they turned God's great grace of freedom 
 into licentiousness, and have been ever since 
 doins;; nothino; but cuttino; each other's throats ; 
 every man's hand against his own brother ; the 
 slaves of tyrants far more cruel than those from 
 whom they had escaped. 
 
 Look at the French people, too. Three times 
 in the last sixty years has God delivered them 
 from cruel tyrants, and given them a chance of 
 freedom ; and three times have they fallen back 
 into fresh slavery. And why? Because they 
 will not be righteous ; because they will be 
 proud, boastful, lustful, godless, cruel, making a 
 lie, and loving it. God help them ! We are 
 not here to judge them, but to take warning
 
 DAVID S VICTOEY. 7 
 
 ourselves. Now there is no use in boasting of 
 our English freedom, unless we have free and 
 righteous hearts in us; for it is not constitutions, 
 and parliaments, and charters which make a 
 nation free ; they are only the shell, the outside 
 of fi-eedom. True freedom is of the heart and 
 spirit, and comes down from above, from the 
 Spii'it of God; for where the Spirit of God is, 
 there is liberty, and there only. Oh, every one 
 of you! high and low, rich and poor, pray and 
 struggle to get your own hearts free ; fi-ee from 
 the sins which beset us Englishmen in these 
 days; fi*ee from pride, prejudice, and envy; free 
 from selfishness and covetousness ; free from un- 
 chastity and drunkenness ; free from the conceit 
 that England is safe, while all the rest of the 
 world is shaking. Be sure that the spirit of 
 fi'eedom, like every other good and perfect gift, 
 is fi'om above, and comes down from God the 
 Father of lights; and that to keep that spirit 
 with us, Ave must keep ourselves worthy of it, 
 and not expect to remain free if we indulge 
 ourselves in mean and slavish sins. 
 
 So the Jews got the king they wanted — a 
 king to look at and be pi'oud of. Saul was, we 
 read, a head taller than all the rest of the people, 
 and very handsome to look at. And he was 
 brave enough, too, in mere fighting, when he 
 was awakened and stirred up to act now and
 
 8 SEEMON I. 
 
 then ; but there was no wisdom in him ; no real 
 trust in God in him. He took God for an idol, 
 hke the heathens' false gods, which had to be 
 pleased and kept in good humour by the smell of 
 burnt-sacrifices; and not for a living, righteous 
 Person, who had to be obeyed. We read of Saul's 
 misconduct in these respects, in the thirteenth and 
 fifteenth chapters of the First Book of Samuel. 
 That was only the beginning of his wickedness. 
 The worst points in his character, as I shall show 
 in my next sermon, came out afterwards. But 
 still, his disobedience was enough to make God 
 cast him off, and leave him to go his own way to 
 ruin. 
 
 But God was not going to cast off His people 
 whom He loved. He deals not with mankind 
 after their sins, neither rewards them according 
 to their iniquities ; and so He chose out for them 
 a king after His own heart, — a true king of 
 God's making, not a mere sham one of man's 
 making. You may think it strange why God 
 should have given them a second king ; why, as 
 soon as Saul died. He did not let them return 
 back to their old freedom. But that is not God's 
 way. He brings good out of evil in His great 
 mercy. But it is always by strange winding- 
 paths. His ways are not as ovir ways. First, 
 God gives man what is perfectly proper for him 
 at that time ; sets man in his right place ; and
 
 David's victory. 9 
 
 then when man falls from that, God brings him, 
 not back to the place fr'om which he fell, but on 
 forward into something far higher and better 
 than whatr he fell from. He put Adam into 
 Paradise. Adam fell from it, and God made use 
 of the fall to brino; him into a state far better than 
 Paradise— into the kingdom of God — into ever- 
 lasting life — into the likeness of Christ, the new 
 Adam, who is a quickening, life-giving spirit, while 
 the old Adam was, at best, only a living soul. 
 
 So with the chm'ch of christian men. After 
 the apostles' time, and even dm-ing the apostles' 
 time, as we I'ead from the epistle to the Galatians, 
 they fell away, step by step, ft'om the liberty of 
 the gospel, till they sunk entirely into popish 
 superstition. And yet God brought good ovit of 
 that evil. He made that very popery a means 
 of bringing them back at the Reformation into 
 clearer light than any of the first christians ever 
 had had. He is going on step by step still, 
 bringing christians into a clearer knowledge of 
 the gospel than even the Reformers had. 
 
 And so mth the Jews. They fell from their 
 liberty, and chose a king. And yet God made 
 use of those kings of theirs, of David, of Solomon, 
 of Josiah, and Hezekiah, to teach them more and 
 more about Himself and His law, and to teach 
 all nations, by their example, what a nation 
 should be, and how He deals with one.
 
 10 SERMON I. 
 
 But now let us see what this true king, David, 
 was like, whom God chose, that He might raise, 
 by his means, the Jews higher than they ever 
 yet had been, even in their days of freedom. 
 Now remark, in the first place, that David was 
 not the son of any very great man. His father 
 seems to have been only a yeoman. He was not 
 bred up in courts. We find that Avhen Samuel 
 was sent to anoint David king, he was out keep- 
 ing his father's sheep in the field. And though, 
 no doubt, he had sliown signs of being a very 
 remarkable youth from the first, yet liis father 
 thought so little of him, that he was going to pass 
 him over, and caused all his seven elder sons to 
 pass before Samuel for his choice first, though 
 there seems to have been nothing particular in 
 tliem, except that some of them were fine men 
 and brave soldiers. So David seems to have 
 been overlooked, and thought but little of in his 
 youth — and a very good thing for him. It is a 
 good thing for a young man to bear the yoke in 
 his youth, that he may be kept humble and low ; 
 that he may learn to trust in God, and not in his 
 own wit. And even when Samuel anointed 
 David, he anointed him privately. His brothers 
 did not know what a great honour was in store 
 for him ; for we find, in the lesson which we have 
 just read, that when David came down to the 
 camp, his elder brother spoke contemptuously to
 
 David's victory. 11 
 
 him, and treated him as a child. ' I know thy 
 pride/ he said, ^ and the naughtiness of thy 
 heart. Thou art come down to see the battle.' 
 While David answers humbly enough — 'What 
 have I done? is there not a cause f feeling that 
 there was more in him than his brother gave him 
 credit for; though he dare not tell his brother, 
 hardly, perhaps, dare believe himself, what great 
 things God had prepared for him. So it is yet — 
 a prophet has no honour in his own country. 
 How many a noble-hearted man there is, who is 
 looked do-svn upon by those round him ! How- 
 many a one is despised for a di'eamer, or for a 
 Methodist, by shallow worldly people, who in 
 God's sight is of very great price ! But God sees 
 not as man sees. He makes use of the weak 
 people of this world to confound the strong. He 
 sends about His errands not many noble, not 
 many mighty ; but the poor man, rich in faith, 
 like Da\ad. He puts down the mighty from 
 then* seat, and exalts the humble and meek. 
 He takes the beggar from the dunghill, that 
 He may set him among the princes of His people. 
 So He has been doing in all ages. So He 
 will do even now, in some measure, with every 
 one like David, let him be as low as he will in 
 the opinion of this foolish world, who yet puts 
 his trust utterly in God, and goes about all his 
 work, as David did, in the name of the Lord of
 
 12 SERMON I. 
 
 hosts. Oh ! if a poor man feels that God has 
 given him wit and wisdom — feels in him the 
 desire to rise and better himself in life, let him 
 be sure that the only way to rise is David's plan 
 — to keep humble and quiet till God shall lift 
 him up, trusting in God's righteousness and love 
 to raise him, and deliver him, and put him in 
 that station, be it high or low, in which he will 
 be best able to do God's work, or serve God's 
 glory. 
 
 And now for the chapter from which the text 
 is tciken, which relates to us David's first great 
 public triumph — his victory over Goliath the 
 giant. I will not repeat it to you, because every 
 one here who has ears to hear or a heart to feel 
 ought to have been struck with every word in 
 that glorious story. All I will try to do is, to 
 show you how the working of God's Spirit comes 
 out in David in every action of his on that 
 glorious day. We saw j ust now David's humble- 
 ness and gentleness, the fruits of God's Spirit in 
 him, in his answer to his proud and harsh brother. 
 Look next at David's spirit of trust in God, which, 
 indeed, is the key to his whole life ; that is the 
 reason why he was the man after God's own 
 heart — not for any virtues of his own, but for his 
 unshaken continual faith in God. David saw in 
 an instant why the Israelites were so afraid of the 
 giant; because they had no faith in God. They
 
 DAVID'S VICTORY. 13 
 
 forgot that they were the armies of the living 
 God. David did not: 'Who is this uncircum- 
 cised, that he shall defy the armies of the living 
 God V And therefore, when Saul tried to dis- 
 suade him from attacking the Philistine, his 
 answer is still the same — full of faith in God. 
 He knew well enough what a fearful undertaking 
 it was to fight with this giant, nearly ten feet high, 
 armed from head to foot with mail, which per- 
 haps no sword or spear which he could use could 
 pierce. It was no wonder, humanly speaking, 
 that all the Jews fled from him — that his being 
 there stopped the whole battle. In these days, 
 fifty such men would make no difference in a 
 battle; bullets and cannon-shot would mow down 
 them hke other men : but in those old times, be- 
 fore fire-arms were invented, when all battles 
 were hand-to-hand fights, and depended so much 
 on each man's strength and courage, that one 
 champion would often decide the victory for a 
 whole army, the amount of courage which was 
 required in David is past our understanding ; at 
 least we may say, David would not have had it 
 but for his trust in God, but for his feeling that 
 he was on God's side, and Goliath on the devil's 
 side, unjustly invading his country in self-conceit, 
 and -cruelty, and lawlessness. Therefore he tells 
 Saul of his victory over the hon and the bear. 
 You see again, here, the Spirit of God showing in
 
 14 SERMON I. 
 
 his modesty. He does not boast or talk of his 
 strength and courage in kilHng the Hon and the 
 bear ; for he knew that that strength and courage 
 came from God, not from himself; therefore lie 
 says that the Lord delivered him from them. He 
 knew that he had been only doing his duty in 
 facing them when they attacked his father's sheep, 
 and that it was God's mercy which had protected 
 him in doing his duty. Pie felt now, that if no 
 one else would face this brutal giant, it was his 
 duty, poor, simple, weak youth as he was, and 
 therefore he trusted in God to bring him safe 
 through this danger also. But look again how 
 the Spirit of God shows in his prudence. He 
 would not use Saul's armour, good as it might be, 
 because he was not accustomed to it. He would 
 use his own experience, and fight with the weapons 
 to which he had been accustomed — a slins and 
 stone. You see he was none of those presump- 
 tuous and fanatical dreamers who tempt God by 
 fancying that He is to go out of His way to work 
 miracles for them. He used all the proper and 
 prudent means to kill the giant, and trusted to 
 God to bless them. If he had been presumptuous, 
 he might have taken the first stone that came to 
 hand, or taken only one, or taken none at all, and 
 expected the giant to fall down dead by a miracle. 
 But no ; he chooses five smooth stones out of the 
 brook. He tried to get the best that he could.
 
 DAVID'S VICTORY. 15 
 
 and have more ready if his fii'st shot failed. He 
 showed no distrust of God in that ; for he trusted 
 in God to keep him cool, and steady, and cour- 
 ageous in the fight, and that, he knew, God alone 
 could do. The only place, perhaps, where he 
 could strike Goliath to hurt him was on the face, 
 because every other part of him was covered in 
 metal armour. And he knew that, in such dan- 
 ger as he was, God's Spirit only could keep his 
 eye clear and his hand steady for such a desperate 
 chance as hitting that one place. 
 
 So he Avent ; and as he went his courage rose 
 higher and higher ; for unto him that hath shall 
 more be given ; and so he began to boast too — but 
 not of himself, like the giant. He boasted of the 
 living God, who was with him. He ran boldly 
 up to the Philistine, and at the first throw, struck 
 on the forehead, and felled him dead. 
 
 So it is; many a time the very blessing which we 
 expect to get only with great difficulty, God gives 
 us at our first trial, to show that He is the Giver, 
 to cheer up our poor doubting hearts, and show us 
 that He is able, and willing too, to give exceeding 
 abundantly more than we can ask or think. 
 
 So David triumphed: and yet that triumph 
 was only the beginning of his troubles. Sad and 
 weary years had he to struggle on before he 
 gained the kingdom which God had promised him. 
 So it is often with God's elect. He gives them
 
 16 SERMON I. 
 
 blessings at first, to show them that He is really 
 with them ; and then He lets them be evil- 
 entreated by tyrants, and suffer persecution, and 
 wander out of the way in the wilderness, that 
 they may be made perfect by suffering, and 
 purified, as gold is in the refiner's fire, from all 
 selfishness, conceit, ambition, cowardliness, till 
 they learn to trust God utterly, to know their 
 own weakness, and His strength, and to work 
 only for Him, careless what becomes of their 
 own poor, worthless selves, provided they can 
 help His kingdom to come, and get His will to 
 be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
 
 And now, my friends, surely there is a lesson in 
 all this for you. Do you wish to rise like David ? 
 Of course, not one in ten thousand can rise 
 as high, but we may all rise somewhat, if not in 
 rank, yet still, what is far better, in spirit, in 
 wisdom, in usefulness, in manfulness. Do you 
 wish to rise so? then follow David's example. 
 Be truly brave, be truly modest, and in order to 
 be truly brave and truly modest, that is, be truly 
 manly, be truly godly. Trust in God ; trust in 
 God ; that is the key to all greatness. Courage, 
 modesty, truth, honesty and gentleness ; all things 
 which are noble, lovely, and of good report ; all 
 things, in short, which will make you men after 
 God's own heart, are all only the different fruits of 
 that one blessed life-giving root — Faith in God.
 
 II. 
 
 DAVID'S EDUCATION. 
 
 Hebrews ii. 10. 
 ' Made perfect through sufferings.^ 
 
 That is my text ; and a very fit one for another 
 sermon about David, the king after God's own 
 heart. And a very fit one, too, for any sermon 
 preached to people living in tliis world now or at 
 any time. 'A melancholy text,' you will say. 
 But what if it be melancholy ? That is not the 
 fault of me, the preacher. The preacher did not 
 make suffering, did not make disappointment, 
 doubt, ignorance, mistakes, oppression, poverty, 
 sickness. There they are, whether we like or not. 
 \ ou have only to go on to the common here, or 
 any other common or town in England, to see too 
 much of them — enough to break one's heart if — , 
 but I will not hurry on too fast in what I have to 
 say. Wliat I want to make you recollect is, that 
 misery is here round us, in us. A great deal which 
 we bring on ourselves; and a great deal more 
 misery which we do not, as far as vre can see, bi-ing 
 on ourselves; but which comes, nevertheless, and 
 lets us know plainly enovigh that it is close to us. 
 
 B
 
 18 SERMON II. 
 
 Every man and woman of us have their sorrows. 
 There is no use shutting our eyes just when we 
 ourselves haj)pen to feel tolerably easy, and saying, 
 as too many do, 'I don't see so very much sorrow; 
 I am happy enough!' Are you, friend, happy 
 enough ? So much the worse for you, perhaps. 
 But at all events your neighbours are not happy 
 enough ; most of them are only too miserable. 
 It is a sad world. A sad world, and full of 
 tears. It is. And you must not be angry with 
 the preacher for reminding you of what is. 
 
 True ; you would have a right to quarrel with 
 the preacher or any one else who made you sor- 
 rowful with the thoughts of the sorrow round you, 
 and then gave you no explanation of it — told you 
 of no use, no blessing in it, no deliverance from 
 it. That would be enough to break any man's 
 heart, if all the preacher could say was, 'This 
 wretchedness, and sickness, and death, must go 
 on as long as the world lasts, and yet it does no 
 good, for God or man.' That thought would 
 drive any feeling man to despair, tempt him to 
 lie down and die, tempt him to fancy that God 
 was not God at all, not the God whose name is 
 Love, not the God who is our Father, but only a 
 cruel taskmaster, and Lord of a miserable hell on 
 earth, where men and women, and worst of all, 
 little children, were tortured daily by tens of 
 thousands without reason, or use, or hope of
 
 DAVID'S EDUCATION. 19 
 
 deliverance, except in a future -world, wliere not 
 one in ten of them will be saved and happy. 
 That is many people's notion of the world — reli- 
 gious people's even. How they can believe, in 
 the face of such notions, 'that God is love;' 
 how they can help going mad with pity, if that is 
 all the hope they have for poor human beings, is 
 more than I can tell. Not that I judge them — 
 to their own Master they stand or fall — but this I 
 do sayj that if the preacher has no better hope to 
 give you about this poor earth, then I cannot tell 
 what right he has to call himself a preacher of 
 the gospel — that is, a preacher of good news ; 
 then I do not know what Jesus Christ's dying to 
 take away the sins of the world means ; then I 
 do not know what the kingdom of God means ; 
 then I do not know why the Lord taught us to 
 pray, 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on 
 earth, as it is in heaven,' if the only way in which 
 that can be brought about is by His sending 
 ninety-nine hundredths of mankind to endless 
 torture, over and above all the lesser misery 
 which they have suffered in this life. What will 
 be the end of the greater part of mankind we do 
 not know ; we were not intended to know. God 
 is love, and God is justice, and His justice is 
 utterly loving, as well as His love utterly just; so 
 we may very safely leave the world in the hands 
 of Him who made the world, and be sure that the
 
 20 SEEMON n. 
 
 Judge of all the earth will do right, and that what 
 is right is certain never to be cruel, but rather 
 merciful. But to every one of you who are here 
 now, a preacher has a right, ay, and a bounden 
 duty, to say much more than that. He is bound 
 to tell you good news, because God has called 
 you into His church, and sent you here this day, 
 to hear good news. He has a right to tell 
 you, as I tell you now, that, strange as it may 
 seem, whatsoever sufferings you endure are sent 
 to make you perfect, even as your Father in 
 heaven is perfect ; even as the blessed Lord, 
 whom may you all love, and trust, and worship, 
 for ever and ever, was made perfect by sufferings, 
 even thoush He was the sinless Son of God. 
 Consider that. ' It behoved Him,' says St Paul, 
 ' the Captain of our salvation, to be made perfect 
 through sufferings.' And why? 'Because,' 
 answers St Paul, ' it was proper for Him to be 
 made in all things like His brothers,' — like us, the 
 children of God— 'that He might be a faithful 
 and merciful high priest;' for, just 'because He 
 has suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour 
 us who are tempted.' A strange text, but one 
 which, I think, this very history of David's 
 troubles will help us to understand. For it was 
 by suffering, long and bitter, that God trained up 
 David to be a true king, a king over the Jews 
 ' after God's own heart.'
 
 David's education. 21 
 
 You all know, I hope, sometliing at least of 
 David's psalms. Many of them, seven of them 
 at least, were written during David's wanderings 
 in the mountains, when Saul was persecuting him 
 to kill him, day after day, month after month, 
 as you may read in the First Book of Samuel 
 from chapters xix. to xsviii. Bitter enough 
 these troubles of David vvould have been to any 
 man, but what must have made them especially 
 bitter and confusing to him was, that they all 
 arose out of his righteousness. Because he had 
 conquered the giant, Saul envied him — broke his 
 promise of giving David his daughter !Merab — put 
 his hfe into extreme danger from the Philistines, 
 before he would give him his second daughter, 
 IMichal; the more he saw that the Lord was 
 with David, and that the young man won respect 
 and admiration, by behaving himself wisely, the 
 more afraid of him Saul was ; again and again 
 he tried to Idll him ; as David was sitting harm- 
 less in Saul's house, soothing the poor devil- 
 haunted man by the music of his harp, Saul tries 
 to stab him unawares ; and not content with 
 that, proceeds deliberately to hunt him do^^^l, 
 from town to town, and wilderness to wilder- 
 ness ; sends soldiers after him to murder him ; at 
 last goes out after him himself with his guards. 
 Was not all this enough to try Da\dd's faith? 
 Hardly any man, I suppose, since the world was
 
 22 SERMON II. 
 
 made, had found righteousness pay him less ; no 
 man was ever more tempted to turn round and 
 do evil, sitice doing good only brought him deeper 
 and deeper into the mire. But no ; we know 
 that he did not lose his trust in God; for we 
 have seven psalms, at least, which he wrote 
 during these very wanderings of his. The fifty- 
 second, when Doeg had betrayed him to Saul ; 
 the fifty-fourth, when the Ziphim betrayed him ; 
 the fifty-sixth, when the Philistines took him in 
 Gatli ; the fifty-seventh, ' when he fled from Saul 
 in the cave;' the fifth-ninth, 'when they watched 
 the house to kill him ;' the sixty-third, ' when he 
 was in the wilderness of Judah ;' the thirty- 
 fourth, when he was driven away by Abimelech ; 
 and several more which appear to have been 
 written about the same time. 
 
 Now, what strikes us first, or ought to strike 
 us, in these psalms, is David's utter faith in God. 
 I do not mean to say that David had not his sad 
 days, when he gave himself up for lost, and 
 when God seemed to have forsaken him, and 
 forgotten his promise. He was a man of like 
 passions with ourselves ; and therefore he was, as 
 we should have been, terrified and faint-hearted 
 at times. But exactly what God was teaching 
 and training him to be, was not to be faint- 
 hearted — not to be terrified. He began in his 
 youth by trusting God. That made him the
 
 David's education. 23 
 
 man after God's own heart, just as it was the 
 want of trust in God which made Saul not the 
 man after God's own heart, and lost him his 
 kingdom. ■ In all those wanderings and dangers 
 of David's in the wilderness, God was training, 
 and educating, and strengthening David's faith, 
 according to His great law — To whomsoever 
 hath shall be given, and he shall have more 
 abmidantly ; but from him that hath not, shall 
 be taken away even that which he seems to have. 
 And the first great fruit of David's firm trust in 
 God was his patience. 
 
 He learned to wait God's time, and take God's 
 way, and be sure that the same God who had 
 promised that he should be king, would make 
 him king when He saw fit. He knew, as he says 
 himself, that the Strength of Israel could not lie 
 or repent. He had sworn that He would not fail 
 David. And he learned that God had sworn by 
 His holiness. He was a holy, just, righteous 
 God; and David and David's country now were 
 safe in His hands. It was his firm trust in 
 God which gave him strength of mmd to use 
 no unfair means to right himself. Twice Saul, 
 his enemy, was in his power. What a tempta- 
 tion to him to kill Saul, rid himself of his 
 tormentor, and perhaps get tbe kingdom at 
 once ! But no. He felt, ' This Saul is a 
 wicked, devil-tormented murderer, a cruel tyrant
 
 24 SERMON II. 
 
 and oppressor ; but the same God who chose 
 me to be king next, chose him to be king 
 now. He is the Lord's anointed. God put him 
 where he is, and leaves him there for some good 
 purpose; and when God has done with him, 
 God will take him away, and free this poor 
 oppressed people ; and in the meantime, I, as 
 a private man, have no right to touch him. I 
 must not do evil that good may come. If I am 
 to be a true king, a true man at all hereafter, 
 I must keep true now ; if I am to be a righteous 
 lawgiver hereafter, I must respect and obey law 
 myself now. The Lord be judge between me 
 and Said ; for He is Judge, and will right me 
 better than I can ever right myself.' And thus 
 did trust in God bring out in Da^'id that true 
 respect for law, without which a king, let him 
 be as kind-hearted as he will, is sure to become 
 at last a tyrant and an oppressor. 
 
 But another thing which strikes any thinking 
 man in David's psalms, is his strong feeling for 
 the poor, and the afflicted, and the oppressed. 
 That is what makes the Psalms, above all, the 
 poor man's book, the afflicted man's book. But 
 how did he get that fellow-feeling for the fallen ? 
 By having fallen himself, and tasted affliction 
 and oppression. That was how he was educated 
 to be a true king. That was how he became a 
 pictui'e and pattern — a ' type,' as some call it, of
 
 David's education. 25 
 
 Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows. That is why 
 so many of David's psalms apply so well to The 
 Lord ; why The Lord fulfilled those psalms when 
 He was on earth. David was truly a man of 
 sorrows ; for he had not only the burden of his 
 own sorrows to bear, but that of many others. 
 His parents had to escape, and to be placed in 
 safety at the court of a heathen prince. His 
 friend Ahimelech the priest, because he gave 
 David bread when he was starving, and Goliath's 
 sword — which, after all, was David's own — was 
 murdered by Saul's hired ruffians, at Saul's 
 command, and with him his whole family, and 
 all the priests of the to^vn, with their wives and 
 children, even to the baby at the breast. And 
 when David was in the mountains, every one 
 who was distressed, and in debt, and discontented, 
 gathered themselves to him, and he became their 
 captain ; so that he had on him all the responsi- 
 bility, care, and anxiety of managing all those 
 wild, starving men, many of them, perhaps, 
 reckless and wicked enough, ready every day to 
 quaiTel among themselves, or to break out in 
 open riot and robbery against the people who 
 had oppressed them ; for— (and this, too, we may 
 see fi-om David's psalms, was not the smallest 
 part of his anxiety) — the nation of the Jews 
 seems to have been in a very wretched state in 
 David's time. The poor seem in general to have
 
 26 SERMON II. 
 
 lost tlieir land, and to have become all but slaves 
 to rich nobles, who were grinding them down, 
 not only by luxury and covetousness, but often 
 by open robbery and bloodshed. The sight of 
 the misrule and misery, as well as of the bloody 
 and ruinous border inroads which were kept up 
 by the Philistines and other neighbouring tribes, 
 seems for years to have been the uppermost, 
 as well as the deepest thought in David's mind, 
 if we may judge from those psalms of his, of 
 which this is the key-note ; and it was not likely 
 to make him care and feel less about all that 
 misery when he remembered (as we see from his 
 psalms he remembered daily) that God had set 
 him, the wandering outlaw, no less a task than 
 to mend all that; to put down all that oppression, 
 to raise up that degradation, to train all that 
 cowardice into self-respect and valour, to knit 
 into one united nation, bound together by fellow- 
 feeling and common faith in God, that mob of 
 fierce, and greedy, and (hardest task of all, as 
 he himself felt) utterly deceitful men. No wonder 
 that his psalms begin often enough with sadness, 
 even though they may end in hope and trust. 
 He had a work around him and before him which 
 ought to have made his heart sad, which was a 
 great part of his appointed education, and helped 
 to make him perfect by sufferings. 
 
 And so, upon the bare hill-sides, in woods and
 
 David's education. 27 
 
 caves of the earth, in cold and hunger, in weari- 
 ness and dread of death, did David learn to be 
 the poor man's king, the poor man's poet, the 
 singer of those psalms which shall endure as long 
 as the world endures, and be the comfort and the 
 utterance of all sad hearts for evermore. Agony 
 it was, deep and bitter, and for the moment more 
 hopeless than the gi'ave itself, which crushed out 
 of the very depths of his heart that most awful 
 and yet most blessed psalm, the twenty-second, 
 which w*e read in church every Good Friday. 
 The 'Hind of the Morning' is its title; some 
 mournful au' to which David sang it, giving, 
 perhaps, the notion of a timorous deer roused in 
 the morning by the hunters and the hounds. 
 "W^e read that psalm on Good Friday, and all 
 say that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled it. 
 What do we mean hereby ? 
 
 We mean hereby, that we believe that our 
 Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all sorrows which 
 man can taste. He filled the cup of misery to 
 the brim, and drained it to the dregs. He was 
 afllicted in all David's afflictions, in the afflictions 
 of all mankind. He bare all their sicknesses, 
 and carried all their infirmities; and therefore 
 we read this psalm upon Good Friday, upon the 
 day in which He tasted death for every man, and 
 went down into the lowest depths of terror, and 
 shame, and agony, and death ; and, worst of all,
 
 28 SERMON II. 
 
 into the feeling that God had forsaken Him, that 
 there was no help or hope for Him in heaven, as 
 well as earth — no care or love in the great God, 
 whose Son He was — went down, in a word, into 
 hell ; that hell whereof David and Heman, and 
 Hezehiah after them, had said, ' Shall the dust 
 give thanks unto thee ? and shall it declare thy 
 truth T — ' Thou wilt not leave ray soul in hell ; 
 neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see 
 corruption ' — ' My life draweth nigh unto hell. 
 . . . I am like one stript among the dead, 
 like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou 
 rememberest no more ; and they are cut off from 
 thy hand. . . . Wilt thou show wonders to 
 the dead? and shall the dead arise and praise 
 thee ? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark ? 
 and thy righteousness in the land of destruction T 
 — ' For the grave cannot praise thee ; death 
 cannot celebrate thee : they that go down to the 
 pit cannot hope for thy truth.' 
 
 Even into that lowest darkness, where man 
 feels, even for one moment, that God is nothing 
 to him, and he is nothino; to God — even into that 
 Jesus condescended to go down for us. That 
 worst of all temptations, of which David only 
 tasted a drop when he cried out, ' My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me V Jesus drained 
 to the very dregs for us. He went down into 
 hell for us, and conquei'ed hell and death, and
 
 David's education. 29 
 
 the darkness of the unknown worhl, and rose 
 again glorious from them, that He might teach 
 us not to fear death and hell; that He might 
 know how to comfort us in the hour of death : 
 and in the day of judgment, when on our sick-bed, 
 or in some bitter shame and trouble, the lying 
 devil is telling us that we are damned and lost, 
 and forsaken by God, and every sin we ever did 
 rises up and stares us in the face. 
 
 Truly He is a king ! — a king for rich and poor, 
 young and old. Englishman and negro ; all alike 
 He knows them. He feels for them. He has tasted 
 sorrow for them, far more than David did for 
 those poor, oppressed, sinful Jews of his. Read 
 those Psalms of David ; for they speak not only 
 of David, now long since dead and gone, but of 
 the blessed Jesus, who lives and reigns over us 
 now at this very moment. Eead them, for they 
 are inspired ; the honest words of a servant of 
 God crying out to the same God, the same 
 Saviour and Deliverer as we have. And His love 
 has not changed. His arm is not shortened that 
 He cannot save. Your words need not change. 
 The words of those psalms in which David prayed, 
 in them you and I may pray. Eight out of the 
 depths of his poor distracted heart they came. 
 Let them come out of our hearts too. They 
 belong to us more than even they did to the 
 Jews, for whom David wrote them — more than
 
 30 SEEMON II. 
 
 even they did to David himself; for Jesus has 
 fulfilled them — filled them full — given them 
 boundlessly more meaning than ever they had 
 before, and given us more hope in using them 
 than ever David had; for now that love and 
 righteousness of God, in which David only 
 trusted beforehand, has come down and walked 
 on this earth in the shape of a poor man, Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of the maiden of Bethlehem. 
 
 Oh, you who are afflicted, pray to God in 
 those psalms ; not merely in the words of them, 
 but in the spirit of them. And to do that, you 
 must get from God the spirit in which David 
 wrote them — the Spirit of God. Pray for that 
 Spirit; for the spirit of patience, which made 
 David wait God's good time to right him, instead 
 of trying, as too many do, to right himself by 
 wrong means ; for the spirit of love, which taught 
 David to return good for evil ; for the spirit of 
 fellow-feeling, which taught David to care for 
 others as well as himself; and in that spirit of 
 love, do you pray for others while you are praying 
 for yourself. Pray for that Spirit which taught 
 David to help and comfort those who were 
 weaker than himself, that you, in your time, may 
 be able and willing to comfort and help those 
 who are weaker than yourselves. And above 
 all, pray for the Spirit of faith, which made David 
 certain that oppression and wrong-doing could
 
 DAVID'S EDUCATION. 31 
 
 not stand ; that the clay must surely come when 
 God would judge the world righteously, and hear 
 the cry of the afflicted, and deliver the outcast 
 and poor, that the man of the world might be no 
 more exalted against them. Pray, in short, for 
 the Spirit of Christ ; and then be sure He will 
 hear your prayers, and answer them, and show 
 Himself a better friend, and a truer king to you, 
 than ever David showed himself to those poor 
 Jews of old. He will deliver you out of all your 
 troubles — if not in this life, yet surely in the life 
 to come ; and though you walk through the 
 valley of the shadow of death, yet the peace of 
 God shall kee]3 your hearts and minds in Him 
 who loved you, and gave Himself for you, that 
 you might inherit all heaven and earth in Him.
 
 III. 
 
 THE VALUE OF LA^V. 
 
 EOMANS xiii. 1. 
 
 ' Let every soul he subject unto the higher powers. For 
 there is no power hut of God. The powers that he 
 are ordained of God.^ 
 
 What is the difference between a civilised man 
 and a savage ? You will say, — A civilised man 
 can read and write ; he has books and education ; 
 he knows how to make numberless things which 
 makes his life comfortable to him. He can get 
 wealth, and build great towns, sink mines, sail 
 the sea in ships, spread himself over the face of 
 the earth, or bring home all its treasures, while 
 the savages remain poor, and naked, and miserable, 
 and ignorant, fixed to the land in which they 
 chance to have been born. 
 
 True : but we must go a little deeper still. 
 Why does the savage remain poor and wretched, 
 while the civilised people become richer and more 
 prosperous? Why, for instance, do the poor 
 savage gipsies never grow more comfortable or '< 
 wiser — each generation of them remaining just j 
 
 i
 
 THE VALUE OF LAW. 33 
 
 as low as their forefathers were, or, indeed, getting 
 lower and fewer 1 for the gipsies, like all savages, 
 are becoming fewer and fewer year by year, 
 while, on the other hand, we English increase in 
 numbers, and in wealth, and knowledge ; and 
 fresh inventions are found out year by year, 
 .which give fresh employment, and make life 
 more safe and more pleasant. 
 
 This is the reason : That the English have 
 laws and obey them, and the gipsies have none. 
 This is the whole secret. This is why savages 
 remain poor and miserable, that each man does 
 what he likes without law. This is why civihsed 
 nations like England thrive and prosper, because 
 they have laws and obey them, and every man 
 does not do what he likes, but what the law 
 likes. Laws are made not for the good of one 
 person here, or the other person there, but for the 
 good of all ; and, therefore, the very notion of a 
 civilised country is, a country in which people 
 cannot do what they like with their own, as the 
 savages do. ' Not do what he likes with his ownf 
 Certainly not ; no one can or does. If you have 
 property, you cannot spend it all as you like. 
 You have to pay a part of it to the government, 
 that is, into the common stock, for the common 
 good, in the shape of rates and taxes, before you 
 can spend any of it on yourself. If you take 
 wages, you cannot spend them all upon yourself
 
 34 SERMON III. 
 
 and do wliat you like Avith tliem. If you do not 
 support your wife and family out of them, tlie 
 law will punish you. You cannot do what you 
 like with your own gun, for you may not shoot 
 your neighbour's cattle or game with it. You 
 cannot do what you like with your own hands, for 
 the law forbids you to steal with them. You 
 cannot do what you like with your own feet, for 
 the law will punish you for trespassing on your 
 neighbour's ground without his leave. In short, 
 you can only do with your own what will not 
 hurt your neighbour, in such matters as the law 
 can take care of. And more, in any great 
 necessity the law may actually hurt you for the 
 good of the nation at large. The law may compel 
 you to sell your land, to your own injury, if it is 
 wanted for a railroad. The law may compel you, 
 as it did fifty years ago, to serve as a soldier in 
 the militia, to your own injury, if there is a 
 fear of foreign invasion ; so that the law is above 
 each and all of us. Our own wills are not our 
 masters. No man is his own master. The law is 
 the master of each and all of us, and if we will not 
 obey it willingly, it can make us obey unwillingly. 
 
 Can make us ? Ay, but ought it to make us ? 
 Is it right that the law should over-ride our own 
 free wills, and prevent our doing what we like 
 with our own ? 
 
 It is right — absolutely right. Saint Paul tells
 
 THE VALUE OF LAW. 35 
 
 US what gives law tin's authority : ' There is no 
 power but of God. The powers that be are 
 ordained of God.' And he tells us also why this 
 authority is given to the law. ' Rulers,' he says, 
 ' are not a terror to good works, but to evil. 
 Wilt thou then not be afraid of those who 
 .administer the law? Do that which is good, 
 and thou shalt have praise from them, for they 
 are God's ministers to thee for good.' 
 
 For good, you see. For the good of mankind 
 it was, that God put into their hearts and reasons, 
 the notion of making laws, and appointing kings 
 and magistrates to see that those laws are obeyed. 
 For our good. For without law no man's life, or 
 family, or property would be safe. Every man's 
 private selfishness, and greediness, and anger, 
 would struggle without check to have its way, 
 and there would be no bar or curb to keep each 
 and eveiy man from injuring each and every man 
 else ; so the strong would devour the vreak, and 
 then tear each other in pieces afterwards. So it 
 is among the savages. They have little or no 
 property, for they have no laws to protect property; 
 and therefore every man expects his neiglibour to 
 steal from him, and finds it his shortest plan to 
 steal from his neighbour, instead of settling down 
 to sow corn which he v>ull have no chance of eat- 
 ing, or build houses which may be taken from 
 him at night by some more strong and cunning
 
 36 SERMON III. 
 
 savage. There is no law among savages to pro- 
 tect women and children against the men, and 
 therefore the women are treated worse than beasts, 
 and the children murdered to save the trouble of 
 rearing them. Every man's hand is against his 
 neighbour. No one feels himself safe, and there- 
 fore no one thinks it worth while to lay up for the 
 morrow. No one expects justice and mercy to be 
 done to him, and therefore no one thinks it worth 
 while to do justice and mercy to others. And thus 
 they live in continual fear and quarrelling, feeding 
 like wild animals on game or roots, often, when 
 they have bad luck in their hunting, on offal 
 which our dogs would refuse, and dwindle away 
 and become fewer and wretcheder year by year, — 
 that is the way in which the savages in New 
 South Wales live to this day for want of law. 
 
 It is for our good, then, that God has put into 
 the heart of man to make laws, and to obey them 
 as sacred and divine things. For oui' good, in 
 order to save us from sinking down into the same 
 state of poverty and misery in which the savages 
 are. For our good, because we are fallen crea- 
 tures, with selfish and corrupt wills, continually 
 apt to break loose, and please om^selves at the 
 expense of our neighbours. For our good, 
 because, however fallen we are, we are still 
 brothers, members of God's family, bound to 
 ^ach other by duty and relationship, if not by
 
 THE VALUE OF LAW. 37 
 
 love. Just as in a family, if parents, brothers 
 and sisters will not do their duty to each other 
 lovingly and of their free yvi]l, the law interferes, 
 and the custom of the country interferes, and the 
 opinion of neighbours interferes, and says, ' You 
 may not love your parents : but you have no right 
 to leave them to starve.' 'You may not love 
 your brothers : but if you try to injure and slander 
 them, you are doing an unnatural and hateful 
 thing, abhorred by God and man, and you must 
 expect us to treat you accordingly, as a mid beast 
 who does not feel the common laws of nature and 
 right and wrong.' 
 
 So with the law of the land. The law is 
 meant to remind us more or less that we are 
 brothers, members of one body ; that we owe a 
 duty to each other ; that we are all equal in God's 
 sight, who is no respecter of persons, or of rank, 
 or of riches, any more than the law is when it 
 punishes the greatest nobleman as severely as the 
 poorest labourer. The law is meant to remind us 
 that God is just ; that when we injure each other, 
 we sin against God ; that God's rule and law is, 
 that each transgression should receive its just 
 reward, and that, therefore, because man is made 
 in the likeness of God, man is bound, as far as he 
 can, to visit every offence with due and propor- 
 tionate punishment. And the law punishes, as 
 St Paul says, in God's name, and for God's sake.
 
 38 SEEMON III. 
 
 The magistrate is a witness for God's righteous 
 government of the world, the minister of God's 
 vengeance against evil-doers, to remind all con- 
 tinually that evil-doing has no place, and cannot 
 prosper, and must not be allowed upon this God's 
 earth whereon we live. 
 
 But what if the laws are unfair, and punish only 
 some sorts of evil-doers and not others ? What 
 if they are like spiders' webs, which catch the 
 little flies, and let the great wasps break through? 
 What if they punish poor and weak offenders, 
 and let the rich and powerful sinners escape? 
 ' Obey them still,' says St Paul. In his time 
 and country the laws were as unfair in that way 
 as laws ever were, and yet he tells christians to 
 obey them for conscience's sake. Thank God 
 that they do punish weak offenders. Pray God 
 that the time may come wdien they may be strong 
 enough to punish great offenders also. But, in 
 the meantime, see that they have not to punish 
 you. As far as the laws go, they are right and 
 good. As far as they keep down any sort of 
 wrong-doing whatsoever, they are God's ordi- 
 nances, and you must obey them for God's sake. 
 
 But what if the laws are not only unfair and 
 partial, but also unjust and wrong? Are we to 
 obey them then ? Obey them still, says St Paul. 
 Of course, if they command you to do a wrong 
 thing ; if, for instance, the law commanded you
 
 THE VALUE OF LAW. 39 
 
 to worship idols, or to commit adultery, there is 
 no question then ; such laws cannot be God's 
 ordinance. The laws can only he God's ordi- 
 nance as far as they agree with what w^e know 
 of God's will written in our hearts, and written 
 in his holy Bible. Then a man must resist the 
 .law to the death, if need be, as the blessed 
 martyrs did, dying as witnesses for God's righ- 
 teous and eternal law, against man's false and 
 unrighteous law. And it is a veiy difficult thmg, 
 no doubt, to tell where to di'aw the line in such 
 matters. But we, thank God, here in England 
 now, have no need to puzzle our heads with such 
 questions. Every man's conscience is free here, 
 and he has full hberty to worship God as he 
 thinks best, provided that by so doing he does not 
 interfere with his neighbour's character, or pro- 
 perty, or comfort. There is no single law in Eng- 
 land now" Avhich a man has any need to I'efuse to 
 obey, let his conscience be as tender as it may. 
 And as for laws which we think hiu'tful to the 
 country, or hurtful to any particular class in the 
 countr}^, our thinking them hurtful is no reason 
 that we should not obey them. As long as they 
 are law, they are God's ordinance, and we have 
 no right to break them. They may be useful 
 after all. Or even if they are hurtful in some 
 way, still God may be bringing good out of them 
 in some other way, of which we httle di'eam,
 
 40 SERMON III. 
 
 as He has often done out of laws and customs 
 which seem at first sight most foohsh and hurtful, 
 and yet which lie endured and winked at, for the 
 sake of bringing good out of evil. At all events, 
 whatsoever laws are here in England, are made 
 by the men whom we English have chosen, as 
 the men most fit and wise to make them, and 
 we are bound to abide by them. If Parlia- 
 ment is not wise enough to make perfectly good 
 laws, that is no one's fault but our own; for 
 if we were wise, we should choose wise law- 
 makers, and we must be filled with the fruit of 
 our own devices. As long as these laws have 
 been made and passed, by Commons, Lords, and 
 Queen, according to the ancient forms and con- 
 stitution which God has taught our forefathers 
 from time to time for more than a thousand years, 
 and which have had God's blessing and favoiu' on 
 them, and made us, from the least of all nations, 
 the greatest nation on the earth ; in short, as long 
 as those laws are made according to laAv, so long we 
 are bound to believe them to be God's ordinance, 
 and obey them. But understand ; that is no reason 
 why we should not try to get them improved ; 
 for when they are changed and done away ac- 
 cording to the same law which made them, that . 
 will be a sign that they are God's ordinances no 
 longer ; that God thinks we have no more need 
 for them, and does not require us to keep them.
 
 THE VALUE OF LAW. 41 
 
 But as long as any law is what St Paul calls ' the 
 powers that be/ obeyed it must be, not only for 
 wrath, but for conscience's sake. 
 
 That is a very important part of the matter. 
 Obey the law, St Paul says, not only for wrath, 
 that is, not only for fear of punishment, but for 
 .conscience's sake. Even if you do not expect to 
 be punished ; even if you think no one will ever 
 find out that you have broken the law, remember 
 it is God's ordinance. He sees you. Do not 
 hurt your own conscience, and deaden your own 
 sense of right and wrong, by breaking the least 
 or the most unjust law in the slightest point. 
 
 For instance : some people think the income- 
 tax is very unfair, and therefore they think there 
 is no harm in cheating the revenue a little, by 
 making out their income less than it is. Others, 
 again, think the laws against smuggling unjust 
 and harsh, and therefore they see no harm in 
 trpng to avoid paying duty on goods which they 
 bring home, whenever they have an opportunity, 
 or buying cheap goods, which they must know 
 from their price are smuggled. Others, again, 
 think the game laws unfair, and therefore see no 
 harm in going out shooting on their own lands 
 without a licence ; while many see no harm, or 
 say they see no harm, in poaching on other 
 people's grounds, and kiUing game contrary to 
 law wherever they can. That it is wrong to
 
 42 SERMON III. 
 
 break the law in these two first cases, you all 
 know in your own hearts. On the matter of 
 poaching, some of you, I know, have many very 
 mistaken notions. But, my friends, I ask you 
 only to look at the sin and misery which poaching 
 causes, if you want to see that those who break 
 the law do indeed break the ordinance of God, 
 and that God's laws avenge themselves. Look 
 at the idleness, the untidiness, the deceit, the 
 bad company, the drunkenness, the misery and 
 sin, to man, woman, and child, which that same 
 poaching brings about, and then see how one 
 little sin brings on many great ones ; how a man, 
 by despising the authority of law, and fancying 
 that he does no harm in disobeying the laws, from 
 his own fancy about poaching being no harm, 
 falls into temptation and a snare, and pierces 
 himself through with many sorrows. My young 
 friends, believe my words. Avoid poaching, 
 even once in a way. The beginning of sin is 
 like the letting out of water ; no one can tell 
 where it will stop. He who breaks the law in 
 little things will be tempted to go on and break 
 it in greater and greater things. He who begins 
 by breaking man's law, which is the pattern of 
 God's law, will be tempted to go on and break 
 God's law also. Is it not so? There is no use- 
 telling me, ' The game is no one's ; there is no 
 harm in taking it.' Light words of that kind will
 
 THE VALUE OF LAW. 43 
 
 not do to answer God with. You know there is 
 harm in taking it ; for you know, as well as I do, 
 that you cannot go after game without neglecting 
 your work to get it; going to the worst of public- 
 houses, among the worst of company, to sell it. 
 You know, as well as I do, that hand in hand 
 . with poaching go lying, and deceit, and sneaking, 
 and fear, and boasting, and swearing, and drink- 
 ing, and the company of bad men and bad 
 women. And then you say there is no harm in 
 poaching. Do you suppose that I do not know, 
 as well as any one of you here, what goes to the 
 snaring of a hare, and the selHng of a hare, and 
 the spending of the ill-got price of a hare ? iMy 
 dear young men, I know that poaching, like 
 many other sins, is tempting ; but God has told us 
 to flee from temptation— to resist the devil, and he 
 will flee from us. If we are to give up ourselves 
 without a struggle to every pleasant thing which 
 tempts us, we shall soon be at the devil's door. 
 We were sent into the world to fight against 
 temptation and to conquer it. We were sent into 
 the world to do what God hkes, not what we like ; 
 and therefore we were sent into the world to obey 
 the laws of the land wherein we live, be they better 
 or worse, because if we break one law because 
 we don't like it, our neighbour may break another 
 because he don't like that, and so forth, till there 
 is neither law, nor peace, nor safety, but every
 
 44 SEEMON III. 
 
 man doing what is right in his own eyes, which 
 is sure to end bj every man's doing what is right 
 in the devil's eyes. We were sent into the world 
 to live as brothers, under laws which make us 
 give up our own wills and selfish lusts for the 
 common good. And if we find it difficult to 
 keep the laws, if we are tempted to break the 
 laws, God has promised His Spirit to those who 
 ask Him. God has promised His Spirit to us. If 
 we pray for that Spirit night and morning. He 
 M'ill make it easy for us to keep the laws. He 
 will make us what our Lord was before us, 
 humble, patient, loving, manful and strong 
 enough to restrain our fancies and appetites, and 
 to give up our wills for the good of our neigh- 
 bours, anxious and careful to avoid all appearance 
 of evil, trusting that because God is just, and 
 God is King, all laws which are not wicked are 
 His ordinance, and therefore obedient to every 
 ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, even as 
 Jesus Christ Himself was, who though He was 
 Lord of all, paid taxes and tribute money to the 
 Roman government, like the rest of the Jews, 
 and kept the law of Moses perfectly, and was 
 baptised with John's baptism, to show that in all 
 just and reasonable things we are to obey the laws 
 and customs of our forefathers, in the country to 
 which it has pleased the Lord that we should 
 belong.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 
 
 RoMAKS xiii. 1. 
 
 ' Let every soul he subject unto the higher powers. For 
 there is no power hut of God. The poivers that be are 
 ordained of God.' 
 
 In this chapter, which we read for the second 
 lesson for this afternoon's service, Saint Paul 
 gives good advice to the Romans, and equally 
 good advice to us. 
 
 Of course what he says must be equally good 
 for us, and for all people, at all times, in all 
 countries, as long as time shall last; because St 
 Paul spoke by the Spirit of God, who is God 
 eternal, and therefore cannot change His mind, 
 but lays down, by the mouth of His apostles and 
 prophets, the everlasting laws of right and wrong, 
 which are always equally good for all. 
 
 But there is something in this lesson which 
 makes it especially useful to us ; because we 
 English are in some very important matters very 
 like the Romans to whom St Paul wrote; though 
 in others, thanks to Almighty God, we are still 
 very unlike them.
 
 46 SERMON IV. 
 
 Now, these old Romans, as I have often told 
 you, had risen to be the greatest and mightiest 
 people in the world, and to conquer many foreign 
 countries, and set up colonies of Romans in them, 
 very much as the English have done in India, 
 and North America, and Australia : so that the 
 little country of Italy, with its one great city of 
 Rome, was mistress of vast lands far beyond the 
 seas, ten times as large as itself, just as this little 
 England is. 
 
 But it is not so much this wliich I have to 
 speak to you about now, as how this Rome 
 became so great ; for it was at first nothing 
 but a poor little country town, without money, 
 armies, trade, or any of those things which shal- 
 low-minded people fancy are the great strength 
 of a nation. True, all those things are good ; 
 but they are useless and hurtful — ^and, what is 
 more, they cannot be got — without something 
 better than them ; something which you cannot 
 see nor handle ; something spiritual, which is the 
 life and heart of a country or nation, and without 
 which it can never become great. This the old 
 Romans had; and it made them become great. 
 This we English have had for now fifteen hundred 
 years ; even when our forefathers were heathens 
 like the Romans, before we came into this good 
 land of England, while we were poor and simple 
 people, living in the barren moors of Germany,
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 47 
 
 and the snowy mountains of Norway ; even then 
 we had this wonderful charm, by which nations 
 are sure to become great and powerful at last ; 
 and in proportion as we have remembered and 
 acted upon it, we English have thriven and spread ; 
 and whenever we have forgotten it and broken it, 
 .we have fallen into distress, and poverty, and 
 shame, over the whole land. 
 
 Now, what is this wonderful charm which 
 made the old Romans and we English great, 
 which is stronger than money, and armies, and 
 trade, and all the things which we can see and 
 handle? 
 
 Saint Pauls tells us in the text: ^Let every 
 soul be subject to the higher powers. For there 
 is no power but of God. The powers that be 
 are ordained of God.' 
 
 To respect the law ; to believe that God wills 
 men to live according to law ; and that He will 
 teach men right and good laws ; that magistrates, 
 who enforce the laws are God's ministers, God's 
 officers and sen^ants ; that to break the laws 
 is to sin against God ; — that is the charm which 
 worked such wonders, and will woi'k them to the 
 end of time. 
 
 So you see it was a very proper thing for St 
 Paul, when he wrote to these Romans after thev 
 became christians, to speak to them as he does in 
 this chapter. They might have fancied, and many
 
 48 SERMON IV. 
 
 did fancy, that because tliey were Jesus Christ's 
 servants now, they need not obey their heathen 
 rulers and laws any more. But St Paul says, 
 ^No; Jesus Christ's being King of kings, is only 
 the strongest possible reason for your obeying 
 these heathen rulers. For if He is King of all 
 the earth. He is King of Rome also, and of all 
 her colonies ; and therefore you may be sure that 
 He would not leave these Roman rulers and laws 
 here if He did not think it rio-ht and fittincr. If 
 
 n CD 
 
 Jesus Christ is Lord of lords. He is Lord of 
 these Roman rulers, and they are His ministers 
 and stewards ; and you must obey them, and pay 
 taxes to them for conscience's sake, as unto the 
 Lord, and not unto man,' 
 
 So you see that St Paul gave these Roman 
 christians no new commandment on these matters; 
 nothing different from what theu' old heathen 
 forefathers had believed. For the law ^Yhich he 
 mentions in verse 9, 'Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt 
 not steal,' etc., had been for centuries past part 
 of the old Roman law, as well as of Moses' law. 
 
 Those old heathen Romans believed, and rightly, 
 that all law and order came from the great God 
 of gods, whom they called in their tongue Jupiter, 
 that is The Heavenly Father. They beheved that 
 He would bless those who kept the laws ; who 
 kept their oaths and agreements, and the laws 
 about government, about marriage, about pro-
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 49 
 
 pert}'", about inheritance; and that He would surely 
 punish those who broke the laws, who defrauded 
 their neighbours of their rights, who swore falsely 
 against their neighbour, or broke their agree- 
 ments, who were unfaithful to their wives and 
 husbands, or in any way offended against justice 
 between man and man. And they believed, too, 
 and rightly, that as long as they kept the laws, 
 and lived justly and orderly by them, the great 
 Heavenly Father would protect and prosper their 
 town of Rome, and make it grow great and power- 
 ful, because they were living as He would have 
 men live ; not doing each what was right in the 
 sight of his own eyes, but conquering their own 
 selfish wills and private fancies, for the sake of 
 their neighbour's good, and the good of his country, 
 that they might all help and trust each other, as 
 fellow-citizens of one nation. 
 
 Only Saint Paul had told them. Your fore- 
 fathers were right in fancying that law and right 
 came from the great God of gods: but they 
 knew hardly anything, or rather, in time they 
 forgot almost everything, about that Heavenly 
 Father. In their ignorance they mixed up the 
 belief in the one great almighty and good God, 
 which dwells in the hearts of all men, with filthy 
 fables and superstitions, till they came to fancy 
 that there were many gods and not one, and that 
 these many gods were sinful, foul, proud, and 
 
 D
 
 50 SERMON IF. 
 
 cruel, as fjillen men. But you have been brought 
 back to the knowledge of the one true, and righ- 
 teous, and loving God, which your forefathers 
 lost. He has revealed and shown Himself, 
 and what He is like, in His Son Jesus Christ. 
 He is love, and wisdom, and justice, and order 
 itself; and, therefore, you must be sure, even 
 more sure than your old heathen forefathers, that 
 He cares for a nation being at peace and unity 
 within itself, governed by wise laws, doing jvistice 
 between man and man, and keepii^ order 
 
 jeepn^g 
 
 throughout all its business, that every man may 
 do his work and enjoy his wages without hinder- 
 ance, or confusion, or fear, or robbery and oppres- 
 sion from those who are stronger than he. And 
 so St Paul says to them, 'You must believe that 
 power and law come from God, far more firmly 
 and clearly than ever your heathen forefathers did.' 
 Now that Saint Paul was right in this, we may 
 see from the Old Testament. In the first lesson 
 for this afternoon's service, we read how Jeremiah 
 was sent with the most awful warnings to the 
 king, and the queen, and the crown prince of his 
 country. And why ? Because they had broken 
 the laws ; because, in a word, they had been un- 
 faithful stewards and ministers of the Lord God, 
 who had given them their power and kingdom, 
 and would demand a strict account of all which 
 He had committed to their charge. But in the
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 51 
 
 same book of the prophet Jeremiah we read more 
 than this ; we read exactly what Saint Paul says 
 about the heathen lloman governors : For the 
 Lord God, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, sent 
 Jeremiah with a message to all the heathen kings 
 round about, to tell them that Pie was their Lord 
 and Master, that He had given them their power, 
 heathens as they were, because it seemed fit to 
 Plim, and that now, for their sins. He was going to 
 deliver them over into the hand of another heathen, 
 His servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon ; 
 and that whosoever Avould not serve Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, the Lord God would punish him with 
 sword, and famine, and pestilence, till He had 
 consumed them. And the first four chapters 
 of the book of Daniel, noble and wonderful as 
 they are, seem to me to have been put into the 
 Bible simply to teach us this one thing, that 
 heathen rulers, as well as christians, are the Lord's 
 servants, and that their power is ordained by God. 
 For these chapters are entirely made up of the 
 history, how God, by His prophet Daniel, taught 
 the heathen king Nebuchadnezzar that he was 
 God's minister and steward. And the latter part 
 of the book of Daniel is the account of his teaching 
 the same thing to another heathen, Cyrus the 
 great king of Persia. And here Saint Paul 
 teaches the christian Romans just the same thing 
 about their heathen governors and heathen laws,
 
 52 SERMON IV. 
 
 that thev are the ministers and the ordinance of 
 God. 
 
 Now, our own English forefathers, as I said 
 before, beheved this same thing; and if I had 
 time, I could show you, I think, plainly enough 
 from God's dealings with England, how He has 
 blest and prospered us whensoever we have acted 
 up to it. But whether we have believed it or 
 not, there is enough in our English laws, and in 
 our English Prayer Book too, to witness for it and 
 remind us of it. 
 
 The very title which we give the Queen, 
 ' Queen by the grace of God ;' the solemn prayers 
 for her when she is crowned and anointed, not in 
 her own palace, or in the House of Parliament, 
 but in the Church of God at Westminster ; the 
 prayers which we have just offered up for the 
 Queen, for the government, and for the magis- 
 trates — these are all so many signs and tokens 
 to us that they are God's stewards, called to do 
 God's work, and that we must pray for God's 
 grace to help them to fulfil their calling. And 
 are not those ten commandments, which stand 
 in every church, a witness of the same thing? 
 They are the very root of all law whatsoever. 
 And more, the solemn oath which a witness takes 
 in the court of justice, what is it but a sign of the 
 same thing, that our forefathers, who appointed 
 these forms, believed that law and justice were
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 53 
 
 holy things, and that he who goes into a court of 
 law goes into the presence of God Himself, and 
 confesses, when he promises to speak the truth, 
 so help him God, that God is the protector and 
 the avenger of law and of justice ? 
 
 But some people, and especially young and 
 light-hearted persons, are ready to say, — 'Obey 
 the powers that be, whosoever they may be, good or 
 bad, and believe that to break their laws is to sin 
 against God ? We might as well be slaves at once. 
 A man has a right to his own opinion ; and if he 
 does not think a law good, how can he be bound 
 to obey it V 
 
 You will often hear such words as those when 
 you go out into the world, into great towns, w^here 
 men meet together much. Let me give you, 
 young people, a little advice about that before- 
 hand ; for, fine as it sounds, it is hollow and false 
 at root. 
 
 If you wish to be really free, and to do what you 
 like, like what is right ; and do that, says St Paul, 
 and then the law will not interfere with you: ' For 
 rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the 
 evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power ? 
 Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise 
 of the same : for he is the minister of God to 
 thee for good. But if thou do that which is 
 evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not the sword in 
 vain : for he is the minister of God, a revenger
 
 ')4 SERMON IV. 
 
 to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.* 
 And then he sums up what doing right is, in one 
 short sentence : ' Love thy neighbour as thyself; 
 for love is the fulfilhng of the law.' All that the 
 laws want to make you do, is to behave like men 
 who do love their neighbours as themselves, and 
 therefore do them no harm^to behave like men 
 who are ready to give up their own private wills 
 and pleasures, and even their o^vn private pro- 
 perty, if wanted, for the good of their neigh- 
 bours and their country. Thei'efore the law calls 
 on you to pay rates and taxes, which are to be 
 spent for the good of the nation at large. And if 
 you love your neighbour as yourself, and have the 
 good of every one round you at heart, you will 
 no more grudge paying rates and taxes for their 
 benefit than you will grudge spending money to 
 support and educate your own children. And so 
 you will be free, free to do what you like, because 
 you like, from the fear and love of God, to do 
 those riiilit things which the law is set to make 
 you do. 
 
 But some may say, ' That is not what we 
 mean by being free. We mean having a ?hare in 
 choosing Members of Parliament, and so in mak- 
 ing the laws and governing the country. When 
 people can do that the country is a free country.' 
 
 Well, my friends, and it is a strange thing, or 
 rather not a strange thing, if we will but study
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 55 
 
 our Bibles, that a country cannot be free in that 
 way, unless the people of it do really believe that 
 the powers that be are ordained of God. Instead 
 of that faith making the old Romans slavish, or 
 careless what laws were made, or how they were 
 governed, as some fancy it would make a people, 
 .tliey were as free a people, and freer almost, than 
 we English now. They chose their own magis- 
 trates, and they made their own laws, and pros- 
 pered by so doing. And why ? Because they be- 
 lieved that laws came from God ; and, therefore, 
 they not only obeyed the laws when they were 
 made, but they had heart and spirit to help to make 
 them, because they trusted that The Heavenly 
 Father, who loved justice, would teach them to 
 be just, and that The God who protected laws and 
 punished law-breakers, would put into their minds 
 how to make the laws well ; and so they were not 
 afraid to govern themselves, because they believed 
 that God would enable them to govern themselves 
 well, and therefore they were free. And so far 
 from their having a slavish spirit in them, they 
 were the most bold and independent people of the 
 whole earth. Their soldiers conquered almost 
 every nation against whom they fought, because 
 they always obeyed their officers dutifully and 
 faitlifully, believing that it was their duty to God 
 to obey, and to die, if need was, for their country. 
 Old history is full of tales, which will never
 
 5& SERMON IV. 
 
 be forgotten, I trust, till the world's end, of the 
 noble deeds of their men, ay, and even of their 
 women, who counted their own hves worthless in 
 comparison with the good of their country, and 
 died in torments rather than break the laws, or do 
 what they knew would injure the people to whom 
 they belonged. 
 
 And so with us Enghsh. For hundi'eds of 
 years we have been growing more and more 
 free, and more and more well-governed, simply 
 because we have been acting on St Paul's doc- 
 trine — obeying the powers that be, because they 
 are ordained by God. It is the Enghshman's 
 respect for law, as a sacred thing, which he dare 
 not break, which has made him, sooner or later, 
 respected and powerful wherever he goes to settle 
 in foreign lands ; because foreigners can trust us 
 to be just, and to keep our promises, and to abide 
 by the laws which we have laid down. It is the 
 English respect for law, as a sacred thing, which 
 has made our armies among the bravest and the 
 most successful on earth ; because they know 
 how to obey their officers, and are therefore able 
 to fight and to endure as men should do. And 
 as long as we hold to that belief we shall prosper 
 at home and abroad, and become more and more 
 free, and more and more strong; because we 
 shall be united, helping each other, trusting 
 each other, knowing what to expect of each
 
 THE SOUECE OF LAW. 57 
 
 other, because we all honour and obey the same 
 laws. 
 
 And, on the other hand, have we not close to 
 us, in France, a fearful sign and proof from God 
 that without the fear of God no people can be 
 free ? Three times in the last sixty years have 
 the French risen up against cruel tyrants, and 
 driven them out. And have they been the 
 better for it ? They are at this very moment in 
 utter slavery to a tyrant more cruel and lawless 
 than ever oppressed them before. And why ? 
 Because they did not believe that law came from 
 God, and that the powers that be are ordained 
 by Him. Therefore, whenever they were op- 
 pressed, they did not try to right themselves by 
 laAvful ways, according to the old English God- 
 fearing custom, but to break down the old law by 
 riot and bloodshed, and then to set up new laws 
 of their own. But those new laws would never 
 stand. They made them, but they would not 
 obey them when they were made, and they could 
 not make others obey them ; because they had no 
 real reverence for law, and did not believe that 
 law came from God, or that His Spirit would 
 give them understanding to make good laws. 
 They talked loud about the power and rights of 
 the people, and that whatever the people willed 
 was right ; but they said nothing about the 
 power and rights of the Lord God ; they forgot
 
 58 SERMON lY. 
 
 that it is only what God has willed from ever- 
 lasting which is right ; and so they made laws 
 in the strength of their own hearts, according to 
 what was rIo;ht in the sight of their own eyes, to 
 please themselves. How could they respect the 
 laws, when the laws were only copies of their own 
 selfish fancies ? So, because they made them to 
 please themselves, they soon broke them to please 
 themselves. And so came more lawlessness and 
 riot, and confusion worse confounded, till, of course, 
 the strongest, and cunningest, and most shameless 
 got the upper hand, and they were plunged, poor 
 creatures ! into the same pit of misery out of 
 which they had been trying to deliver themselves 
 in their own strength, for a sign and an example 
 that the Lord is King, and not man at all, and 
 that the fear of the Lord is the only beginning 
 of wisdom. 
 
 And very much the same sad fate had happened 
 to the Romans a little before St Paul's time. 
 They gave up their ancient respect for law ; they 
 broke the laws, and ran into all kinds of violence, 
 and riot, and filthy sin ; and therefore God took 
 away their freedom from tliem, because they 
 were not fit for it, and delivered them over into 
 the hand of one cruel tyrant after another ; and 
 perhaps the cruellest of them all was the man 
 who was emperor of Rome in St Paul's time. 
 Therefore it was that St Paul says to them,
 
 THE SOURCE OF LAW. 59 
 
 Love eacli other, and obey the laws, ' knowing 
 the time, that now it is high time to awake out 
 of sleep.' 
 
 As much as to saj, 'Your souls have fallen 
 asleep; you have been in a dark night, not 
 seeing; that God would avenge you of all these 
 sins of yours; that God's eye was on them: you 
 have fallen asleep and forgotten your forefathers' 
 belief, that God loves law, and order, and justice, 
 and will punish those who break through them. 
 But now the Lord Jesus, the light of the world, 
 is come to awaken you, and to open your eyes to 
 see the truth about this, and to show you that 
 you are in God's kingdom, and that God com- 
 mands you to repent, and to obey Him, and do 
 justly and righteously. Therefore awake out of 
 your sleep ; give up the works of darkness, those 
 mean and wicked habits which were contraiy to 
 the good old laws of your forefathers, and which 
 you were at heart ashamed of, and. tried to hide 
 even while you indulged in them. Open your 
 eyes, and see that God is near you, your Judge, 
 your King, seeing through and through your 
 souls, keen and sharp to discern the secret 
 thouo'hts and intents of the heart, so that all 
 things are naked and open in the sight of Him 
 with whom we have to do.' 
 
 And so I may say to you, my friends, it is high 
 time for us to awake out of sleep. The people in
 
 GO SERMON IV. 
 
 England, religious as well as others, have fallen 
 asleep of late years too much about this matter. 
 They have forgotten that God is King, that magis- 
 trates are God's ministers. They talk as if laws 
 were meant to be only the device of man's will, 
 to serve men's private interests and selfishness ; 
 and therefore they have lost very much of their 
 respect for law, and their care to make good laws 
 for the future. And it is high time for us, while 
 all the nations of Europe are tottering and crum- 
 bling round us, to awake out of sleep on this 
 matter. We must open our eyes and see where 
 we are. For we are in God's kingdom. God's 
 Bible, God's churches, God's commandments, and 
 all the solemn old law forms of England witness 
 to us that God is King, set in the throne which 
 judges right; that order and justice, fellow- 
 feeling and public spirit, are His gifts. His like- 
 ness, on which He looks down with loving care 
 and protection ; and that if we forget that, and 
 begin to fiuicy that law stands merely by the 
 will of the many, or by the will of the stronger, 
 or even by the will of the wiser — by any will of 
 man, in short ; we shall end by neither being 
 able to make just laws any more, nor to obey 
 those which we have, by the blessing of God, 
 already.
 
 V. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN. 
 
 Daniel iv. 37. 
 
 ' Now I Nebuchadnezzar j^raise, and extol, and honour 
 the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His 
 ways judgment ; and those that walk in pride He is 
 able to abase.' 
 
 We read for the first lesson to-day two chapters 
 out of the book of Daniel. Those who love to 
 study their Bibles, have read often, of course, not 
 only these two chapters, but the whole book. 
 
 And 1 would advise all of you who Avish to 
 understand God's dealings with mankind, to study 
 this book of Daniel, and especially at this present 
 time. 
 
 I do not wish you to study it merely on account 
 of those prophecies in it, which many wise and 
 good men think foretell the dates of our Lord's 
 first and second comincjs, and of the end of the 
 world. I am not skilled, my friends, in that kind 
 of wisdom. I cannot tell you what God will do 
 hereafter. But I think that the book of Daniel, 
 like the other prophets, tells us what God is
 
 62 SERMOX V. 
 
 always doing on eartli, and so gives us certain 
 and eternal rules by which we may understand 
 strange and terrible events, wars, distress of na- 
 tions, the fall of great men, and the suffering of 
 innocent men, when we see them happen, as we 
 may see any day — perhaps very soon indeed. 
 
 The great lesson, I think, that this book of 
 Daniel teaches us is, tliat God is not the Lord 
 of the Jews only, or of Christians only, but of 
 the whole earth ; that the heathens are under His 
 moral law and government, as well as we ; and 
 that, as St Peter says, God is no respecter of 
 persons : but in every nation, he that feareth 
 God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of 
 him. For the history of Nebuchadnezzar seems 
 to me to be the history of God's educating a 
 heathen and an idolater to know Him. And we 
 must always remember, that as far as we can see, 
 it was because Nebuchadnezzar w'as faithful to 
 the light which he had, that God gave him more. 
 Of course, he had his sins; the Bible tells us 
 what they were ; just the sins which one would 
 expect of a man brought up a heathen and an 
 idolater ; of one who Avas a great conqueror, and 
 had gained many bloody battles, and learned to 
 hold men's lives very cheap ; of one who was an 
 absolute emperor, with no law but his own will, 
 furious at any contradiction ; of a man of won- 
 derful power of mind — confident in himself, his
 
 THE EDUCATION OP A HEATHEN. 63 
 
 ova\ power, his own cunning. But he seems not 
 to have been a bad man, considering his advan- 
 tao-es. The Bible never speaks harslily of him, 
 though he carried away the Jcavs captive to 
 Babylon. In all that fearful war, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar was in the right, and the Jews in the 
 wrong; so at least Jeremiah the prophet declared. 
 Nebuchadnezzar saved and respected Jeremiah ; 
 and Daniel seems to have regarded the great 
 conqueror with real respect and affection. AYhen 
 Daniel says to him,' ' O king, live for ever,' and 
 tells him that he is the head of gold, and prays 
 that his fearful dream may come true of his 
 enemies and not of him, I cannot believe that the 
 prophet was using mere empty phrases of court- 
 flattery. He really felt, I doubt not, that Nebu- 
 chadnezzar was a great and good king, as kings 
 went then, and his government a gain (as it 
 easily might be) to the nations whom he had 
 conquered, and that it was good that he should 
 reign as long as possible. 
 
 And we may well believe Daniel's interest in 
 this creat kino; ^\hen we consider how teachable 
 Nebuchadnezzar showed liimself under God's 
 education of him, so proving that there was in 
 him the honest and good lieart, which, when The 
 AVord is sown in it, will bring forth fruit, thirty- 
 fold or a hundred-fold, according to the talents 
 which God has bestowed on each man.
 
 64 SERMON V. 
 
 This first lesson we read in the first chapter of 
 Daniel. He dreamt a dream. He felt that it 
 was a very wonderful one ; but he forgot what it 
 was. None of the magicians of Babylon could 
 tell him. A young Jew, named Daniel, told 
 him the dream and its meaning, and declared at 
 the same time that he had found it out by no 
 wisdom of his own, but that God had revealed it 
 to him. Nebuchadnezzar learned his lesson, and 
 confessed Daniel's God to be a God of gods and 
 a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing 
 that Daniel could reveal that secret ; and forth- 
 with, like a wise prince, advanced Daniel and 
 his companions to places of the highest authority 
 and trust. 
 
 But Nebuchadnezzar required another lesson. 
 He had learnt that the God of the Jews was 
 wiser than all the planets and heavenly lords and 
 gods whom the Babylonian magicians considted; 
 he had not learnt that that same God of the Jews 
 was the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth. 
 He had learned that the God of heaven favoured 
 him, and had helped him toward his power and 
 glory ; but he thought that for that very reason 
 the power and glory were his own — that he had 
 a risht over the souls and consciences of his 
 subjects, and might make them worship what he 
 liked, and how he liked. 
 
 Three Jews, whom he had set over the affairs
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN. 65 
 
 of Babylon, refused to worship the golden image 
 which he had set up, and were cast into a fiery 
 furnace, and forthwith miraculously delivered, 
 and beheld by Nebuchadnezzar walking unhurt 
 and loose in the midst of the furnace, and with 
 them a fourth, whose form was like the form of 
 the Son of God. 
 
 So Nebuchadnezzar was taught that this God 
 of the Jews was the Lord of men's souls and 
 consciences ; that they were to obey God rather 
 than man. So he was taught that the God of 
 the Jews was no mere star or heavenly influence 
 who could help men's fortunes, or bestow on them 
 a certain fixed destiny ; but a living person, the 
 Lord and Master of the fire, and of all the powers 
 of the earth, who could change and stop those 
 powers at His will, to deliver those who trusted in 
 Him and obeyed Him. 
 
 And this lesson, too, Nebuchadnezzar learned. 
 He confessed his mistake upon the spot, just in 
 the way in which we should have expected a 
 great Eastern king to do, though not in the most 
 enlightened or merciful way. He ' blessed the 
 God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who 
 hath sent His angel, and delivered His servants 
 who trusted in Him. Therefore I make a decree, 
 that every people, nation, and language, which 
 speak any thmg amiss against the God of Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, 
 
 £
 
 1 
 66 SERMON V. j 
 
 I 
 
 and their houses be made a dunghill : because j 
 there is no other God that can deliver after this 
 sort.' j 
 
 But there was stiU one deep mistake lying in \ 
 the great king's heart which required to be rooted ' 
 out. He had learnt that Jehovah, the God of i 
 the Jews, was a revealer of secrets, a master of i 
 the fire, a deliverer of those who trusted in Him, i 
 a living personal Lord, wise, just and faithful, | 
 veiy different from any of his star gods or idols. I 
 But he looked upon Jehovah only as the God of i 
 the Jews, as Daniel's God. He had not yet . 
 learnt that Jehovah was his God as much as ; 
 Daniel's ; that Jehovah was very near his heart i 
 and mind, and had been near him all his life ; ; 
 that from Jehovah came all his wisdom, his 
 strength of mind, his success, and all which made 
 him differ, not only from his fellow-men, but from 
 the beast ; that Jehovah, in a word, was the light j 
 and the life of the world, who fills all things, j 
 and by whom all things consist, deserted by whose , 
 inward lio;ht, even for a moment, man becomes , 
 as one of the beasts which perish. In his own J 
 eyes, Nebuchadnezzar was still the great self- ] 
 dependent, self-sufficing conqueror, wiser and ' 
 stronger than all the men around him. He 
 thought, most probably, that on account of his 
 wisdom, and courage, and royalty of soul, the : 
 God of heaven had become fond of him and ;
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN. 67 
 
 favoured him. In short, he was swollen with 
 pride. 
 
 God sent him again a strange dream, which 
 made him troubled and afraid. He told it to his 
 old counsellor Daniel ; and Daniel, at the danger 
 of his life, interpreted it for him ; and a very awful 
 meaning it had. A fearful and shameful down- 
 fal was to come upon the king ; no less than the 
 loss of his reason, and with it, of his throne. But 
 whether this came to pass or not, depended, like 
 all God's everlasting promises and threats, on 
 Nebuchadnezzar's own behaviovu'. If he repented, 
 and broke off his sins by righteousness, and his 
 iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, there 
 Avas good reason to hope that so his tranquillity 
 might be lengthened. 
 
 But the lesson was too hard for the proud con- 
 queror ; he did not take the warning. He could 
 not believe that the ISiost High ruled in the king- 
 dom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will. 
 He still fancied that he, and such as he, were the 
 lords of the world, and took from others by their 
 own power and cunning whatsoever they would. 
 He does not seem to have been angry, however, 
 with Daniel for his plain speaking. Most Eastern 
 kings like Nebuchadnezzar would have put 
 Daniel to a cruel death on the spot as the bearer 
 of evil news, speaking blasphemy against the king ; 
 and no one in those times and countries would
 
 68 SEKMON V. 
 
 have considered him wicked and cruel for so 
 doino- : but Nebuchadnezzar had learnt too much 
 already so to give way to his passion. 
 
 Yet, as I said before, he had not learned 
 enough to take God's warning. The lesson that 
 he was nothing, and that God is all in all, was too 
 hard for him. And, alas ! my friends, for whom 
 of us is it not a hard lesson "? And yet it is the 
 golden lesson, the first and the last which man 
 has to learn on earth, ay, and through all eter- 
 nity— 'I am nothing ; God is all in all.' All in 
 us which is worth calling anything; all in us 
 which is worth having, or worth being; all in 
 us which is not disobedience and shortcoming, 
 failure and mistake, ignorance and madness, 
 filthiness and fierceness, as of the beasts which 
 perish ; all strength in us, all understanding, all 
 prudence, all right-mindedness, all purity, all 
 justice, all love ; all in us which is worth living 
 for, all in us which is really alive, and not mere 
 death in life, the death of sin and the darkness of 
 the pit— all is from God the Father of lights, and 
 from Jesus Christ the life and the light, who 
 -lighteth every man who cometh into the world, 
 shining for ever in the darkness of our spirits, 
 though that darkness, alas! too often cannot com- 
 prehend, and embrace, and confess Him who is 
 striving to awake it from the dead ar.d give it 
 fifht. Hardest of all lessons! Most blessed
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN. G9 
 
 of all lessons ! So blessed, that if we will not 
 let God teach it us in any other way, it would 
 be good and advantageous to us for Him to teach 
 it us as He taught it to Nebuchadnezzar — good for 
 us to become with him for a while like the beasts 
 that perish, that we might learn with him to lift 
 up our eyes to heaven, and so have om- under- 
 standings return to us, and learn to bless the 
 Most High, and not our own wit, and cunning, 
 and prudence ; and praise and honour Him that 
 liveth for ever, instead of praising and honouring 
 our own pitiful paltry selves, who are in death in 
 the midst of life, who come up and are cut down 
 like the flower, and never continue in one stay. 
 
 ' All this came upon the king Neliuchadnezzar.' 
 It seems that after he or his father had destroyed 
 the old Babylon, the do\\aifal of which Isaiah had 
 prophesied, he built a great city, after the fashion 
 of Eastern conquerors, near the ruins of the old 
 one ; and ' at the end of twelve months he walked 
 in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The 
 king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, 
 that I have built for the house of the kingdom 
 by the might of my power, and for the honour of 
 my majesty ? While the word was in the king's 
 mouth, there fell a voice fi'om heaven, saying, O 
 king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, The 
 kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall 
 drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be
 
 70 SERMON V. 
 
 with the beasts of the fiekl : they shall make 
 thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall 
 pass over thee, until thou know that the Most 
 High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth 
 it to whomsoever He will. The same hour was 
 the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar.' 
 
 What a lesson ! The great conqueror of all 
 the East now a brutal madman, hateful and dis- 
 gusting to all around him — a beast feeding among 
 the beasts : and yet a cheap price — a cheap price 
 — to pay for this golden lesson. 
 
 Seven times past over him in his madness. 
 What those seven times were we do not know. 
 They may have been actual years : or they may 
 have been, as I am inclined to think, changes in 
 his own soul and state of mind. But, at the end 
 of the days, the truth dawned on him. He began 
 to see what it all meant. He saw what he was, 
 and why he was so ; and he lifted up his eyes to 
 heaven ; and from that moment his madness past. 
 He lifted up his eyes to heaven. That is no 
 mere figure of speech : it is an actual truth. 
 Most mad men, if you watch them, have that 
 down look, or rather that inward look, as if their 
 eyes were fixed only on their own fancies. They 
 are thinking only of themselves, poor creatures — 
 of their own selfish and private sorrows — of their 
 own selfish superstitious di'eams about heaven or 
 hell — of their own selfish vanity and ambition —
 
 THE EDUCATION OP A HEATHEN. 71 
 
 sometimes of their own frantic self-conceit, or of 
 their selfish lusts and desires— of themselves, in 
 short. They have lost the one Divine light of 
 reason, and conscience, and love, which binds 
 men to each other, and are parted for a while 
 from God and from their kind — alone in their 
 .own darkness. So was Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 At last he looked up, as men do when they 
 pray ; up from himself to One greater than him- 
 self ; up from the earth to heaven ; up from the 
 natural things which we do see, which are tem- 
 poral and born to die, to moral and spiritual 
 things which we do not see, which are real 
 and eternal in the heavens ; up from his own 
 lonely darkness, looking for the light and the 
 guidance of God ; for now he knew that all the 
 light which he had ever had, all his wisdom, and 
 understanding, and strength of will, had come 
 from God, however he might have misused them 
 for his own selfish ambition ; that it was because 
 God had taken from him His light, who is the 
 Word of God, that he had become a beast. And 
 then his reason returned to him, and he became 
 again a man, a rational being, made, howsoever 
 fallen and sinful, in the likeness of God ; then he 
 blessed and praised God. It was not merely that 
 he confessed that God was strong, and he weak ; 
 righteous, and he sinful ; wise, and he foolish ; 
 but he blessed and praised God ; he felt and con-
 
 72 ' SEEMON V. 
 
 fessed that God had done him a great benefit, 
 and taught him a great lesson — that God had 
 taught him what he was in himself and without 
 God, that he might see what he was with God in 
 its true light, and honour and obey Him from 
 whom his reason and understanding, as well as 
 his power and glory, came, that so it might be 
 fulfilled which the prophet says, ' Let not the wise 
 man glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty man in 
 his might, nor the rich man in his riches : but let 
 him that glorieth glory in this, that he under- 
 standeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord 
 which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and 
 righteousness in the earth; for in these things 
 I delight, saith the Lord.' 
 
 And so was Nebuchadnezzar's soul brought to 
 utter, in his own way, the very same glorious 
 song which, or something like it, is said to have 
 been sung by the three men whom, years before, 
 he had seen delivered from the fiery furnace, 
 which calls on all the works of the Lord, angels 
 and heavens, sun and stars, seas and winds, 
 mountains and hills, fowls and cattle, priests and 
 laymen, spirits and souls of the righteous, to bless 
 the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever. 
 
 And so ends Nebuchadnezzar's history. We 
 read no more of him. He had learnt the golden 
 lesson. May God grant that Ave may learn it also ! 
 
 But who tells this story of his madness ? He
 
 ' THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN. 73 
 
 himself. The whole account is in the man's own 
 words. It seems to be some public letter or pro- 
 clamation, which he either sent round his empire, 
 or commanded to be laid up among his re- 
 cords; having, as it seems, set Daniel to write 
 it down from his mouth. This one fact, I 
 think, justifies me in all that I have said about 
 Nebuchadnezzar's nobleness, and Daniel's affec- 
 tion for him. He does not try to smooth things 
 over ; to pretend that he has not been mad ; to 
 find excuses for himself; to lay any blame on 
 any human being. He repents openly, confesses 
 openly. Shameful as it may be to him, he tells 
 the whole story. He confesses that he had fair 
 warning, that all was his own fault. He justifies 
 God utterly. My friends, we may read, thank 
 God, many noble, and brave, and righteous 
 speeches of kings and great men, but never have 
 I read one so noble, so brave, so righteous as 
 this of the great king of Babylon. 
 
 And therefore it is ; because this letter of his, 
 in the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, is 
 indeed full of the eternal Holy Spirit of God ; 
 therefore it is, I say, that it forms part of the 
 Bible, part of holy scripture to this day, — a 
 greater honour to Nebuchadnezzar than all his 
 kingdom ; for what greater honour than to have 
 been inspired to write one chapter, yea, one sen- 
 tence, of the Book of Books ?
 
 74 SERMON V. 
 
 My frienclsj every one of you here is in God's 
 scliool-house, under God's teaching, far more 
 than Nebuchadnezzar was. You are baptised 
 men, knowing that blessed name of Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit, which Nebuchadnezzar only 
 saw dimly, and afar off. Jesus Christ, the Word 
 of God, is striving with your hearts, giving to 
 them whatsoever light and life they have. You 
 have been taught from childhood to look up to 
 Him as your King and Deliverer ; to His Father 
 as your Father, to His Holy Spirit as your In- 
 spirer. Take heed how you listen to His voice 
 within your hearts. Take heed how you learn 
 God's lessons ; for God is surely educating you, 
 and teaching you far more than He taught the 
 king of Babylon in old time. As you learn or 
 despise these lessons of God's, will be your hap- 
 piness or your misery now and for ever. Unto 
 the king of Babylon little was given, and of him 
 was Kttle required. To you and me much has 
 been given; of you and me will much be re- 
 quired.
 
 VI. 
 
 JEREMIAH'S CALLINO. 
 
 Jeremiah xxiii. 5. 
 
 ' Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise 
 unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall 
 reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and 
 justice in the earths 
 
 At the time when Jeremiah the prophet spoke 
 those words to the Jews, nothing seemed more 
 unhkely than that they would ever come true. 
 The whole Jewish nation was falling to pieces 
 from its own sins. Brutish and filthy idolatry 
 in high and low — oppression, violence, and luxury 
 among the court and the nobihty — shame, and 
 poverty, and ignorance among the lower classes- 
 idleness and quackery among the priesthood — and 
 as kings over all, one fool and profligate after 
 another, set on the throne by a foreign conqueror, 
 and pulled down again by him at his pleasure. 
 Ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel had been 
 carried off captive, young and old, into a distant 
 land. The small portion of country which still 
 remained inhabited round Jerusalem, had been
 
 76 SERMON VI. 
 
 over-run again and again by cruel armies of 
 heathens. Without Jerusalem was waste and 
 ruinsj bloodshed and wretchedness; Vvithin, every 
 kind of iniquity and lies, division and confusion. 
 If ever there ^^'as a miserable and contemptible 
 people upon the face of the earth, it Avas the 
 Jewish nation in Jeremiah's time. Jeremiah 
 makes no secret of it. His prophecies are full of 
 it — full of lamentation and shame : ' Oh that 
 my head were a fountain of tears, to weep for 
 the sins of my people !' He feels that God has 
 sent him to rebuke those sins, to warn and pro- 
 phesy to his fellow-countrymen the certain ruin 
 into Avhich they are rushing headlong; and he 
 speaks God's message boldly. From the poor 
 idol-ridden labourer, offering cakes to the Queen 
 of Heaven, to coax her into sending him a good 
 harvest, to the tyrant king, who had built his 
 palace of cedar, and painted it with vermillion, 
 he had a bitter word for every man. The lying 
 priest tried to silence him, and Jeremiah answered 
 him, that his wife should be a harlot in the city, 
 and his children sold for slaves. The king tried 
 to flatter him into being quiet; and he told him in 
 return, that he should be buried with the burial 
 of an ass, dragged out and cast forth beyond the 
 gates of Jerusalem. The luxurious queen, who 
 made her nest in the cedars, would be ashamed 
 and confounded, he said, for her wickedness.
 
 JEREMIAH'S CALLING. 77 
 
 The croNYn prince was a despised broken idol — 
 a vessel in which was no pleasure ; he should be 
 cast out, he and his children, into slavery in a 
 land which he knew not. The whole royal family, 
 he said, would perish ; none of them should ever 
 again prosper, or sit upon the throne of David. 
 This was his message ; shame and confusion, woe 
 and ruin, to high and low; every human being 
 he passed in the street was a doomed man. For 
 the day of the Lord was at hand, and who should 
 be able to escape it ? 
 
 A sad calling, truly, to have to work at ; and 
 all the more sad because Jeremiah had no pride, 
 no steadfast opinion of his own excellence to keep 
 him up. He hates his calling of prophet. At 
 the very moment he is foretelhng woe, he prays 
 God that his prophecy may not come true ; he 
 tries eveiy method to prevent its coming true, 
 by entreating his countrymen to repent. There 
 runs throucrh all liis awful words a vein of ten- 
 derness, and pity, and love unspeakable, which 
 to me is the one great mark of a true prophet ; 
 a sign that Jeremiah spoke by the Spirit of God : 
 a sign that too many wTiters now-a-days do 
 not speak by the Spirit of God. If they rebuke 
 the rich and powerful, they do it generally in a 
 very different spirit from Jeremiah's — in a spirit 
 of bitterness and insolence, not very easy to de- 
 scribe, but easy enough to perceive. They seem
 
 78 SEKMON Aa. ,: 
 
 1 
 
 to rejoice in evil, to delight in finding fault, to | 
 be sorry, and not glad, when their prophecies of \ 
 evil turn out false ; to try to set one class against 
 another, one party against another", as if we were 
 not miserably enough split up already by class 
 interests and party spirit. They are glad enough : 
 to rebuke the wicked great : but not to their face, ( 
 nor to their own danger and hurt, like Jeremiah. 
 Their plan is to accuse the rich to the poor, on ^ 
 their own platform, or in their own newspaper, 
 where they are safe ; and, moreover, to make a 
 very fair profit thereby; to say behind the back of 
 authorities that which they dare not say to their 
 face, and which they soon give up saying when 
 they have worked their own way to authority ; 
 and meanwhile take weighty credit to themselves 
 for seeing that there is wrong and misery in the 
 world; as if the spirits in hell should fancy 
 themselves righteous, because they hated the 
 devil ! No, my friends, Jeremiah was of a very 
 different spirit from that. If he ever Avas tempted 
 to it when he was young, and began to fancy 
 himself a very grand person, who had a right to 
 look down on his neighbours, because God had 
 called him and set him apart to be a prophet 
 from his mother's womb, and revealed to him the 
 doom of nations, and the secrets of His providence — 
 if he ever fancied that in his heart, God led him 
 through such an education as took all the pride
 
 jeeemiah's calling. 79 
 
 out of him, sternly and bitterly enough. He 
 was commissioned to go and speak terrible words, 
 to curse kino;s and nobles in the name of the 
 Lord : but he was taught, too, that it was not a 
 pleasant calling, or one which was likely to pay 
 him in this life. His fellow- villagers plotted 
 against his life. His wife deserted him. The 
 nobles threw him into a dungeon, into a well 
 full of mire, whence he had to be drawn up again 
 A^"ith ropes to save his life. He was beaten, all 
 but starved, kept for years in prison. He had 
 neither child nor friend. He had his share of all 
 the miseries of the siege of Jerusalem, and all 
 the horrors of its storm ; and when he was set 
 free by Nebuchadnezzar, and clung to his rumed 
 home, to see if any good could still be done to 
 the remnant of his countrymen, he was violently 
 carried off into a heathen land, and at last stoned 
 to death by those very countrymen of his whom 
 he had been trying for years to save. In every- 
 thing, and by everything, he was taught that he 
 was still a Jew, a brother to his sinfid brothers ; 
 that their sorrows were his sorrows, their shame 
 his shame, their ruin his ruin. In all their 
 afflictions he was afflicted, even as his Lord was 
 after him. 
 
 He struggled, we find, ao;ain and again against 
 this strange and sad calling of a prophet. He 
 cried out in bitter agony that God had deceived
 
 80 SERMON VI. 
 
 him ; had induced him to become a prophet, and 
 then repaid him for speaking God's message with 
 nothing but disappointment and misery. And 
 yet he felt he must speak; 'God,' he said, 'was 
 stronger than he was, and forced him to it.' He 
 said, ' I will speak no more words in His name ; 
 but the Word of the Lord was as fire within his 
 bones, and would not let him rest;' and so, in 
 spite of himself, he told the truth, and suffered for 
 it, and hated to have to speak, and pitied and 
 loved the very country which he rebuked, till he 
 cursed the day in which he saw the light, and the 
 hour in which it was said to his father, there is a 
 man-child born. You who- fancy that it is a 
 fine thing, and a paying profession, to be a 
 preacher of righteousness, and a rebuker of sin, 
 look at Jeremiah, and judge ! For as surely as 
 you or any other man is sent by God to do Jere- 
 miah's woi'k, so surely he must expect Jeremiah's 
 wao;es. 
 
 Do you think, then, that Jeremiah was a man 
 only to be pitied ? Pitiable he was indeed, and 
 sad. There was one huno- on a cross eigliteen 
 hundred years ago, more pitiable still : and yet He 
 is The Lord of heaven and earth. Yes ; Jeremiah 
 had a sad life to live, and a sad task to work out: 
 and yet, my friends, was not that a cheap price 
 to pay for the honour and glory of being taught 
 by God's Spirit, and of speaking God's words?
 
 Jeremiah's calling. 81 
 
 I do not mean the mere honour of havins; his 
 fame and name spread over all Christ's kingdom ; 
 the honour of havino; his writino;s read and re- 
 spected by the wisest and the holiest to the end of 
 time; that mere earthly fame is but a slight 
 matter. I mean the real honour, the real glory 
 of knowing what was utterly right and true, and 
 therefore of knowing Him who is utterly right 
 and true; of knowing God, of knowing what God's 
 character is ; that He is a living God, and not 
 a dead one ; a God who is near and not absent at 
 all, loving and merciful, just and righteous, strong 
 and mighty to save. Ay, my friends, this is the 
 lesson which God taught Jeremiah; to know the 
 Lord of heaven and earth, and to see His hand. 
 His rule, in all that was happening to his fellow- 
 countrymen, and himself; to know that from the 
 beginning the Lord, the Saviour-God, Jehovah, 
 the messenger of the covenant. He who brought 
 up the Jews out of Egypt, was the wise and just 
 and loving King of the Jews, and of all the nations 
 upon earth ; and that some day or other He must 
 and would conquer all the sinfulness, and misery, 
 and tyranny, and idolatry in the world, and show 
 Himself openly to men, and fulfil all the piteous 
 longings after a just and good king which poor 
 wretches had ever felt, and all the glorious pro- 
 mises of a just and good king which God had 
 made to the wise men of old time ; and, therefore, 
 
 F
 
 82 SERMON VI. ' 
 
 I 
 
 in tlie midst of shame and persecution, despaif j 
 and ruin, Jeremiah could rejoice. Jehoiakim, 
 the wicked kinfr^ and all his royal house, might | 
 be driven out into slavery ; Jerusalem might be- 
 come a heap of ruins and corpses ; the fair land ) 
 of Judea, and the village where he was bred, I 
 might become thorns, and thistles, and heaps of ' 
 stones ; the vineyard which he loved, the little 
 estate which had belonged to him, might be ; 
 trodden down by the stranger, and he him- ' 
 self die in a foreign land ; around him might be 
 nothing but sin and decay, before him nothing i 
 but despair and ruin : yet still there was hope, i 
 joy, everlasting certainty for that poor, cliildless, i 
 captive old man ; for he had found out that ; 
 the Lord still lived, the Lord still reigned. > 
 He could not lie ; He could not forget his 
 people. Could a mother forget her sucking 
 child? No. When the Jews turned to Him, 
 He would still have mercy. His punishment 
 of them was a sio;n that He still cared for them. 
 If He had forgotten them. He would have let i 
 them go on triumphant in their iniquity. No. | 
 All these afflictions were meant to chasten them, ! 
 teach them, bring them back to Him. It would be : 
 good for them, an actual blessing to them, to be ' 
 taken away into captivity in Babylon. It might 
 be hard to believe, but it must be true. The Lord 
 of Israel, the Saviour- God, who had been ;
 
 Jeremiah's calling. 83 
 
 caring for them so long, rising up early and 
 sending His prophets to them, pleading with them 
 as a father with his child, He would have mercy ; 
 He w^ould teach them, in sorrow and slavery, the 
 lesson they Avere too rebellious and hard-hearted 
 to learn in prosperity and freedom : that the 
 Lord was their righteousness, and that there was 
 no other name under heaven which could save 
 them from the plague, and from the famine, from 
 the swords of the Chaldeans, or from the division, 
 and oppression, and brutislmess, and manifold 
 wickedness, which was their ruin. And then 
 Jeremiah saw and felt — how we cannot tell — but 
 there his words, the words of this text, stand to 
 this day, to show that he did see and feel it, that 
 some day or other, in God's good time, the Jews 
 would have a true Eang — a very different king 
 from Jehoiakim the tyi'ant — a son of David in 
 a very different sense from wdiat Jehoiakim 
 was ; that He would come, and must come, 
 sooner or later. The unseen King, who had all 
 along been governing Jews and heathens, and 
 telling his prophets that Nebuchadnezzar and 
 Cyi'us, the Chaldee and the Persian, were his 
 servants as well as they, and that all the 
 nations of the earth could do but what he 
 chose. 'Behold the days come, saith the 
 Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous 
 Brancli, and a King shall reign and prosper,
 
 84 SERMON VI. 
 
 and shall execute justice and judgment on the 
 earth.' 
 
 This was the blessed knowledge which God 
 gave Jeremiah in return for all the misery he 
 had to endure in warning his countrymen of their 
 sins. And this same blessed knowledge, the know- 
 ledge that the earth is the Lord's, that to Jesus 
 Christ is given, as He said Himself, all power in 
 heaven and earth, and that He is reigning, and 
 must reign, and conquer, and triumph till He has 
 put all His enemies under His feet, God wiU surely 
 give to every one, high or low, who follows Jere- 
 miah's example, who boldly and faithfully warns 
 the sinner of his way, who rebukes the wickedness 
 which he sees around him : oidy he must do it in 
 the spirit of Jeremiah. He must not be insolent 
 to the insolent, or proud to the proud. He must 
 not be puffed up, and fancy that because he sees 
 the evil of sin, and the certain ruin which is the 
 fruit of it, that he is therefore to keep apart from 
 his fellow-countrymen, and despise them in 
 Pharisaic pride. No. The truly christian man, 
 the man who, like Jeremiah, has the Spirit of 
 God in him, will feel the most intense pity and 
 tenderness for sinners. He will not only rebuke 
 the sins of his people, but mourn for them ; he 
 will be afflicted in all their affliction. However 
 harshly he may have to speak, he will never forget 
 that they are his countrymen, his brothers.
 
 JEREMIAH'S CALLING. 85 
 
 children of the same Father, to be judged by the 
 same Lord. He will feel with shame and fear 
 that he has in himself the root of the very same 
 sins which he sees working death around him — 
 that if others are covetous, he might be so too — 
 if they be profligate, and deceitful, and hypocri- 
 tical, without God in the world, he might be so 
 too. And not only that he might be as bad as 
 his neighbours, but that he actually would be, if 
 God withdrew His Spirit from him a moment, 
 and allowed him to forget the only faith which 
 saves him from sin, loyalty to his unseen Saviour, 
 the righteous King of kings. Therefore he will 
 not only rebuke his sinful neighboui's, but he will 
 tell them, as Jeremiah told his countrymen, that all 
 their sin and misery proceed fi'om this one thing, 
 that they have forgotten that the Lord is their 
 King. He will pray daily for them, that the 
 Lord their King will show Himself to their hearts 
 and thoughts, and teach them all that He has done 
 for them, and is doing for them, and convert them 
 to Himself, that they may be truly His people, and 
 His way may be known upon earth. His saving 
 health among all nations.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE PERFECT KING. 
 
 Matthew xxi. 5. 
 
 • Tell ye the daughter ofZion, Behold, thy King cometh to 
 thee, meeh, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal 
 of an ass.' 
 
 You all know that tliis Sunday is called the First 
 Sunday in Advent. You all know, I hope, that 
 advent means coming, and that these four Sun- 
 days before Christmas, as I have often told you, 
 are called Advent Sundays, because upon them 
 we are called to consider the coming of our King 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ. If you will look at 
 the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for these next 
 four Sundays, you will see at once that they all 
 bear upon our Lord's coming. The Gospels tell 
 us of the prophecies about Christ which He ful- 
 filled when He came. The Epistles tell us what 
 sort of men we ought to be, both clergy and 
 people, because He has come and will come again. 
 The Collects pray that the Spirit of God would 
 make us fit to live and die in a world into which 
 Christ has come, and in which He is ruling now, 
 and to which He will come again. The text
 
 THE PERFECT KESTG. 87 
 
 ^'hlch I liave taken this morning, you just heard 
 in this Sunday's Gospel. St iMatthew tells you 
 that Jesus Christ fidfiUed it by riding into Jeru- 
 salem in state upon an ass's colt; and St Matthew 
 speaks truth. Let us consider what the prophecy 
 is, and how Jesus Christ fulfilled it. Then we 
 shall see and believe from the Epistle what effect 
 the knowledge of it ought to have upon our own 
 souls, and hearts, and daily conduct. Now this 
 prophecy, * Behold thy King cometh unto thee,' 
 etc., you will find in your Bibles, in the ninth verse 
 of the ninth chapter of the book of Zechariah. 
 But I do not think that Zechariah wrote it. St 
 Matthew does not say he wrote it; he merely calls 
 it that which was spoken by the prophet, without 
 mentioning his name. Provided it is an inspired 
 word from God, which it is, it perhaps does not 
 matter to us so much who ^vrote it ; but I think 
 it was written by the prophet Jeremiah, perhaps 
 in the beginning of the reign of the good king 
 Josiah ; for the chapter in which this text is, and 
 the two or three chapters which follow, are not at 
 all like the rest of Zechariah's writings, but 
 exactly like Jeremiah's. They certainly seem to 
 speak of things which did not happen in Zecha- 
 riah's time, but in the time of Jeremiah, nearly 
 ninety years before. And, above all, St Matthew 
 himself seems plainly to have thought that some 
 part, at least, of those chapters was Jeremiah's
 
 88 . SERMON VII. 
 
 writing ; for in tlie twenty-seventh chapter of St 
 Matthew's Gospel, and in the ninth verse, you 
 will find a prophecy about the potter's field, 
 which St Matthew says was spoken by Jeremiah 
 the prophet. Now, those words are not in the 
 book of Jeremiah as it stands in our Bibles : 
 but they are in the book of Zechariah, in the 
 eleventh chapter, twelfth and thirteenth verses, 
 coming shortly after my text, and making a 
 part of the same prophecy. This has puzzled 
 christians very much, because it seemed as if St 
 Matthew has made a mistake, and miscalled 
 Zechariah Jeremiah. But I believe firmly that, 
 as we are bound to expect, St Matthew made 
 no mistake whatsoever, and that Jeremiah did 
 write that prophecy as St Matthew said, and the 
 two chapters before it, and perhaps the two after 
 it, and that they were probably kept and preserved 
 by Zechariah during the troublous times of the 
 Babylonish captivity, and at last copied by Nehe- 
 miah into Zechariah's book of propliecy, where 
 they stand now ; and I think it is a great comfort 
 to know this, and to find that the evangelist St 
 Matthew has not made a mistake, but knew the 
 scriptures better than we do. 
 
 But I think Jeremiah having written this pro- 
 phecy in my text, which I believe he did, is also 
 very important, because it will show us what the 
 prophet meant when he spoke it, and how it was
 
 THE PERFECT KING. 89 
 
 fulfilled in his time; and the better we understand 
 that, the better we shall understand how our 
 blessed Lord fulfilled it afterwards. 
 
 Now, when Jeremiah was a young man, the 
 Jews and their king Anion were in a state of 
 most abominable wickedness. They were wor- 
 shipping every sort of idol and false god. And 
 the Bible, the book of God's law, was utterly 
 unknown among them ; so that Josiah the king, 
 who succeeded Anion, had never even seen or 
 heard the book of the law of Moses, which makes 
 part of our Old Testament, till he had reigned 
 eighteen years, as you will find if you refer to 
 2 Kings xxii. 3. But this Josiah was a gentle 
 and just prince, and finding the book of the law of 
 God, and seeing the abominable forgetfulness and 
 idolatry into which his people had fallen, utterly 
 breaking the covenant which God had made 
 with their forefathers when He brought them 
 up out of Egypt — when he found the book of 
 the law, I say, and all that he and his people 
 should have done and had not done, and the 
 awful curses which God threatened in that book 
 against those who broke His law, ' he humbled 
 himself before God, because his heart was tender, 
 and turned to the Lord, as no king before 
 him had ever turned,' says the scrij)tures, ' with 
 all his heart, and with all his soul, and with 
 all his might; so that there was no such king
 
 90 SEEMON VII. 
 
 before liim, or either after him.' The history 
 of the great reformation which this great and 
 good king worked, you may read at length in 
 2 Kings xxii., xxiii., and 2 Chron. xxxiv., xxxv., 
 which I advise you all to read. 
 
 And it appears to me that this prophecy in 
 the text first applies to the gentle and holy king 
 Josiah, the first true and good king the Jews 
 had had for years, and the best they were ever 
 to have till Christ came Himself; and that it 
 speaks of Josiah coming to Jerusalem to restore 
 the worship of God, not with pomp and show, 
 like the wicked kings both before and after him, 
 but in meekness and humbleness of heart, for all 
 the sins of his people, as the prophetess said of 
 him in 2 Kings xxii. 19, ' that his heart was ten- 
 der and humble before the Lord ;' neither coming 
 with chariots and guards, like a king and con- 
 queror, but riding upon an ass's colt; for that 
 was, in those countries, the ancient sign of a 
 man's being a man of peace, and not of war; 
 a magistrate and lawgiver, and not a soldier and 
 a conqueror. Various places of holy scripture 
 show us that this was the meaning of riding upon 
 an ass in Judea, just as it is in Eastern countries 
 now. 
 
 But some may say, how then is this a pro- 
 phecy? It merely tells us what good king 
 Josiah was, and what every king ought to be.
 
 THE PEEPECT KING. 91 
 
 Well, my friends, that is just what makes it a 
 prophecy. If it tells you what ought to be, it 
 tells you what will be. Yes, never forget that ; 
 whatever ought to be, surely will be ; as surely as 
 this is God's earth and Christ's kingdom, and 
 not the devil's. 
 
 Now, it does not matter in the least whether 
 the prophet, when he spoke these words, knew 
 that they would apply to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 We have no right whatsoever to suppose that he 
 did; for scripture gives us no hint or warrant that 
 he did; and if we have any real or honest reverence 
 for scripture, we shall be careful to let it tell its 
 own story, and believe that it contains all things 
 necessary for salvation, without our patching our 
 own notions into it over and above. Wise men 
 are generally agreed that those old prophets did 
 not, for the most part, comprehend the full 
 meaning of their own words. Not that they 
 were mere puppets and mouth-pieces, speaking 
 what to them Avas nonsense. God forbid ! But 
 that just because they did thoroughly under- 
 stand what was going on round them, and see 
 things as God saw them, just because they had 
 God's Eternal Spirit with them, therefore they 
 spoke gi'eat and eternal words, which will be 
 true for ever, and go on for ever fulfilling them- 
 selves more and more. For in proportion as any 
 man's words are true, and wide, and deep, they
 
 92 SERMON VII. 
 
 are truer, and wider, and deeper than that man 
 thinks, and will apply to a thousand matters of 
 which he never dreamt. And so in all true and 
 righteous speech ; as in the speeches of the 
 prophets of old, the glory is not man's who speaks 
 them, but God's who reveals them, and who 
 fulfils them again and again. 
 
 It is true, then, that this text describes what 
 every king should be — gentle and humble, a 
 merciful and righteous lawgiver, not a self- 
 willed and capricious tyrant. But Josiah could 
 not fulfil that. He was a good king; but he 
 could not be a perfect one ; for he was but a 
 poor, sinful, weak, and inconsistent man, as we 
 are. But those words being inspired by the 
 Holy Spirit, must be fulfilled. There ought to 
 be a perfect king, perfectly gentle and humble, 
 having a perfect salvation, a perfect lawgiver ; 
 and therefore there must be such a king; and 
 therefore St INIatthew tells us there came at last 
 a perfect king — one who fulfilled perfectly the 
 prophet's words — one who was not made king of 
 Jerusalem, but was her King from the beginning ; 
 for that is the full meaning of ' Thy King cometh 
 to thee.' To Jerusalem He came, riding on the 
 ass's colt, like the peaceful and fatherly judges of 
 old time, for a sign to the poor -wretches round 
 Him, who had no lawgiver but the proud and 
 fierce scribes and Pharisees, no king but the
 
 THE PERFECT KING. 93 
 
 cruel and godless Caesar, and his oppressive and 
 extortionate officers and troops. Meek and lowly 
 He came; and for once the people saw that He 
 was the true Son of David — a man and king, like 
 him, after God's own heart. For once they felt 
 that He had come in the name of the Lord, the 
 old Deliverer who broiTo;ht them out of the land 
 of Egypt, and made them into a nation, and 
 loved and pitied them still, in spite of all their 
 sins, and remembered His covenant, which they 
 had forgotten. And before that humble man, the 
 Son of the village maiden, they cried, ' Hosanna, 
 to the Son of David. Blessed is He that cometh 
 in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the 
 hio-hest.' 
 
 O 
 
 And do you think He came, the true and 
 perfect King, only to go away again and leave 
 this world as it was before, without a law, a 
 ruler, a heavenly kingdom ? God forbid ! Jesus 
 is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 What He was then, when He rode in triumph 
 into Jerusalem, that is He now to us this day — 
 a king, meek and lowly, and having salvation ; 
 the head and founder of a kina;dom which can 
 never be moved, a city which has foundations, 
 whose builder and maker is God. To that king- 
 dom this land of England now belonc-s. Into it 
 we, as Englishmen, have been christened. And 
 the unchristened, though they know not of it,
 
 94 SERMON vir. 
 
 belong to it as well. What God's will, what 
 Christ's mercies may be to them, we know not. 
 That He has mercy for them, if their ignorance 
 is not their own fault, we doubt not; perhaps, 
 even if their ignorance be their own fault, we 
 need not doubt that He has mercy for them, 
 considering the mercy which He has shown to 
 us, who deserved no more than they. But His 
 will to us we do know ; and His will is this — our 
 holiness. For He came not only to assert His 
 own power, to redeem His own world, but to set 
 His people, the children of men, an example, that 
 they should follow in His steps. Herein, too. 
 He is the perfect king. He leads His subjects. 
 He sets a perfect example to His subjects, and 
 more. He inspires them with the power of follow- 
 ing that example, as, if you will think, a perfect 
 ruler ought to be able to do. Josiah set the Jews 
 an example, but he could not make them follow it. 
 They turned to God at the bidding of their good 
 king, with their lips, in their outward conduct; 
 but their hearts were still far from Him. Jeremiah 
 complains bitterly of this in the beginning of his 
 prophecies. He complains that Josiah's refor- 
 mation was after all empty, hollow, hypocritical, 
 a change on the surface only, while the wicked 
 root was left. They had healed, he said, the 
 hurt of the daughter of his people slightly, crying, 
 ' Peace, peace, when there was no peace.' But
 
 THE PEEFECT KING. 95 
 
 Jesus, the perfect King, is King of men's spirits 
 as well as of their bodies. He can turn the 
 heart. He can renew the soul. None so ignorant, 
 none so sinful, none so crushed down with evil 
 habits, but the Lord will and can forgive him, 
 raise him up, enlighten him, strengthen him, if 
 he will but claim his share in His King s mercy, 
 his citizenship in the heavenly kingdom, and so 
 put himself in tune again with himself, and with 
 heaven, and earth, and all therein. 
 
 Keeping in mmd these things, that Jesus, be- 
 cause He is our perfect King, is both the example 
 and the inspirer of our souls and characters, we 
 may look without fear at the epistle for the day, 
 where it calls on us to be very different persons 
 from what we are, and declares to us our duty as 
 subjects of Him who is meek and lowly, just and 
 having salvation. It is no superstitious, slavish, 
 popish message, saying: 'You have lost Christ's 
 mercy and Christ's kingdom; you must buy it 
 back again by sacrifices, and tears, and hard 
 penances, or gi'eat alms-deeds and works of mercy.' 
 No. It simply says, ' You belong to Christ already, 
 give up your hearts to Him and follow His example. 
 If He is perfect. His is the example to follow ; if 
 He is perfect. His commandments must be perfect, 
 fit for all places, all times all employments ; if 
 He is the King of heaven and earth, His com- 
 mandments must be in tune with heaven and
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 96 SERMON VII. • 
 
 i 
 earth, with the laws of nature, the true laws of I 
 
 society and trade, with the constitution, and busi- 
 ness, and duty, and happiness of all mankind, 
 and for ever obey Him.' j 
 
 Owe no man anything save love, for He owed ' 
 no man anything. He gave up all, even His own '< 
 rights, for a time, for His subjects. Will you pre- i 
 tend to follow Him while you hold back from your | 
 brothers and fellow-servants their just due ? j 
 One debt you must always owe ; one debt will ; 
 grow the more you pay it, and become more] 
 delightful to owe, the greater and heavier you feel i 
 it to be, and that is love ; love to all around you, j 
 for all around you are your brothers and sisters ; | 
 all around you are the beloved subjects of your j 
 King and Saviour. Love them as you love your- j 
 self, and then you cannot harm them, you cannot j 
 tyrannise over them, you cannot wish to rise by - 
 scrambling up on their shoulders, taking the i 
 bread out of their mouths, making yom- profit I 
 out of their weakness and their need. This, St | 
 Paul says, was the duty of men in his time, be- 
 cause the night of heathendom was far spent, the 
 day of Christianity and the church was at hand. \ 
 Much more is it our duty now — our duty, who j 
 have been born in the full sunshine of Christianity, \ 
 christened into His church as children, we and our i 
 fathers before us, for generations, of the kingdom ! 
 of God. Ay, my friends, these words, that !
 
 THE PERFECT KING. 97 
 
 kingdom, that King, witness this day against this 
 land of England. Not merely against popery, 
 the mote which we are trying to take out of 
 the foreigner's eye, but against mammon, the 
 beam which we are overlooking in our own. 
 Owe no man anything save love. '■ Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself.' That is the 
 law of your King, who loved not Himself or His 
 own profit, His own glory, but gave Himself even 
 to death for those who had forgotten Him and 
 rebelled against Him. That law witnesses against 
 selfishness and idleness in rich and ]X)or. It wit- 
 nesses against the employer who grinds down his 
 workmen; who, as the world tells him he has a 
 right to do, takes advantage of their numbers, 
 their ignorance, their low habits and wants, to 
 put into his own purse the profits of their labour. 
 It witnesses against the tradesman who tries to 
 draw away his neiglibour's custom. It witnesses 
 against the working man who spends in the ale- 
 house the wages which might support and raise 
 his children, and then falls back recklessly and 
 dishonestly on the parish rates and the alms of 
 the charitable. Against them all this law wit- 
 nesses. These things are unfit for the kincfdom 
 of Christ, contrary to the laws and constitution 
 thereof, hateful to the King tliereof ; and if a 
 nation will not amend these abominations, the 
 King will arise out of His place, and with sore 
 
 G
 
 98 SEEMON VII. 
 
 judgments and terrible He will visit His land and 
 purify His temple, saying, 'My Father's house 
 should be a house of prayer, and ye have made it 
 a den of thieves.' Ay, woe to any soul, or to any 
 nation, which, instead of putting on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, copying His example, and obeying 
 His laws, and living worthy of His king- 
 dom, not only in the church, but in the market, 
 the shop, the senate, or the palace, give them- 
 selves up to covetousness, which is idolatry, and 
 care only to make provision for the flesh to fulfil 
 the lusts thereof. Woe to them, for, let them be 
 what they will, their King cannot change. He 
 is still meek and lowly. He is still just and 
 having salvation, and He will purge out of His 
 kingdom all that is not like Himself, the unchaste 
 and the idle, the unjust and the unmercifid, 
 and the covetous man, who is an idolater, says the 
 scripture, though he may call himself seven 
 times a Protestant, and rail at the Pope in public 
 meetings, while he justifies greediness and 
 tyranny by glib words about the necessities of 
 business and the laws of trade, and by philosophy 
 falsely so called, which cometh not from above, 
 but is earthly, sensual, devilish. Such a man 
 loves and makes a lie, and the Lord of truth will 
 surely send him to his own place.
 
 VIII. 
 
 OOD'S WARNINGS. 
 
 Jeremiah xxxvi. 3. 
 
 ^ It may he that the house ofjudah will hear all the evil 
 which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return 
 every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their 
 iniquity and their sin.' 
 
 The first lesson for this evening's service tells us 
 of the wickedness of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. 
 How, when Jeremiah's prophecies against the 
 sins of him and the people were read before him, 
 he cut the roll with a penknife, and threw it into 
 the fire. Kow, we must not look on this story 
 as one which, because it happened among the 
 Jews many hundred years ago, has nothing to 
 do with us; for, as I continually remind you, 
 the history of the Jews, and the whole Old 
 Testament, is the history of God's dealings with 
 man — the account of God's plan of governing 
 this world. Now, God cannot change; but is 
 the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and 
 therefore His plan of government cannot change : 
 but if men do as those did of whom we read
 
 100 SERMON VIII. 
 
 in the Old Testament, God will surely deal 
 with them as He dealt with the men of the Old 
 Testament. This St Paul tells us most plainly 
 in the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where he 
 says that the whole history of the Jews was 
 written for our example — that is, for the example 
 of those christian Corinthians, who were not 
 Jews at all, but Gentiles as we are ; and therefore 
 for our example also. 
 
 He tells them that it was Christ Himself, the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who fed and guided the old 
 Jews in the wilderness, and that the Lord will 
 deal with us exactly as He dealt -with the old 
 Jews. 
 
 Therefore it is a great and fearful mistake, to 
 suppose that because the Jews were a peculiar 
 people and God's chosen nation, that therefore 
 the Lord's way of governing them is in any wise 
 different from His way of governing us English 
 at tliis very day; for that fancy is contrary 
 to the express words of Holy Scripture, in a 
 hundred different places; it is contrary to the 
 whole spirit of our Prayer Book, which is written 
 all through on the belief that the Lord deals with 
 us just as He did with the Jewish nation, and 
 which will not even make sense if it be understood 
 in any other way ; and besides, it is most dan- 
 gerous to the souls and consciences of men. It 
 is most dangerous for us to fancy that God can
 
 -m. 
 
 god's warnings. 101 
 
 change ; for if God can change, right and wrong 
 can change ; for right is the will of God, and 
 wrong is what is against His will ; and if we once 
 let into our hearts the notion that God can change 
 His laws of right, our consciences will become 
 daily dimmer and more confused about right and 
 wrong, till we fall, as too many do, under the 
 prophet's curse, ' Woe to them who call good evil, 
 and evil good; who put sv.eet for bitter, and 
 bitter for sw^eet,' and fancy, like Ezekiel's Jews, 
 that God's ways are unequal, that is, unlike 
 each other, changeable, fanciful, and capricioiis, 
 and doino; one thino; at one time, and another at 
 another. No. It is sinful man who is change- 
 able ; it is sinful man who is fanciful. But The 
 Lord is not a man, that He should lie or repent ; 
 for He is the only-begotten Son, and therefore the 
 express likeness, of The Everlasting Father, in 
 whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning. 
 
 But some may say, Is not that a gloomy and 
 tei'rible notion of God, that He cannot change 
 His purpose? Is not that as much as to say that 
 there is a dark necessity hanging over each of 
 us ; that a man must just be w'hat God chooses, 
 and do just what He has ordained to do, and go 
 to everlasting happiness or misery exactly as 
 God has foreordained from all eternity, so that 
 there is no use trying to do right, or not to do 
 wrong ? If I am to be saved, say such people, I
 
 102 SERMON VIII. 
 
 shall be saved whether I try or not ; and if I ara 
 to be damned, I shall be damned whether I try 
 or not. I am in God's hands like clay in the 
 hands of the potter; and Avhat I ara like is 
 therefore God's business, and not mine. 
 
 No, my friends, the very texts in the Bible 
 which tell us that God cannot change or repent, 
 tell us what it is that He cannot change in, — in 
 showing loving-kindness and tender mercy, long- 
 suffering, and repenting of the evil. Whatsoever 
 else He cannot repent of, He cannot repent of 
 repenting of the evil. 
 
 It is true, we are in His hand as clay in the 
 hand of the potter. But it is a sad misreading 
 of scripture to make that mean that we are to 
 sit with our hands folded, careless about our own 
 way and conduct ; still less that we are to give 
 ourselves up to despair, because we have sinned 
 against God ; for what is the very verse which 
 follows after that "? Listen. ' O house of Israel, 
 cannot I do with you as this potter ? saith the 
 Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the hand of the 
 potter, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. 
 At what instant I shall speak concerning a king- 
 dom, to pull down and destroy it ; if that nation 
 against whom I have pronounced, turn from their 
 evil, I will repent of the evil which I thought to 
 do to them. And at what instant I shall speak 
 concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom.
 
 god's wahnings. 103 
 
 to build and to plant it ; if it do evil in my sight, 
 that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of 
 the good wherewith I said I wdll benefit them.' 
 
 So that the lesson which we are to draw from 
 the parable of the potter's clay is just the exact 
 opposite which some men draw. Not that God's 
 decrees are absolute : but that they are conditional, 
 and depend on our good or evil conduct. Not 
 that his election or his reprobation are unalterable, 
 but that they alter ' at that instant' at which man 
 alters. Not that His gi'ace and will are irresistible, 
 as the foolish man against whom St Paul argues 
 fancies : but that we can resist Grod's will, and 
 that our destruction comes only by resisting His 
 \vill ; in short, that God's will is no brute material 
 necessity and fate, but the will of a living, loving 
 Father. 
 
 And the very same lesson is taught us in 
 Ezek. xviii., of which I spoke just now ; for if 
 we read that chapter we shall find that the Jews 
 had a false notion of God that He had changed 
 His character, and had become in their time 
 unmerciful and unjust. They fancied that God 
 was, if I may so speak, obstinate — that if His 
 anger had once arisen, there was no turning it 
 away, but that He would go on without pity, 
 punishing the innocent children for their father s 
 sin; and therefore they fancied God's ways 
 were unfair, self-willed and obstinate, without
 
 104 SERMON VIII. 
 
 any care of what sort of person He afflicted, 
 punishing the righteous as well as the wicked, 
 after He had promised in His law to reward the 
 righteous and punish the wicked. They fancied 
 that His way of governing the world had changed, 
 and that He did not in their days make a difference 
 between the bad and the good. Therefore Ezekiel 
 says to them, ' When the righteous man turneth 
 away from his righteousness, he shall die.' 
 ' When the wicked man turneth away from his 
 wickedness, he shall live.' ' Have I any pleasure 
 at all that the wicked should die ? saith the Lord 
 God, and not that he should return from his 
 ways, and live T 
 
 This, then, is the good news, that God is love; 
 love when He punishes, and love when He for- 
 gives; very pitiful, and full of long-suffering and 
 tender mercy, and repenting Him, never of the 
 good, but only of the evil which He threatens. 
 
 Both Jeremiah, therefore, and Ezekiel, give us 
 the same lesson. God does not change, and 
 therefore He never changes His mercy and His 
 justice ; for He is merciful because He is just. 
 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to 
 forgive us our sins. That is His everlasting law, 
 and has been from the beginning. Punishment, 
 sure and certain, for those who do not repent ; 
 and free forgiveness, sure and certain also, for 
 those who do repent.
 
 god's warnings. 105 
 
 So He spoke to Jeremiah in the time of Jeho- 
 iakim : ' It may be that the house of Judah will 
 hear all the evil that I purpose to do to them ; 
 that I may forgive them their iniquity and their 
 sin.' The Lord, you see, wishes to forgive — longs 
 to forgive. His heart yearns over sinful men as 
 a father's over his rebellious child. But if they 
 will still rebel, if they will still turn their wicked 
 wills away from Him, He must punish. Why 
 we know not ; but He knows. Punish He must, 
 unless we repent — vinless we turn our wills to- 
 ward His will. And woe to the stiff-necked and 
 stout-hearted man who, like the wicked king 
 Jehoiakim, sets his face like a flint against God's 
 warnings. How many, how many behave for 
 years, Sunday after Sunday, just as king Jeho- 
 iakim did ! When he heard that God had 
 threatened him with ruin for his sins, he heard 
 also that God offered him free pardon if he would 
 repent. Jeremiah gave him free choice to be 
 saved or -to be ruined ; but his heart and will 
 were hardened. Hearing that he was wrong 
 only made him angry. His pride and self-will 
 were hurt by being told that he must change and 
 alter his ways. He liad cliosen his way, and he 
 would keep to it ; and he cared nothing for God's 
 offers of forgiveness, because he could not be for- 
 given unless he did what he was too proud to do, 
 confess himself to be in the wrong, and openly
 
 106 SERMON VIII. 
 
 alter his conduct. And how many, as I first said, 
 are hke him ! They come to church ; they hear 
 God's warnings and threats against their evil 
 ways ; they hear God's offers of free pardon and 
 forgiveness ; but being told that they are in the 
 wrong makes them too angry to care for God's 
 offers of pardon. Pride stops their ears. They 
 have chosen their own way, and they will keep it. 
 They would not object to be forgiven, if they 
 might be forgiven without repenting. But they 
 do not like to confess themselves in the wrong. 
 They do not like to face their foolish companions' 
 remarks and sneers about their changed ways. 
 They do not like even good people to say of them, 
 ' You see now that you were in the wrong after 
 all; for you have altered your mind and your 
 doings yourself, as we told you you would have 
 to do.' No ; anything sooner than confess them- 
 selves in the wrong ; and so they turn their backs 
 on God's mercy, for the sake of their own carnal 
 pride and self-will. 
 
 But, of com'se, they want an excuse for doing 
 that ; and when a man wants an excuse, the devil 
 will soon fit him with a good one. Then, perhaps, 
 the foolish sinner behaves as Jehoiakim did. He 
 tries to forget God's message in the man who brings 
 it. He grows angry with the preacher, or goes out 
 and laughs at the preacher when service is over, 
 as if it was the preacher's fault that God had
 
 god's waenestgs. 107 
 
 declared what lie has ; as if it was the preacher's 
 doing that God has revealed His anger against 
 all sin and unrighteousness. So he acts like 
 Jehoiakim, who tried to take Jeremiah the pro- 
 phet and punish him, for what not he but the 
 Lord God had declared. Nay, they will often 
 peevishly hate the \ery sight of a good book, be- 
 cause it reminds them of the sins of which they 
 do not choose to be reminded, just as the young 
 kins Jehoiakim was childish enouo-h to vent his 
 spite on Jeremiah's book of prophecies, by cutting 
 the roll on which it was written with a pen- 
 knife, and throwing it into the fire. So do 
 sinners who are angry with the preacher who 
 warns them, or hate the sight of good books. 
 But let such foolish and wilful sinners, such full- 
 grown children — for, after all, they are no better 
 — hear the word of the Lord which came to 
 Jehoiakim : ' As it is written, He that despiseth 
 me shall be despised, saith the Lord.' And let 
 them not fancy that their shutting their ears will 
 shut the preacher's mouth, still less shut up God's 
 everlasting laws of punishment for sin. No. 
 God's word stands true, and it will happen to 
 them as it did to Jehoiakim. His burning Jere- 
 miah's book did not rid him of the book, or save 
 him from the woe and ruin which was prophesied 
 in it ; for we have Jeremiah's book here in our 
 Bibles to this day, as a sign and a warning of
 
 108 SERMON VIII. 
 
 what happens to men, be they young or old, be 
 they kings or labouring men, who fight against 
 God. Jeremiali's words were not lost after all; 
 they were all re-written, and there were added 
 to them also many more like words ; for Jehoia- 
 kim, by refusing the Lord's offer of pardon, had 
 added to his sins, and therefore the Lord added 
 to his punishment. 
 
 Or perhaps the devil finds the wilful sinner 
 another excuse, and the man says to himself, 
 as the Jews did in Ezekiel's time, ' The fathers 
 have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth 
 are set on edge. It is not my own fault that I 
 am living a bad life, but other people's. My 
 parents ought to have brought me up better. I 
 have had no chance. My companions taught me 
 too much harm. I have too much trouble to 
 get my living; or, I was bom with a bad temper; 
 or, I can't help running after pleasure. Why 
 did God make me the sort of man I am, and put 
 me AY here I am I God is hard upon me ; He is 
 unfair to me. His ways are unequal ; He 
 expects as much of me as He does of people who 
 have more opportunities. He threatens to punish 
 me for other people's sins.' 
 
 And then comes another and a darker tempta- 
 tion over the man, and the devil whispers to him 
 such thoughts as these, — ' God does not care for 
 me ; God hates me. Luck, and everything else,
 
 god's warnings. 109 
 
 is against me. There seems to be some curse 
 upon me. Why should I change ? Let God 
 change first to me, and then I will change toward 
 Him, But God will not change ; He has deter- 
 mined to have no mercy on me. I can see that ; 
 for .everything goes wrong with me. Then what 
 use in my repentfhg? I will just go my own 
 way, and what must be must. There is no re- 
 sisting God's will. If I am to be saved, I shall 
 be ; if I am to be damned, I shall be. I will put 
 all melancholy thoughts out of my head, and go 
 and enjoy myself and forget all. At all events, 
 it won't last long: "Let me eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow I die." ' 
 
 Oh, my dear friends, have not some of you 
 sometimes had such thoughts ? Then hear the 
 word of the Lord to you. ' When — whensoever — 
 whensoever — the wicked man turneth away from 
 his wickedness which he hath committed, and 
 doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall 
 save his soul alive.' ' Have I any pleasure in 
 the death of him that dieth ? saith the Lord, and 
 not rather that he should be converted, and live?' 
 True, most true ; The Lord is unchangeable : 
 but it is in love and mercy. True ; God's will 
 and law cannot alter: but what is God's will 
 and law? The soul that sinneth, it shall die? 
 Yes. But also, the soul that turneth away from
 
 110 SEKMON VIII. 
 
 its sin, it shall live. Never believe the devil 
 when he tells you that God hates you. Never 
 believe him when he tells you that God has been 
 too hard on you, and put you into such tempta- 
 tion, or ignorance, or poverty, or anything else, 
 that you cannot mend. No. That font there 
 M'ill give the devil the lie. That font says, ' Be 
 you poor, tempted, ignorant, stupid, be you 
 what you will, you are God's child — your Father's 
 love is over you. His mercy is ready for you.' 
 You feel too weak to change ; ask God's Spirit, 
 and He will give you a strength of mind you 
 never felt before. You feel too proud to change ; 
 ask God's Spirit, and He will hiimble your 
 proud heart, and soften yom' hard heart; and you 
 will find to your surprise, that when your pride 
 is gone, when you are utterly ashamed of your- 
 self, and see your sins in their true blackness, 
 and feel not worthy to look up to God, that then, 
 instead of pride, will come a nobler, holier, man- 
 lier feeling — self-respect, and a clear conscience, 
 and the thought that, weak and sinful as you are, 
 you are in the right way ; that God, and the 
 angels of God, are smiling on you ; that you are 
 in tune again with all heaven and earth, because 
 you are what God wills you to be — not His proud, 
 peevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong 
 enough to go alone, when in reality you are the
 
 god's WAENINGS. Ill 
 
 slave of your own passions and appetites, and the 
 plaything of the devil : but His loving, loyal son, 
 strong in the strength Avhich God gives you, and 
 able to do what you will, because what you will 
 God wills also.
 
 IX. 
 
 PHARAOH'S HEART. 
 
 Exodus ix. 17. 
 
 ' And the heart of Pharaoh u-as hardened, and he did 
 not let the people go.^ 
 
 What lesson, now, can we draw from this story ? 
 One at least, and a very important one. What 
 effect did all these sicrns and wonders of God's 
 sending, have upon Pharaoh and his servants? 
 Did they make them better men or worse men ? 
 We read that they made them worse men ; that 
 they helped to harden their hearts. We read 
 that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that 
 he would not let the children of Israel go. Now, 
 how did the Lord do that? He did not wish 
 and mean to make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, 
 more wicked. That is impossible. God, who is 
 all goodness and love, never can wish to make 
 any human being one atom worse than he is. 
 He who so loved the Avorld that He came down 
 on earth to die for sinners, and take away the 
 sins of the world, would never make any human 
 being a greater sinner than he was before. That
 
 Pharaoh's heart. 113 
 
 is impossible, and horrible to think of. Therefore, 
 when we read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's 
 heart, w^ must be certain that that was Pharaoh's 
 own fault ; arid so, we read, it was Pliaraoh's 
 own fault. The Lord did not bring all these 
 plagues on Egypt without giving Pharaoh fair 
 warning. Before each plag-ue, He sent Closes to 
 tell Pharaoh that the plague was coming. The 
 Lord told Pharaoh that He was his Master, and 
 the Master and Lord of the whole earth; that the 
 children of Israel belonged to Him, and the 
 Eg}qDtians too ; that the river, light and darkness, 
 the weather, the crops, and the insects, and the 
 locusts belonged to Him ; that all diseases which 
 afflict man and beast were in His power. And 
 the Lord proved that His words were true, in a 
 way Pharaoh could not mistake, by changing 
 the river into blood, and sending darkness, and 
 hailstones, and plagues of lice and flies, and at last 
 by killing the first-born of all the Egyptians. 
 The Lord gave Pharaoh every chance ; He con- 
 descended to arcpue -wdth him as one man would 
 with another, and proved His word to be true, and 
 proved that He had a right to command Pharaoh. 
 And therefore, I say, if Pharaoh's heart was 
 hardened, it was his own fault, for the Lord was 
 plainly trying to soften it, and to bring him to 
 reason. And the Bible says distinctly that it was 
 Pharaoh's own fault. For it says that Pharaoh 
 
 H
 
 114 SERMON IX. 
 
 hardened his ot\ti heart, he and his servants, and 
 therefore they would not let the children of Israel 
 go. Now how could Pharaoh harden his own 
 heart, and yet the Lord harden it at the same 
 time '( 
 
 Just in the same way, my friends, as too many 
 of us are apt to make the Lord harden our hearts 
 by hardening them ourselves, and to make, as 
 Pharaoh did, the very things which the Lord 
 sends to soften us, the causes of our becoming 
 more stubborn ; the very things which the Lord 
 sends to bring us to reason, the means of our 
 becoming more mad and foolish. Believe me, 
 my friends, this is no old story with which we 
 have nothing to do. What happened to Pharaoh's 
 heart may happen to yours, or mine, or any man's. 
 Alas ! alas ! it does happen to many a man's and 
 woman's every day — and may the Lord have 
 mercy on them before it be too late, — and yet how 
 can the Lord have mei'cy on those who will not let 
 Him have mercy on them? 
 
 What do I mean ? This is what I mean, my 
 friends; O listen to it, and take it solemnly to 
 heart, you who are living still in sin ; take it to 
 heart, lest you, like Pharaoh, die in yom' sins, 
 and your latter end be worse than your begin- 
 ning. 
 
 Suppose a man to be going on in some sinful 
 habit ; cheating his neighbours, grinding his
 
 Pharaoh's heart. 115 
 
 labourers, or getting tipsy, or lying with a 
 Avoman without beino; married to her. He comes 
 to church, and there he hears the w^ord of the 
 Lord, by the Bible, or in sermons, telling him 
 that Grod commands him to give up his sin, that 
 God will certainly punish him if he does not repent 
 and amend. God sends that message to him in 
 love and mercy, to soften his heart by the terrors 
 of the law, and turn him from his sin. But what 
 does the man feel? He feels angry and provoked ; 
 angry with the preacher; ay, angry with the 
 Bible itself, with God's words. For he hates to 
 hear the words which tell him of his sin; he 
 wishes they were not in the Bible ; he longs to 
 stop the preacher's mouth ; and, as he cannot do 
 that, he dislikes going to church. He says, '1 
 cannot, and what is more, I will not, give up my 
 sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church 
 to be told of them.' So he stops away from 
 church, and goes on in his sins. So that man's 
 heart is hardened, just as Pharaoh's was. Yet 
 the Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man 
 in lovino; warnings : though all the effect it has 
 had is that the Lord's message has made him worse 
 than he was before, more stubborn, more godless, 
 more unwilling to hear what is good. But men 
 may fall into a still worse state of mind. They 
 may determine to set the Lord at naught ; to 
 hear Him speaking to their conscience, and know
 
 116 SERMON IX. 
 
 that He is right and they Avrong, and yet quietly 
 put the good thoughts and feelings out of their 
 way, and go on in the coui'se which they know to 
 be tlie worse. How many a man in business or 
 in the world says to himself, ay, and in his better 
 moments will say to his friend : ' Ah, yes, if one 
 could but be what one would \^^sh to be. . . . 
 AVhat one's mother used to say one might 
 be. ... But for such a world as this, the 
 gospel ideal is somewhat too ethereal and un- 
 practical. One has one's business to cai'ry^ on, or 
 one's family to provide for, one's party in politics 
 to serve; one must obey the laws of trade, the 
 usages of society, the interests of one's class ;' and 
 so forth. And so an excuse is found for ever}' 
 sin, by those who know in their hearts that they 
 are sinning. For every sin ; and above all, in 
 these days, for that sin of Pharaoh's, of 'not 
 letting the peojjle go.' 
 
 And how many, my friends, when they come 
 to chru'ch, harden their hearts in the same quiet, 
 almost good-humoured way, not caring enough 
 for God's message to be even angry with it, and 
 take the preacher's warnings as they would a 
 shower of rain, as sometliing unpleasant which 
 cannot be helped; and which, therefore, they 
 must sit out patiently, and think about it as little 
 as possible. And when the sermon is over, they 
 take their hats and go out into the churchyard.
 
 Pharaoh's heart. - 117 
 
 and begin talking about something else as quickly 
 as possible, to drive the unpleasant thoughts, if 
 there are a few left, out of their heads. And 
 thus they let the Lord's message to them harden 
 their hearts. For it does harden them, my friends, 
 if it be taken in this temper. Every time any 
 one sits through the service or the sermon in this 
 stupid and careless mood, he dulls and deadens 
 his soul, till at last he is able coolly to sit through 
 the most awful warnings of God's judgment, the 
 most tender entreaties of God's love, as if he were 
 a brute animal without understanding. Ay, he 
 is able to make the responses to the command- 
 ments, and join in the psalms, and so with his own 
 mouth, before the whole congregation, confess 
 that God's curse is on his doings, with no 
 inore sense or care of what the words mean, and 
 of what a sentence he is pronouncing against 
 himself, than if he were a parrot taught to speak 
 by rote words which he does not understand. 
 And so that man, by hardening his own heart, 
 makes the Lord harden it for him. 
 
 But there is a third way, and a worse way still, 
 in which people's liearts are hardened by the 
 Lord's speaking to them. A man is warned of 
 liis sins by the preacher ; and he says to himself, 
 'If the minister thinks that he is going to frighten 
 me away from church, he is very much mistaken. 
 lie may go his way, and I shall go mine. Let
 
 118 SERMON IX. 
 
 him preach at me as much as he will ; I shall go 
 to church all the more for that, to show him that 
 I am not afraid.' And so the Lord's warnincrs 
 harden his heart, and provoke him to set his face 
 like a flint, and become all the more proud and 
 stubborn. 
 
 Now, young people, I speak openly to you 
 as man to man. Will you tell me that this was 
 not the very way in which some of you took my 
 sermon last Sunday afternoon, in which I warned 
 you of the misery which your sinful lives would 
 bring upon you? Was there not more than one 
 of you, who, as soon as he got outside the church, 
 began laughing and swaga-erino;, and said to the 
 lad next him, ' Well, he gave it us well in his 
 sermon this afternoon, did he not 1 But I don't 
 care; do you?' 
 
 To which the other foolish fellow answered : 
 ' Not I. It is his business to talk like that ; he is 
 paid for it, and I suppose he likes it. So if he 
 does what he likes, we shall do what we like. 
 Come along.' And at that all the other foolish 
 fellows round burst out laughing, as if the poor 
 lad had said a very clever thing, and they all 
 went off together, having their hearts hardened 
 by the Lord's warning to them, as Pharaoh's 
 was. 
 
 And they showed, I believe, that very evening 
 that their hearts were hardened. For out of a
 
 Pharaoh's heart. 119 
 
 sort of spite and stubbornness tbey took a deliglit 
 in doing what was wrong, just because tliey had 
 been told that it was wrong, and because tliey 
 were determined to show that they would not be 
 frightened or turned from what they chose. 
 
 And all the while they knew that it was wrong, 
 did those poor foolish lads. If you had asked 
 one of them openly, ' Do you not know that God 
 has forbidden you to do this?' they would have 
 either been forced to say, 'Yes,' or else they would 
 have tried to laugh the matter oif, or perhaps 
 held their tongues and looked silly, or perhaps 
 again answered insolently ; showing by each and 
 all of these ways of taking it, that the Lord's 
 message had come home to their consciences, and 
 convinced them of their sin, though they were 
 determined not to own it or obe}'^ it. And the 
 way they would have put the matter by and 
 excused themselves to themselves, would have 
 been just the way in which Pharaoh did it. They 
 would have tried to foi'^et that the Lord had 
 warned them, and tried to make out to themselves 
 that it was all the preacher's doing, and to make 
 it a personal quarrel between him and them. Just 
 so Pharaoh did when he hardened his heart. He 
 made the Lord's message a ground for hating 
 and threatening Moses and Aaron, as if it was 
 any fault of theirs. He knew in his heart that 
 the Lord had sent them ; but he tried to forget
 
 120 SEEMON IX. 
 
 that, and drove tliem out from his presence, and 
 told them that if they dared to appear before him 
 again they should surely die. And just so, my 
 friends ; just so, people will be angry with the 
 preacher for telling them unpleasant truths, as if 
 it was any more pleasure to him to speak than 
 for them to hear. Oh, my friends, why will you 
 forget that the words which I speak from this 
 pulpit are not my words, but God's ? It is not I 
 who warn you of what you are bringing on your- 
 self by your sins, it is God Himself. There it is 
 written in His Bible — judge for yourselves. Read 
 your Bibles for yourselves, and you will see that I 
 am not spealdng my own thoughts and words. 
 And as for being angry with me for telling you 
 truth, read the ordination sei'vice which is read 
 whenever a clergyman is ordained, and judge for 
 yourselves. What is a clergyman sent into the 
 world for at all, but to say to you what I am 
 saying now ? What should I be but a hypocrite 
 and a traitor to the blessed Lord who died for 
 me, and saved me from my sins, and ordained 
 me to preach to sinners, that they too may be 
 saved from their sins, — what should I be but a 
 traitor to Him, if I did not say to you, whenever 
 I see you going wi'ong — 
 
 ' O come, let us worship, and fall down and 
 Icneel before the Lord our Maker. 
 
 ' For He is the Lord our God ; and we are
 
 Pharaoh's heart. 121 
 
 the people of His pasture, and the sheep of 
 His hand. 
 
 ' To-daj, if ye -will hear His voice, liarden not 
 your hearts, 
 
 ' Lest He sware in His wrath that you shall not 
 pnter into His rest ! ' 
 
 And now, my friends, I will tell you what will 
 happen to you. You see that I know something, 
 without having been told, of what has been going 
 on in your hearts. I beseech you, believe me 
 when I tell you what ynW go on in them. God 
 Avill chastise you for your sins. He will; just 
 because He loves you, and does not hate you; 
 just because you are His children, and not dumb 
 animals born to perish. Troubles will come upon 
 you as you grow older. Of what sort they will 
 be I cannot tell; but that they will come, I 
 can tell full w^ell. And when the Lord sends 
 trouble to you, shall it harden yom' hearts or 
 soften them ? It depends on you, altogether on 
 you, whether the Lord hardens yom' hearts by 
 sending those sorrows, or whether He softens and 
 turns them and brings them back to the only right 
 place for them— home to Him. But your trouble 
 may only harden your heart all the more. The 
 sorrows and sore judgments which the Lord sent 
 Pharaoh only hardened his heart. It all depends 
 upon the way in which you take these troubles, 
 my friends. And that not so much when they
 
 122^ SERMON IX. 
 
 come, as after they come. Almost all, let their 
 hearts be right with God or not, seem to take 
 sorrow as they ought, while the sorrow is on 
 them. Pharaoh did so too. He said to Moses 
 and Aaron : ' I have sinned this time. The Lord 
 is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. 
 Entreat the Lord that there be no more mighty 
 thunderings and hail ; and I will let you go.' 
 What could be more right or better spoken? 
 Was not Pharaoh in a proper state of mind then ? 
 Was not his heart humbled, and his will resigned 
 to God? Moses thouoht not. For while he 
 promised Pharaoh to pray that the storm might 
 pass over, yet he warned him — ' But as for thee 
 and thy sei'vants, I know that ye will not yet fear 
 the Lord your God.' And so it happened ; for, 
 * when Pharaoh saw that the rain, and hail, and 
 thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more, and 
 hardened his heart, he and his servants. Neither 
 would he let the children of Israel go.' . . . 
 And so, alas ! it happens to many a man and 
 woman now-a-days. They find themselves on a 
 sick-bed. They are in fear of death, in fear of 
 poverty, in fear of shame and punishment for their 
 misdeeds. And then they say, ' It is God's judg- 
 ment. I have been very wicked. I know God 
 is punishing me. Oh, if God will but raise me 
 up off this sick-bed ; if He will but help me out 
 of this trouble, I will give up all my wicked ways.
 
 Pharaoh's heart. 123 
 
 I will repent and amend.' So said Pharaoh; 
 and yet, as soon as he was safe out of his distress, 
 he hardened his heart. And so does many a 
 man and Avoman, who, when they get safe 
 through their troubles, never give up one of their 
 sins, any more than Pharaoh did. They really 
 believe that God has punished them. They 
 really intend to amend, while they are in the 
 trouble : but as soon as they are out of it, they 
 tiy to persuade themselves that it was not God 
 who sent the son'ow, that it came by ' accident,' 
 or that ' people must have trouble in this life,' or 
 that ' if they had taken better care, they might 
 have prevented it.' — All of them excuses to them- 
 selves for forgetting God in the matter, and, 
 therefore, for forgetting what they promised to 
 God in trouble ; and so, after all, they go on just 
 as they went on before. And yet not as they 
 went on before. For ever}^ such sin hardens 
 their hearts; .every such sin makes them less 
 able to see God's hand in what happens to them ; 
 every such sin makes them more bold and confi- 
 dent in disobejang God, and sajang to themselves, 
 'After all, why should I be so frightened when I 
 am in trouble, and make such promises to amend 
 my life ? For the trouble goes away, whether I 
 mend my life or not ; and nothing happens to 
 me; God does not punish me for not keeping 
 my promises to Him. I may as well go on in
 
 124 SERMON IX. 
 
 my own way, for I seem not the worse off in body 
 or in purse for so doing.' Thus do people harden 
 their hearts after each trouble, as Pharaoh did ; 
 so that you will see people, by one affliction after 
 another, one loss after another, all their lives 
 through, warned by God that sin will not prosper 
 them ; and confessing that their sins have 
 brought God's punishment on them : and yet 
 going on steadily in the very sins which have 
 brought on their troubles, and gaining besides, as 
 time runs on, a heart more and more hardened. 
 And why ? 
 
 Because they, like Pharaoh, love to have their 
 own way. They Mall not submit to God, and do 
 what He bids them, and believe that what He 
 bids them must be right — good for them, and for 
 all around them. 
 
 They promised to mend. But they promised 
 as Pharaoh did. 'If God will take away this 
 trouble, then I will mend' — meaning, though 
 they do not dare to say it : ' And if God will not 
 take away this trouble, of course He cannot ex- 
 pect me to mend.' In plain English — If God 
 will not act toward them as they like, then they 
 will not act toward Him as He likes. My friends, 
 God does not need us to bargain with Him. We 
 must obev Him whether we like it or not : whether 
 it seems to pay us or not ; whether He takes our 
 trouble off us or not ; we must obey, for He is The
 
 Pharaoh's heakt. 125 
 
 Lord ; and if we will not obey, He will prove His 
 power on us, as He did on Pharaoh, by showing 
 plainly what is the end of those who resist His 
 will. 
 
 What, then, are we to do when our sins bring 
 us, as they certainly will some day bring us, into 
 trouble ? 
 
 What we ought to have done at first, my 
 fiiends. What we ought to have done in the 
 wild days of youth, and so have saved ourselves 
 many a dark day, many a sleepless night, many 
 a bitter_^shame and heartache. To open our eyes, 
 and see that the only thing for men and women, 
 whom God has made, is to obey the God M'ho has 
 made them. He is the Lord. He has made us. 
 He will have us do one thing. How can we 
 liope to prosper by doing anything else ? It is ill 
 fighting against God. Which is the stronger, 
 my friends, you or God "? ISIake up your minds 
 on that. It surely will not take you long. 
 
 But some one may say, 'I do wish and long 
 to obey God ; but I am so weak, and my sins 
 have so entangled me with bad company, or debts, 
 or — , or — ' We all know, alas I into what a 
 net eveiy one who gives way to sin gets their 
 feet — 'And therefore I cannot obey God. I 
 long to do so. I feel, I know, when I look back, 
 that all my sin, and shame, and unhappiness, 
 come from being proud and self-willed, and
 
 126 SERMON IX. < 
 
 determined to have my own way, and do what I 
 
 chose. But I cannot mend.' Do not despair, ,; 
 
 poor soul ! I had a thousand times sooner hear : 
 
 you say that you cannot mend, than that you I 
 
 can. For those M'ho say they can mend, are apt ; 
 
 to say, ' I can mend ; and therefore I shall mend ^ 
 
 when I choose, and no sooner.' But those who ' 
 
 really feel they cannot mend — those who are j 
 
 really weary and worn out with the bui'den of , 
 their sins — those who are really tired out with 
 
 their own wilfulness, and feel ready to lie down ' 
 
 and die, like a spent horse, and say, ' God, take \ 
 
 me away, no matter to what place ; I am not fit j 
 
 to live here on earth, a shame and a torment to I 
 
 myself day and night' — those who are in that j 
 
 state of mind, are very near — very near — finding 1 
 
 out glorious news. ; 
 
 Those who cannot mend themselves and know '■ 
 
 it, God will mend. God will mend your lives \ 
 
 for you. He knows as well as you what you '< 
 
 have to struggle against ; ay, a thousand times ; 
 
 better. He knows — what does He not know ? - 
 
 Pray to Plim, and try what He does not know. ] 
 Cry to Him to rid you of your bad companions ; 
 
 He will find a way of doing it. Cry to Him to i 
 
 bring you out of the temptations you feel too ', 
 
 strong for you ; He will find a way for doing it. i 
 
 Cry to Him to teach you what you ought to do, i 
 
 and He will send some one, and that the right |
 
 Pharaoh's heart. 127 
 
 person, doubt it not, to teach you in His own 
 (rood time. Above all, cry and pray to Him to 
 conquer the pride, and self-conceit, and wilfulness 
 in your heart; to take the hard- proud heart of 
 stone out of you, and give you instead a heart of 
 flesh, loving, and tender, and kindly to every 
 human creature ; and He will do it. Cry to 
 Him to make your will hke His own will, that 
 you may love what He loves, and hate what He 
 hates, and do what He wishes you to do. And 
 then you will surely find my words come true : 
 'Those who long to mend, and yet know that 
 they cannot mend themselves, let them but pray, 
 and God will mend them.'
 
 X. 
 
 THE RED SEA TRIUMPH. \ 
 PREACHED EASTER DAY, MORNING, 1852. 
 
 Exodus xii. 42, 
 
 ' This is a m'gJd to be much observed unto the Lord, for 
 bringing the children of Israel out of the land of 
 Egypt: 
 
 You all, my friends, know what is the meaning 
 of Easter Day — that it is the day on which The 
 Lord rose again from the dead. You must have 
 seen that most of the special services for this day, 
 the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, and the second 
 lessons, both morning and evening, reminded you 
 of Christ's rising again ; and so did the proper 
 Psalms for this day, though it may seem at fiTst 
 sight more difficult to see what they have to do 
 with the Lord's rising again. 
 
 Now the first lessons, both for the morning and 
 evening services, were also meant to remind us 
 of the very same thing, though it may seem even 
 more difficult still, at first sight, to understand 
 how they do so.
 
 THE EED SEA TRIUMPH. 129 
 
 Let us see what these two first lessons are 
 about. The morning one was from the twelfth 
 chapter of Exodus, and told us what the Passover 
 was, and what it meant. The first lesson for 
 this afternoon was the fourteenth chapter of 
 Exodus. Surely you must remember it. Surely 
 the most careless of you must have Kstened to 
 that glorious story, how the Jews Avent through 
 the Red Sea as if it had been dry land, while 
 Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, trying to 
 follow them, were overwhelmed in the waters. 
 Surely you cannot have heard how the poor 
 Jews looked back from the further shore, and 
 hardly beheving their own eyes for joy and 
 wonder, when they saw their proud masters swept 
 away for ever, and themselves safe and free out 
 of the hateful land where they had been slaves 
 for hundreds of years — you cannot surely, my 
 friends, have heard that glorious story, and for- 
 gotten it again already. I hope not ; for God 
 knows, that tale of the Jews coming safe through 
 the Eed Sea has a deep, blessed meaning enough 
 for you, if you could but see it. 
 
 But some of you may be saying to yourselves, 
 ' No doubt it is a very noble story ; and a man 
 cannot help rejoicing at the poor Jews' escape, 
 and at the downfal of those cruel Egyptians. It 
 is a pleasant thought, no doubt, that if it were 
 but for that once, God interfered to help poor
 
 130 SERMON X. 
 
 suffering creatures, and rid them of their tyrants. 
 But what has that to do with Easter Day and 
 Christ's rising again V 
 
 I will try to show you, my friends. The Jews' 
 Passover is the same as our Easter Day, as you 
 know already. But they are not merely alike in 
 being kept on the same day. They are alike be- 
 cause they are both of them remembrances and 
 tokens of the Lord Jesus Christ's delivering men 
 out of misery and slavery. For never forget — 
 though, indeed, in these strange times, I ought 
 rather to say, I beseech you to read your Bibles 
 and see — that it was Jesus Christ Himself who 
 brought the Jews out of Egypt. Saint Paul tells 
 us so positively, again and again. In 1 Cor. x. 4 
 he tells us that it was Christ who followed them 
 through the wilderness. In verse 9 of the same 
 chapter he says that it was Christ Himself whom 
 they tempted in the wilderness. He was the 
 Angel of the Covenant who went with them. He 
 was the God of Israel whom the elders of the 
 Jews saw, a few weeks afterwards, on mount 
 Sinai, and under His feet a pavement like a sap- 
 phire stone. True, The Lord did not take flesh 
 upon Him till nearly two thousand years after. 
 But from the very beginning of all things, while 
 He was in the bosom of the Father, He was the 
 King of men. Man was made in His image, and 
 therefore in the image of the Father, whose per-
 
 THE EED SEA TEIUMPH. 131 
 
 feet likeness He is — ' the brightness of His gloiy, 
 and the express image of His person.' It was He 
 who took care of men, guided and taught them, 
 and dehvered them out of miser}^, from the very 
 beginning of the world. Saint Paul says the 
 same thing, in many different shapes, all through 
 the epistle to the Hebrews. He says, for instance, 
 that Moses, when he fled from Pharaoh's court in 
 Egypt, esteemed the reproach of Christ greater 
 riches than the treasiu'es of Egypt; for he endured 
 as seeing Hira who is invisible. The Lord said 
 the same thing of Himself. He said openly that 
 He was the Person who is called, all through the 
 Old Testament, ' The Lord.' He asked the 
 Pharisees, * What think ye of Christ ? whose son 
 is He? They say unto Him, David's son. Christ 
 answered. How then does David in spirit call 
 Him Lord, saying. The Lord said unto my Lord, 
 Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes 
 thy footstool V So did Christ declare, that He 
 Himself, who was standing there before them, 
 was the Lord of David, who had died hundreds 
 of years before. He told them again that their 
 father Abraham rejoiced to see His day, and saw 
 it and was glad ; and when they answered, in 
 anger and astonishment, ' Thou art not yet fifty 
 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham V Jesus 
 said, 'Verily I say unto you. Before Abraham 
 was, I am.' / am. The Jews had no doubt
 
 132 SERMON X. 
 
 whom He meant ; and we ought to have none 
 either. For that was the very name by which 
 God had told Moses to call Him, when he was 
 sent to free the Jews : ' Thou shalt say unto 
 them, I Am hath sent me to you.' The Jews, I 
 say, had no doubt who Jesus said that He was ; 
 that He meant them to understand, once and for 
 all, that He whom they called the carpenter's son 
 of Nazareth, was the Lord God who brought 
 their forefathers up out of the land of Egypt, on 
 the night of the first Passover. So they, to show 
 how reverent, and orthodox they were, and how 
 they honoured the name of God, took up stones 
 to stone Him — as many a man, who fancies him- 
 self orthodox and reverent, would now, if he dared, 
 stone the preachers who declare that the Lord 
 Jesus Christ is not changed since then ; that He 
 is as able and as willing as ever to deliver the 
 poor from those who grind them down, and that 
 He will deliver them, whenever they cry to Him, 
 with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm, and 
 that Easter Day is as much a sign of that to us 
 as the Passover was for the Jews of old. 
 
 But, my friends, if Christ the Lord showed His 
 love and power in behalf of poor oppressed 
 AVTetches on that first Passover, surely He showed 
 it a thousand times more on that first Easter Day. 
 His great love helped the Jews out of slavery ; 
 and that same great love of His at this Easter-
 
 THE RED SEA TRIUMPH. 133 
 
 tide, moved Him to die and rise again for the sins 
 
 of the whole world. In that first Passover He 
 
 delivered only one people. On the first Easter 
 
 He delivered all mankind. The Jews were 
 
 under cruel tyrants in the land of Egypt. So 
 
 were all mankind over the world, when Jesus 
 
 came. The Jews in Egypt were slaves to worse 
 
 things than the Avhip of their taskmasters ; they 
 
 had slaves' hearts, as well as slaves' bodies. Thev 
 
 were kept down not only by the Egyptians, but 
 
 by their own ignorance, and idolatry, and selfish 
 
 division, and beastly sins. They were spiritually 
 
 dead — without a noble, pure, manful feeling left 
 
 in them. Their history makes no secret of that. 
 
 The Bible seems to take every care to let us see 
 
 into what a miserable and brutal state they had 
 
 fallen. Christ sent Moses to raise them out of 
 
 that death ; to take them through the Red Sea, 
 
 as a sign that all that was washed away, to be 
 
 forgiven of God and forgotten by them, and that 
 
 fi-om the moment they landed, a free people, 
 
 on the further shore, they were to consider all 
 
 their old life past and a new one begun. So 
 
 they were baptised unto Moses in the cloud and 
 
 in the sea, as St Paul says. And now all was to 
 
 be new. They had been fancying that they 
 
 belonged to the Egyptians. Now they had 
 
 found out, and had it proved to them by signs 
 
 and wonders which they could not mistake, that
 
 134 SEEMON X. 
 
 they belonged to The Lord. They had been 
 brutal sinners. The Lord began to teach them 
 that they were to rise above their own appetites 
 and passions. They had been worshipping only 
 what they could see and handle. The Lord began 
 to teach them to worship Him — a person whom 
 they could not see, though He was always near 
 them, and watching over them. They had been 
 living without independence, fellow-feeling, the 
 sense of duty, or love of order. The Lord began 
 to teach them to care for each other, to help each 
 other, to know that they had a duty to perform 
 towards each other, for which they were account- 
 able to Him. They had owned no master ex- 
 cept the Egyptians, whom they feared and obeyed 
 unwillingly. The Lord began to teach them to 
 obey Him loyally, from trust, and gratitude, and 
 love. - They had been wilHng to remain sinners, 
 and brutes, and slaves, provided they could get 
 enough to eat and drink. The Lord began to 
 teach them that His favour. His protection, were 
 better than the flesh-pots of Egypt, and that 
 He was able to feed them where it seemed im- 
 possible to men ; to teach them that ' man does 
 not live by bread alone — cheap or dear, my 
 friends — not by bread alone, but by eve7y word 
 that proceeds out of the mouth of God, does man 
 live.' That was the meaning of their being 
 baptised in the cloud and in the sea. That was
 
 THE RED SEA TRIUMPH. 135 
 
 the meaning, and only a very small part of the 
 meaning, of their Passover. Would you not 
 think, my friends, that I had been speaking 
 rather of our o^ti baptism, and of our own Supper 
 of the Lord, to which you have been all called to- 
 day, and telling you the meaning of them? 
 
 For when Jesus, the Lord, and King, and Head 
 of mankind, died and rose again, He took away 
 the sin of the world. He was the true Passover, 
 the Lamb without spot, slain, as the scriptm'e 
 tells us, for the sins of the whole world. In the 
 Jews' Passover, when the angel saw the lamb's 
 blood on the door of the house, he passed by, and 
 spared every one in it. So now. The blood of 
 Jesus, the Lamb of God, is upon us ; and for His 
 sake, God is faithful and just to forgive us our 
 sins, and to cleanse us from all vuirighteousness. 
 
 But the Lord rose again this day. And when 
 He, the Lord, and Eang, and Head of all men, 
 rose, all men rose in Him. 'As in Adam all 
 die,' says St Paul, ' even so in Christ shall all be 
 made alive.' 
 
 Baptism is a sign of that to us, as the going 
 through the Red Sea, and being baptised to ]\Ioses 
 in it, was to the Jews. The passing of the Red 
 Sea said to the Jews, ' You have passed now out 
 of your old miserable state of slavery into free- 
 dom. The sins which you committed there are 
 blotted out. You are taken into covenant with
 
 1S& SERMON X, 
 
 God. You are now God's people, and nothing- 
 ean lose you this love and care, except your own 
 sins, your own unfaithfulness to Him, your own 
 wilful falling back into the slavish and brutal 
 state from which He has delivered you.' 
 
 And just so, baptism says to us, ' Your sins 
 are forgiven you. You are taken into covenant 
 with God. You are God's people, God's family. 
 You must forget and cast away the old Adam^ 
 the old slavish and savage pattern of man, which 
 yom* Lord died to abolish, the guilt of which He 
 bore for you on His cross ; and you must rise ta 
 the new Adam, the new pattern of man, which 
 is created after God in righteousness and true 
 holiness, which the Lord showed forth in His life, 
 and death, and risin^ ao;ain. For now God looks 
 on you not as a guilty and condemned race of 
 beings, but as a redeemed race, His children, 
 for the sake of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, 
 who takes away the sins of the world. You have 
 a right to believe that, as human beings, you are 
 dead with Christ to the old Adam, the old sinful, 
 brutal pattern of man. Baptism is the sign of it 
 to you. Every child, let it or its parents be who 
 they may, is freely baptised as a sign that all that 
 old pattern of man is washed away, that they 
 can and must have nothing to do with it hence- 
 forward, that it is dead and buried, and they must 
 flee from it and forget it, as they would a coi-pse.
 
 THE EED SEA TRIUMPH. 137 
 
 And the Lord's Supper also is a sign to us, that, 
 as human beings, we are risen with Christ, to a 
 new Hfe. A new life is our birth-right. We have 
 a right to live a new life. We have a duty to live 
 a new life. We have a power, if we will, to live a 
 new Hfe ; such a life as we never could live if we 
 were left to ourselves ; a noble, holy, godly, man- 
 ful, ChristHke, Godlike life, bred and nourished in 
 us by the Spirit of Christ. That is our right ; for 
 we belong to Him who lived that life Himself, and 
 bought us our share in it with His own death and 
 resurrection. That is our duty ; for if we share 
 The Lord's blessings, it can only be in order that 
 we may become like The Lord. Do you fancy 
 that He died to leave us all no better than we 
 are ? His death would have had very little eflFect 
 certainly, if that was all. No, says St Paul ; if 
 you have a share in Christ, prove that you believe 
 in your own share by becoming like Christ. 
 You belong to His kingdom, and you must live 
 as His subjects. He has bought for you a new 
 and eternal life, and you must use that life. ' If 
 ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things 
 that are above.' . . . And what are they ? 
 Love, peace, gentleness, mercy, pity, truth, 
 faithfulness, justice, patience, courage, order, in- 
 dustry, obedience. . . . All, in short, which 
 is Hke God. For these are heavenly things. 
 These are above, where Christ sits at God's right
 
 138 SERMON X. 
 
 hand. These are the likeness of God. That is 
 God's character. Let it be your character Hke- 
 wise. 
 
 But again ; if it is our right and our duty to 
 be Hke that, it is also in our power. God would 
 not have commanded us to be, what He had not 
 given us the power to be. He would not have 
 told us to seek those things which are above, if 
 He had not intended us to find them. Where- 
 fore it is written, ' Ask, and ye shall receive ; 
 seek, and ye shall find ; for if ye, being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts to your children, 
 how" much more sliall your Heavenly Father give 
 His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him ? ' 
 
 This is the meaning of that text, that God 
 will give us the power of living this new and 
 risen life, which we are bound to live. This is 
 one of the gifts for men, which the scripture tells 
 us that Christ received when He rose from the 
 dead, and ascended up on high. This is one of 
 the powers of which Pie spoke, when after His 
 resurrection He said, '■ That all power was given 
 to Him in heaven and earth.' The Lord's Supper 
 is at once a sign of who will give us that gift, and 
 a sign that He will indeed give it us. The Lord's 
 Supper is the pledge and token to us, that we all 
 have a share in the likeness of Christ, the true 
 pattern of man ; and that if we come and claim 
 our share, He will surely bestow it on us. He
 
 THE RED SEA TRIUMPH. 139 
 
 will renew, and change, and purify our hearts 
 and characters in us, day by day, into the likeness 
 of Himself. He who is the eternal life of men 
 will nourish us, body, soul, and spirit, with that 
 everlasting hfe of His, even as our bodies are 
 nourished by that bread and wine. And if you 
 ask me how? Wlien you can tell me why a 
 wheat grain cannot produce an oak, or an acorn 
 a wheat plant ; when you can tell me why our 
 bodies are, each of them, the very same bodies 
 which they were ten years ago, though every 
 atom of flesh, and blood, and bone in them has 
 been changed ; when, in short, you, or any other 
 living man, can tell me the meaning of those 
 three words, body, hfe, and growth, then it will 
 be time to ask that question. In the meantime 
 let us believe that He who does such wonders in 
 the life and growth of every blade of grass, can 
 and will do far greater wonders for the life and 
 growth of us, immortal beings, made in His own 
 likeness, redeemed by His blood, and so be- 
 lieve, and thank, and obey, and wait till another 
 and a nobler life to understand. And if we 
 never imderstand at all — what matter, provided 
 the thing be true ?
 
 XI. 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 Isaiah ix. 6-7. 
 
 ' For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given ; 
 and the government shall be on His shoulder : and His 
 name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The 
 Mighty God, The Father of an Everlasting age, The 
 Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government 
 and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of 
 David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to 
 establish it with judgment and with justice henceforth 
 even for ever.' 
 
 In the time when the prophet Isaiah wrote this 
 prophecy, everything round him was exactly 
 opposite to his words. The king of Judea, his 
 country, was not reigning in righteousness. He 
 was an unrighteous and wicked governor. The 
 princes and great men were notruhng in judgment. 
 They were unjust and covetous; they took bribes, 
 and sold justice for money. They were op- 
 pressors, grinding down the poor, and defrauding 
 those below them. So that the weak, and poor, 
 and needy had no one to right them, no one to 
 take their part. There was no man to feel for
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 141 
 
 them, and defend them, and be a hiding-place 
 and a covert for them from their cruel tyrants ; 
 no man to comfort and refresh them as rivers of 
 water refresh a diy place, or the shadow of a 
 great rock comforts the sunburnt traveller in the 
 weaiy deserts. 
 
 Neither were these very poor oppressed people 
 of the Jews in a right state of mind. They were 
 ignorant and stupid, given to worship false gods. 
 They had eyes, and yet could not use them to 
 see that, as the psalm told us this morning, the 
 heavens declared the glory of God, and the firma- 
 ment showed His handiwork. Thev were wor- 
 shipping the sun, and moon, and stars, instead of 
 the Lord God who made them. They were 
 brutish too, and would not listen to teaching. 
 They had ears, and yet would not hearken with 
 them to God's prophets. They were rash, too, 
 living from hand to mouth, discontented, and 
 violent, as ignorant poor people will be in evil 
 times. And they were stammerers, they could 
 not speak plainly — not with their tongues, but 
 with their minds and thoughts. They were 
 miserable ; but they could not tell why. They 
 were full of discontent and longings ; but they 
 could not put them into words. They did not 
 know how to pray, how to open their hearts to 
 God or to man. Thev knew of no one who 
 could understand them and their sorrows; they
 
 142 SER3I0N XI. 
 
 could not understand them themselves, much less 
 put them into words. They were altogether con- 
 fused and stupified ; jusl in the same state, in a 
 word, as the poor negro slaves in America, and 
 the heathens, ay, and the christians, too, are in, in 
 all the countries of the world which do not know 
 the good news of Christmas Day, or have forgotten 
 it and disobeyed it. 
 
 But Isaiah had God's Spirit with him; the 
 Holy Spirit, the Spirit of holiness, righteousness, 
 justice. And that Holy Spirit convinced him 
 of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment, as 
 He convinces every man who gives himself up 
 humbly to God's teaching. 
 
 First, the Spirit convinced Isaiah of sin. He 
 made him feel that the state of his country was 
 wrong. And He made him feel why it was wrong; 
 namely, because the men in it were wrong ; be- 
 cause they were thinking wrong notions, feeling 
 \vrong feelings, doing wrong things ; and that 
 wrong was sin ; and that sin was falling short of 
 being what a man was made, and what every 
 man ought to be, namely, the likeness and glory 
 of God ; and that so his countrymen the Jews, 
 one and all, had sinned and come short of the 
 glory of God. 
 
 Next, He convinced Isaiah of righteousness. 
 He made Isaiah feel and be sure that God was 
 righteous ; that God was no unjust Lord, like
 
 CHEISTMAS DAY. 143 
 
 the wicked king of the Jews ; that such evil 
 doings as are going on were hateful to Him ; 
 that all that covetousness, oppression, taking of 
 bribes, drunkenness, deceit, ignorance, stupid 
 rashness and folly, of which the land was full, were 
 hateful to God. He must hate them, for He was 
 a righteous and a good God. They ought not to 
 be there. For man, ever}^ man, from the king 
 on his throne to the poor labourer in the field, 
 was meant to be righteous and good as God is. 
 'But how will it be altered?' thouo;ht Isaiah 
 to himself. ' Wliat hope for this poor miserable 
 sinful world ? People are meant to be righteous 
 and good : but who will make them so 1 The 
 king and his princes are meant to be righteous 
 and good, but who ^^^ll set them a pattern ? 
 When will there be a really good king, who will 
 be an example to all in authority ; who will teach 
 men to do right, and compel and force them not 
 to do wrong ?' 
 
 And then the Holy Spirit of God answered 
 that anxious question of Isaiah's, and convinced 
 him of judgment. 
 
 Yes, he felt sure ; he did not know why he 
 felt so sure : but he did feel sure ; God's Spirit 
 in his heart made him feel sure, that in some way 
 or other, some day or other, the Lord God would 
 come to judgment, to judge the wicked princes 
 and rulers of this world, and cast them out. It
 
 144 SERMON XI. - \ 
 
 must be so. God was a righteous God. He : 
 
 would not endure these unrighteous doings for ' 
 
 ever. He was not lazy or careless about this poor \ 
 
 sinful world, and about all the sinful down-trodden ; 
 
 ignorant men, and women, and children in it. \ 
 
 He would take the matter into His own hands. , 
 
 J 
 
 He would show that He was Lord and Master, j 
 If kings would not reign in righteousness, He \ 
 would come and reign in righteousness Himself. ] 
 He would appoint prhices under Him, who | 
 would rule in judgment. And He would show | 
 men what true ricfhteousness was: what the 
 pattern of a true ruler was; namely, to be able to j 
 feel for the poor, and the afflicted, and the needy, I 
 to understand the wants, and sorrows, and doubts, ; 
 and fears of the lowest and the meanest ; in short, > ] 
 to be a man, a true, perfect man, with a man's ] 
 heart, a man's pity, a man's fellow-feehng in Him. ; 
 Yes. The Lord God would show Himself. He ' 
 would set His righteous King to govern. And \ 
 yet, Isaiah did not know how, but he saw plainly j 
 that it must be so, that same righteous King, who \ 
 was to set the world right, would be a man. It : 
 would be a man who was to be a hiding-place 
 from the storm, and a covert from the tempest. " 
 A man who would understand man, and teach ^ 
 men their duty. I 
 
 Then the eyes of the blind would see, and the 1 
 ears of those who heard should hearken ; for they
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 145 
 
 would liear a loving human voice, the voice of 
 One who knew what was in man, who could tell 
 them just what they wanted to know, and put His 
 teaching into the shape in which it would sink 
 most easily and deeply into their hearts. And 
 then the hearts of the rash would understand 
 knowledge ; and the tongue of the stammerers 
 v/ould speak plainly. There would be no more 
 confused cries from poor ignorant brutish op- 
 pressed people, like the cries of dumb beasts in 
 pain ; for the man who was coming would give 
 them words to utter their sorrows in. He would 
 teach them how to speak to man and God. He 
 would teach them how to pray, and when they 
 prayed to say, ' Our Father which art in heaven.' 
 Then the vile person would be no more called 
 bountiful, or the^churl called liberal ; flattery aud 
 cringing to the evil great would be at an end. 
 The people would have sense to see the truth 
 about right and wrong, and courage to speak it. 
 Men would then be held for what they really 
 Avere, and honoured or despised according to their 
 true merits. Yes, said Isaiah, we shall be deli- 
 vered from our wicked king and princes ; from 
 the heathen Assyrian armies, who fancy that 
 they are going to sweep us out of our own land 
 with fire and sword ; from our own sins, and 
 ignorance, and infidelit}^, and rashness. We 
 shall be dehvered from them all, for The righteous 
 
 K
 
 146 SERMON XI. 
 
 King is coming. Nay, He is here already, if we 
 could but see. His goings forth hav6 been from 
 everlasting. He is ruling us now — this won- 
 drous Child, this Son of God. Unto us a Child 
 is born already, unto us a Son is given already. 
 But one day or other He will be revealed, and 
 made manifest, and shown to men as a man; 
 and then all the people shall know who He is ; 
 and His name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
 sellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, 
 the Prince of Peace. 
 
 Ah, my friends, Isaiah saw all this but dimly 
 and afar off. He saw as through a glass darkly. 
 He perhaps thought at times; indeed we can 
 have no doubt that he thought, that the good 
 young prince Hezekiah, ' The might of God,' as 
 his name means, who was growing up in his day 
 to be a deliverer and a righteous king over the 
 Jews, was to set the world right. No doubt he 
 had Hezekiah in his mind when he said that a 
 Child was born to the Jews, and a Son given to 
 them ; just as, of course, he meant his own son, 
 who was bom to him by the virgin prophetess, 
 when he called his name Emmanuel, that is to say, 
 God with us. But he felt that there was more 
 in both things than that. He felt that his young 
 wife's conceiving and bearing a son, was a sign 
 to him that some day or other a more blessed 
 virgin would conceive and bear a mightier Son.
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 147 
 
 And so lie felt that whether or not Hezekiah 
 delivered the Jews from their sin, and misery, 
 and ignorance, God Himself would deliver them. 
 He knew, by the Spirit of God, that his prophecy 
 would come true, and remain true for ever. And 
 so he died in faith, not having received the pro- 
 mises, God having prepared some better King for 
 us, and having fulfilled the words of His prophet 
 in a way of which, as far as we can see, he never 
 dreamed. 
 
 Yes. Hezekiah failed to save the nation of 
 the Jews. Instead of beino; 'the father of an 
 
 CD 
 
 everlasting age,' and ha^dng ' no end df his family 
 on the throne of David,' his great-grandchildren 
 and the whole nation of the Jews were univer- 
 sally swept away into captivity by the Babylon- 
 ians, and no man of his house, as Jeremiah 
 prophesied, has ever since prospered, or sat on 
 the throne of David. But still Isaiah's prophecy 
 was true. True for us who are assembled here 
 this day. 
 
 For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is 
 given ; even the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ 
 the Lord. The government shall indeed be upon 
 His shoulder ; for it has been there always. For 
 the Father has committed all things to the Son, 
 that He may be King of kings and Lord of 
 lords for ever. Plis name is indeed Wonderful ; 
 for what more wondrous thing was ever seen in
 
 148 SERMON XI. 
 
 heaven or in earth, than that great love with 
 which He loved us ? He is not merely called ' The 
 might of God/ as Hezekiah was, for a sign and a 
 prophecy; for He is the mighty God Himself. 
 He is indeed the Counsellor; for He is the light 
 who lighteth every man who comes into the world. 
 He is ' the Father of an everlasting age.' There 
 were hopes that Hezekiah would be so ; that he 
 would raise the nation of the Jews again to a 
 reform from which it would never fall away : but 
 these hopes were disappointed, and the only one 
 who fulfilled the prophecy He is who has founded 
 His church for ever on the rock of everlasting ages, 
 and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
 Hezekiah was to be the prince of peace for a few 
 short years only. But the Child who is born to 
 us, the Son who is given to us, is He who gave 
 eternal peace to all who will accept it; peace 
 which this world can neither give nor take away ; 
 and who will make that peace grow and spread 
 over the whole earth, till men shall beat their 
 swords into ploughshares, and their spears into 
 pruning-hooks, and the nations shall not leara 
 war any more. Of the increase of His govern- 
 ment and of His peace there shall be no end, till 
 the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
 the waters cover the sea, and the Spirit of God 
 be poured out on all flesh, to teach kings to reign 
 in righteousness, after the pattern of the King of
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY. 149 
 
 kings, the Babe of Betlileliem ; to make the rich 
 and powerful do justice, to teach the ignorant, to 
 give the rich wisdom, to free the oppressed, to 
 comfort the afflicted, to proclaim to all mankind 
 the good news of Christmas Day, the good news 
 that there was a man born into the world on this 
 day who will be a hiding-place from the storm, 
 a covert from the tempest, like rivers of waters 
 in a diy place, like the shadow of a great rock in 
 a weary land ; even the man Christ Jesus, wdio 
 is able and w'illino- to save to the uttermost those 
 who come to God through Him, seeing that He 
 has been tempted in all things like as we are, 
 yet without sin. 
 
 Yes, my friends, on that holy table stands the 
 everlasting sign that Isaiah's prophecy has been 
 fulfilled to the uttermost. That bread and that 
 wine declare to us, that to us a Child is born, to 
 us a Son is given. They declare to us, in a word, 
 that on this blessed day God was made man, and 
 dwelt among men, and we beheld His glory, the 
 glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full 
 of grace and truth. 
 
 O come to that table this day, and there 
 claim your share in the most precious body and 
 blood of the Divine Child of Bethlehem. Come 
 and ask Him to pour out on you His Spirit, the 
 Spirit which He poured on Hezekiah of old, ' that 
 he mifjht fulfil his own name and live in the
 
 150 SERMON XI. 
 
 might of God.' So will you live in the might of 
 God. So you will be able to govern yourselves, and 
 your own appetites, in righteousness and freedom, 
 and rule your own households, or whatsoever God 
 has set you to do, in judgment. So you will see 
 things in their true light, as God sees them, and 
 be ready and willing to hear good advice, and 
 understand your way in this life, and be able 
 to speak your hearts out in prayer to God, as to 
 a loving and merciful Father. And in all your 
 afflictions, let them be what they will, you will 
 have a comfort, and a sure hope, and a well- 
 spring of peace, and a hiding-place from the 
 tempest, even The Man Christ Jesus, who said, 
 ' Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto 
 you ; let not your heart be troubled, neither be 
 ye afraid.' The Man Christ Jesus, at whose birth 
 the angels sang, ' Glory to God in the highest, 
 and on earth peace, good-will toward men.' 
 
 Now to Him who on this day was born of the 
 blessed virgin, man of the substance of His mother, 
 yet God the Son of God, be ascribed, with the 
 Father and the Spirit, all power, glory, majesty, 
 and dominion, both now and for ever. Amen.
 
 XII. 
 
 NEW-YEAR'S-DAY. 
 
 Isaiah xliii. 1-4. 
 
 ' But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, Jacob, 
 and He that formed thee, Israel, Fear not : for I 
 have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name ; 
 thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, 
 I ivill be ivith thee ; and through the rivers, they shall 
 not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, 
 thou shalt not be burnt ; neither shall the flame kindle 
 upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy 
 One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy 
 ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast 
 precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I 
 have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and 
 peoples for thy life^ 
 
 The New Year has now begun ; and I am 
 bound to wish you all a happy New Year. But 
 I am sent here to do more than that; to teach you 
 how you may make your own New Year a happy 
 one ; or, if not altogether a happy gne — for sor- 
 rows may and must come in their turn — yet still 
 something better than a happy year, namely, a 
 blessed year ; a year on which you will be able
 
 152 SERMON XII. 
 
 to look back this dav twelvemonths, and thank 
 God for it ; thank God for the tears which you 
 shed in it, as well as for the laughter: thank 
 God for the dark days as well as for the light ; 
 thank God for what you have lost, as well as 
 what you have found ; and be able to say, 'Well, 
 this last year, if it has not been a happy year for 
 me, at least it has been a blessed one for me. It 
 has left me a stronger, soberer, wiser, godlier, 
 better man than it found me.' 
 
 How, then, can you make the New Year a 
 blessed one for yourselves ? I know but one way, 
 my friends. The ancient way. The Bible way. 
 The way by which Abraham, and Jacob, and 
 David, and all the holy men of old, and all the 
 saints, and martyrs, and righteous and godly 
 amons men, made their lives blessed for them- 
 selves, in spite of sorrow, and misfortune, and dis- 
 tress, and persecution, and torture, and death itself; 
 the one only old way of being blessed, which was 
 from the beginning, and will last for ever and ever, 
 through all worlds and eternities ; the way of the 
 old saints, which St Paul sets forth in the eleventh 
 chapter of the Hebrews ; and that is, faith. Faith, 
 which is the substance of Avhat we hope for, the 
 evidence of things not seen. Faith, of which it 
 is written, that the just shall live by his faith. 
 
 But how can faith give you a blessed New 
 Year? In the same way in which it gave the
 
 ne\y-year's-day. 153 
 
 old saints blessed years all their lives through, 
 and is giving them a blessed eternity now and 
 for ever before the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 to which may God in His mercy bring us all also. 
 
 They trusted in God. They had faith, not in 
 themselves, like too many heathens and infidels ; 
 not in their own good works, like too many 
 papists; not in their own faith, in their own 
 frames, and feelings, and assurances, like too many 
 protestants ; but they had faith in God. It was 
 faith in God which made one of them, the great 
 prophet Isaiah, write the glorious words which I 
 have chosen for my text this day, to show his 
 countrymen the Jews, even while they were in 
 the very lowest depths of shame, and poverty, 
 and misfortune, that God had not forgotten 
 them; that for those who trusted in Him, a 
 blessed time was surely coming. 
 
 And it was faith in God, too, which put it into 
 the minds of the good men who chose these 
 Sunday lessons out of the Bible, to appoint such 
 chapters as these to be read year by year, at the 
 cominrr in of the new year, for ever. Faith in 
 God, I say, put that into their minds. For those 
 •rood men trusted in God, that He would not 
 change; that hundreds and thousands of years 
 would make no difference in His love ; that the 
 promises made by His Holy Spirit to Isaiah the 
 prophet would stand true for ever and ever.
 
 154 SERMON XII. 
 
 And tliey trusted in God, too, that what He had 
 spoken by the mouth of His holy apostles was 
 true; that after the blessed Lord came down 
 on earth, there was to be no difference between 
 Jews and Gentiles ; that the great and precious 
 promises made by God to the Jews were made 
 also to all the nations of the earth ; that all things 
 written in the Old Testament, from the first 
 chapter of Genesis to the last of Malachi, were 
 written not for the Jews only, but for English, 
 French, Italians, Germans, Russians — for all the 
 nations of the world ; that we English were 
 God's people now, just as much, ay, far more, 
 than the old Jews were, and that therefore the Old 
 Testament promises, as well as the New Testament 
 ones, were part of our inheritance as members of 
 Christ's church. And therefore they appointed 
 Old Testament lessons to be read in Ghu.rch, to 
 show us English what our privileges were, what 
 God's covenant and promise to us were. We, as 
 much as the Jews, are called by the name of the 
 Lord who created us. Were we not baptised 
 into His name at that font? Has He not loved 
 us ? Has He not heaped us English, for hun- 
 dreds of years past, with blessings such as He 
 never bestowed on any nation ? Has He not 
 given men for us, and nations for our life? 
 While all the nations of the world have been at 
 war, slaying and being slain, has He not kept
 
 new-year's-day. 155 
 
 this fair land of England free and safe from 
 foreign invaders for more than four hundred 
 years'? Since the world was made, perhaps, 
 such a thing was never heard of, such a mercy 
 shown to any nation ; that a great and rich 
 country like this should be preserved for four 
 hundred years from invasion of foreign armies, 
 and all the hoiTors and miseries of war, which 
 have swept, from time to time, every other nation 
 in the world with the besom of desolation. 
 
 Ay, and but sixty years ago, in the time of the 
 French war, when almost every other nation in 
 Europe was made desolate with fire, and sword, 
 and war, and, worst of all, by false doctrines, 
 blasphemy, and immorality, did not God preserve 
 this land of England, as He never preserved 
 country before, from all the miseries which were 
 sweeping over other nations'? Oh strange and 
 wonderful mercy of God, that at the very time 
 that the gospel was dying out all over Europe, 
 it was being lighted again in England ; and that 
 while the knowldge of God was failing elsewhere, it 
 was increasing here ! Oh strange and wonderful 
 mercy of God, who has given to us English, ncrw 
 for one hundred -and -sixty years and moi^, those 
 very equal laws, and freedom, and rights of con- 
 science, for which other nations of Europe are still 
 crying and struggling in vain, amid slavery, and 
 oppression, and injustice, and heavy burdens.
 
 156 SERMON XII. 
 
 such as we here in England should not endure a 
 week! Oh strange and M^onderful mercy of God, 
 who but three years ago, when all the other nations 
 of Europe were shaken with wars, and riots, and 
 seditions, every man's hand against his neighbour, 
 kept this land of England in perfect peace and ' 
 quiet by those just laws and government, proving ■ 
 to us the truth of His own promises, that those 
 who seek peace by righteous dealings, shall find 
 it, and that, as Isaiah says, the fruit of justice is l 
 quietness and assurance for ever ! And last, but 
 not least, my friends, is it not a sign, a sign not 
 to be mistaken, of God's good-will and mercy to 
 us, that now, at this very time of all others, when 
 almost every country in Europe is going to wreck v 
 and juin through the folly and wickedness of 
 their kings and rulers, He should have given us 
 here in England a Queen who is a pattern of good- 
 ness and purity, in ruhng not only the nation, 
 but her own household, to every wife and mother, 
 from the highest to the lowest; and a Prince whose 
 whole heart seems set on doing good, and on 
 helping the poor, and improving the condition of 
 the labourers? / My friends, I have a right to say 
 this : No man has felt more deeply, or spoken more 
 openly on the faults of England, on the cruelty 
 and the oppression, the carelessness and laziness, 
 which there is, alas ! even here. And therefore I 
 have a right to speak of the right and good which
 
 new-year's-day. 157 
 
 is done here; of the blessings which God has 
 given us ; and I say that we are unthankful and 
 unfaithful. * We do not thank God a hundredth 
 part enough for the blessings which He has 
 given us. We do not trust Him a hundredth part 
 enough for the blessings which He has in store 
 for us. If some of us here could but see and feel 
 for a single month how people are off abroad ; if 
 they could change places with a French, a Prus- 
 sian, a Russian labourer, it would teach them a 
 lesson about God's goodness to England which 
 they would not soon forget. May God grant 
 that we may never have to learn that lesson in 
 that way ! God grant that we may never, to 
 cure us of our unthankfulness and want of faith, 
 and godless and unmanly grumbling and com- 
 plaining, be brought, for a single week, into the 
 same state as some hundred millions of our 
 fellow-creatures are in foreign parts ! Oh, my 
 friends, let us thank God for the mercies of the 
 past year ! Most truly He has fulfilled to Eng- 
 land His promise given by the mouth of the pro- 
 phet Isaiah—' When thou passest through the 
 waters, I will be with thee ; and through the 
 rivers, they shall not overflow^ thee. For I am 
 the Lord thy God, the Holy One, thy Saviour. 
 Thou hast been precious in my sight, and I have 
 loved thee : therefore will I give men for thee, 
 and peoples for thy life.'
 
 158 SERMON XII. 
 
 Away, then, with discontent and anxiety for 
 the coming year. Or rather, let us be only dis- 
 contented with ourselves. Let us only be anxious 
 about our own conduct. God cannot change. 
 If anything goes wrong, it will be not because 
 He has left us, but because we have left Him. 
 Is it not written that all things work together for 
 good to those who love God ? Then if things do 
 not work together for good in this coming year, 
 it will be because we do not love God. Do not 
 let us say, ' I am righteous, but my neighbours 
 are wicked, and therefore I must be miserable ;' 
 neither let us lay the blame of our misfortunes 
 on our rulers ; let us lay it on ourselves. 
 
 What was the word of the Lord to the Jews 
 in a like case : ' What means this proverb which 
 you take up, saying. The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge "? 
 It is not so, O house of Israel. The son shall 
 not die for the iniquity of his father, nor the 
 father for the iniquity of the son. The soul that 
 sinneth, it shall die, saith the Lord.' 
 
 Oh, my friends, take this to heart solemnly, in 
 the year to come. Our troubles, more of them 
 at least than we fancy, are our own fault, and 
 not our neighbours', or the government's, or any 
 one's else. And those which are not our own 
 faults directly are so in this way, that they are 
 sent as sharp and wholesome lessons to us ; and
 
 new-yeae's-day. 159 
 
 if we were what we ought to be, we should" not 
 want those lessons. Do not fancy that that is 
 a sad and doleful thought to begin the New Year 
 with. God forbid ! It would be doleful and sad 
 indeed if any one of us, in spite of all his right 
 doing, might be plunged into any hopeless 
 misery through the fault of other people, over 
 whom he has no control. But thanks be to the 
 Lord, it is not so. We are His children, and lie 
 cares for each and every one of us separately. 
 Each and every one of us has to answer for him- 
 self alone, face to face with his God, day by day ; 
 every man must bear his own burden ; and to 
 every one of us who love God, all things will 
 work together for good. It is, and was, and 
 always will be, as Abraham well knew, far ii'om 
 God to punish the righteous ^vith the wicked. 
 The Judge of all the earth will do right. None 
 of us who repents and turns from the sins he sees 
 round him and in him; none of us who prays 
 for the light and guiding of God's Spirit ; none 
 of us who struggles day by day to keep himself 
 unspotted from this evil world, and live as God's 
 son, without scandal or ill name in the midst of a 
 sinful and perverse generation; none of us who 
 does that, but God's blessing will rest on him. 
 What ruins others will only teach and strengthen 
 him ; what brings others to shame, will only 
 bring him to honour, and make his righteousness
 
 160 SERMON XII. 
 
 plain to be seen by all, that God may be glorified 
 in His people. Let the coming year be what it 
 may ; to the holy, the humble, the upright, the 
 godly, it will be a blessed year, fulfilling the 
 blessed promises of the Lord, that those who 
 trust in Him sliall never be confounded. 
 
 Oh, my friends, consider but this one thing, 
 that the Almighty God, who made all heaven 
 and earth, has bid us trust in Him. And 
 when He bids us, is it not a sin, an insult 
 to Him, not to trust Him — not to believe His 
 words to us 1 ' Put thou thy trust in the Lord, 
 and be doing good ; dwell in the land,' working 
 whei'e He has set thee, ' and verily thou shalt be 
 fed.' ' Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by 
 night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day. A 
 thousand shall fall by thy side, and ten thousand 
 at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh 
 thee. Only wdth thine eyes shalt thou behold 
 and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou 
 hast made the Lord thy refuge, no plague shall 
 come nigh thy dwelling. Thou shalt call upon 
 me, I will answer thee. Because thou hast set 
 thy love on me, I will deliver thee ; with long life 
 will I satisfy thee, and show thee my salvation.' 
 
 My friends, these words are in the book of 
 Psalms. Either they are the most cruel words that 
 ever w'ere spoken on earth to tempt poor wretches 
 into vain security and fearful disappointment, or
 
 new-year's-day. 161 
 
 they are — what are they? — the sure and ever- 
 lasting promise of our Father in heaven to us 
 His children. We have only to ask for them, 
 and we shall receive them ; to claim them, and 
 they will be fulfilled to us. ^ For He who spared 
 not His own Son, but freely gave Him for us, will 
 He not with Him likewise freely give us all things, 
 and make, by His fatherly care, and providence, 
 and education, all our new years blessed new 
 years, whether or not they are happy ones ?
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE DELUGE. 
 
 Genesis vi, 3. 
 ' My Spirit shall not always strive with man.' 
 
 Last Sunday we read in the first lesson of the 
 fall. This Sunday we read of the flood, the first- 
 fruits of the fall. 
 
 It is an awfal and a fearful story. And yet, 
 if we will look at it by faith in God, it is a most 
 cheerful and hopeful story — a gospel — a good 
 news of salvation — like every other word in the 
 Bible, from beginning to end. Ay, and to my mind, 
 the most hopeful words of all in it, are the very 
 ones which at first sio;ht look most terrible, the 
 vrords with which my text begins : . ' And the 
 Lord said, ^My Spirit shall not always strive with 
 man.' 
 
 For is it not good news — the good news of all \ 
 news — the news which every poor soul who is ,»j 
 hungering and thirsting after righteousness, longs J 
 to hear ; and when they hear it, feel it to be the ' '^ 
 good news — the only news which can give com- 
 fort to fallen and sorrowful men, tied and bound 
 
 \
 
 THE DELUGE. 163 
 
 with the chain of their sins, that God's Spirit 
 does strive at ali with man ? That God is 
 looking after men ; that God is yearning over 
 sinners, as the heart of a father yearns over his 
 rebellious child, as the heart of a faithful and 
 lo^dng husband yearns after an unfaithful wife ? 
 That God does not take a disgust at us for all our 
 unworthiness, but wills that none should perish, 
 but that all should come to repentance? O 
 joyful news ! ^lan may be, as the text says that 
 he Avas in the time of Noah, so low fallen that he 
 is but flesh like the brutes that perish : his spirit 
 may be dead within him, given up to all low and 
 fleshly appetites and passions, anger, and greedi- 
 ness, and filth; and yet the pure and holy 
 Spirit of God condescends to strive and straggle 
 v.ith him, to convince him of sin, and make him 
 discontented and ashamed at his own brutishness, 
 and shake and terrify his soul with the wholesome 
 thought, 'I am a sinner — I am wrong — I am 
 living such a life as God never meant me to live 
 — ^I am not what I ought to be — I have fallen 
 short of what God intended me to be. Surely 
 some evil will come to me from this.' Then tlie 
 Holy Spirit convinces man of righteousness. He 
 shows man that what he has fallen short of is the 
 glory of God. That man was meant to be, as 
 St Paul says, the likeness and gloiy of God; to 
 shoAv forth God's glory, and beauty, and righ-
 
 164 SERMON XIII. 
 
 teousness, and love in his own daily life ; as a 
 looking-glass, though it is not the sun, still gives 
 an image and likeness of the sun, when the sun 
 shines on it, and shows forth the glory of the 
 sunbeams which are reflected on it. 
 
 And then, the Holy Spirit convinces man of | 
 judgment. He shows man that God cannot ) 
 suffer men, or angels, or any other rational spirits 
 and immortal souls, to be unlike Himself. That 
 because He is the only and perfect good, whatso- 
 ever is unlike Him must be bad. Because He is 
 the only and perfect love, avIio wills blessings and ; 
 good to all, whatsoever is unlike Him must be un- | 
 loving, hating, and hateful — a curse and evil to all ^ 
 around it. Because He is the only perfect Maker ] 
 and Preserver, whatsoever is unlike Him must | 
 be in its very nature hurtful, destroying, deadly — | 
 a disease which injures this good world, and 
 w^hich He will therefore cut out, burn up, destroy , 
 in some way or other, if it will not submit to be j 
 cured. For this, my friends, is the meaning of j 
 God's judgments on sinners ; this is why He sent j 
 a flood to drown th.e world of the ungodly ; this i 
 is why He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; this '• 
 is why He swept away the nations of Canaan ; * 
 this is why He destroyed Jerusalem, His o■s^^l 
 beloved city, and scattered the Jews over the 
 face of the whole earth unto this day; this is 
 why He destroyed heathen Eome of old, and 
 
 i 
 
 i
 
 THE DELUGE. 165 
 
 why He has destroyed, from time to time, in every 
 age and country, great nations and mighty cities 
 by earthquake, and famine, and pestilence, and 
 the sword; because He knows that sin is ruin and 
 misery to all ; that it is a disease which speads 
 by infection among fallen men ; and that He must 
 cut off the corrupt nation for the sake of preserv- 
 ing mankind, as the surgeon cuts off a diseased 
 limb, that his patient's whole body may not die. 
 But the surgeon wall not cut off the limb as Ions 
 as there is a chance of saving it ; he will not cut 
 it off till it is mortified and dead, and certain to 
 infect the whole body with the same death, or 
 till it is so inflamed that it will inflame the 
 whole body also, and burn up the patient's life 
 w^th fever. Till then he tends it in hope ; tries 
 by all means to cure it. And so does The Lord, 
 the Lord Jesus, the great Physician, whom His 
 Father has appointed to heal and cure this poor 
 fallen world. As long as there is hope of curing 
 any man, any nation, any generation of men, so 
 long will liis Spirit strive lovingly and hopefully 
 ■with man. For see the blessed words of the text : 
 'My Spirit shall not always strive with man. 
 This must end. This must end at some time or 
 other. This battle between my Spirit and the 
 wicked and perverse wills of these sinners ; this 
 battle between the love and the justice and the 
 purity which I am trying to teach them, and the
 
 1G6 SERMON xiir. 
 
 corruption and the violence with which they are 
 fining the earth.' But there is no passion in the 
 Lord, no spite, no sudden rage, like the brute 
 passionate anger of weak man. Our anger, if 
 we are not under the guiding of God's Spirit, 
 conquers our wills, carries us away, makes us say 
 and do on the moment — God forcjive us for it — 
 whatsoever our passion prompts us. The Lord's 
 anger does not conquer Him. It does not con- 
 quer His patience. His love, His steadfast will 
 for the good of all. Even when it shows itself in 
 the flood and the earthquake, even tliough it 
 break up the fountains of the great deep, and 
 destroy from off the earth both man and beast, 
 yet it is, and was, and ever -will be, the anger of 
 the lamb— a patient, a merciful, and a loving 
 anger. 
 
 Therefore the Lord says, ' Yet his days shall 
 be one hundred and twenty years.' One Imn- 
 <lred and twenty years more He would endure 
 those corrupt and violent sinners, in the hope of 
 correcting them. One hundred and t)4'enty years 
 more would God's Spirit strive with men. One 
 Imndred and twenty years more the long-suffering 
 of God, as St Peter says, would wait, if by any 
 means they would turn and repent. Oh, won- 
 derful love and condescension of God! God 
 waits for man ! The Holy One waits for the 
 unholy ! The Creator waits for the work of His
 
 THE DELUGE. 167 
 
 own hands ! The wrathful God, who repents 
 that He has made man upon the earth, waits one 
 hundred and twenty years for the very creatui'es 
 whom He repents having made ! Does this seem 
 strange to us — unhke our notions of God ? If it 
 is strange to us, my friends, its being strange is 
 only a proof of how far we have fallen from the 
 likeness of God, wherein man was originally 
 created. If we were more like God, the accounts 
 of God's long-suffering, and mercy, and repen- 
 tance, which we read in the Sible, would not be 
 so stranc;e to us. We should understand what 
 God declares of Himself, by seeing the same 
 feelings working in ourselves, which He declares 
 to be working in Himself. And if we were more 
 righteous and more lo\-ing, we should understand 
 more how God's mil was a loving and a righteous 
 will ; how His justice was His mercy, and His 
 mercy His justice, instead of dividing His sub- 
 stance, who is one God, by fancying that His 
 mercy and His justice are two different attributes, 
 which are gt times contrary the one to the other. 
 We read nothing hei*e about God's absolute 
 purposes, and fixed decrees, whereof men talk so 
 often, making a god in their own fallen image, 
 after their own fallen likeness. The Lord, the 
 Word of God, of whom the Bible tells us, does 
 not think it beneath His dignity to say, ' It re- 
 penteth me that I have made man.' Different,
 
 16S SERMON XIII. 
 
 truly, from that false god which man makes in 
 his own image. Man is proud, and he fancies 
 that God is proud ; man is self-willed and selfish^ 
 and he fancies that God is self-willed and selfish; 
 man is arbitrary and obstinate, determined to 
 have his own way just because it is his own way; 
 and then he fancies that God is arbitrary and 
 obstinate, and determines to have His own way 
 and will, just because it is His own way and will. 
 But wilt thou know, O vain man, why God will 
 have His own way and will ? Because His way 
 is a good way, and His will a loving v^dll ; because 
 the Lord knows that His way is the only path of 
 life, and joy, and blessing to man and beast, yes, 
 and to the very hairs of your head, which are all 
 numbered, and to the sparrows, whereof not one 
 falls to the ground without your Father's know- 
 ledge ; because His will is a loving vnU, which 
 wills that none should perish, but that all should 
 come and be saved in body, soul, and spirit. He 
 will have His own will done, not because it is His 
 own will, but because it is good, good for men. 
 And if men will change and repent, then will He 
 change and repent also. If man will resist the 
 striving of God's Spirit with him, then will the 
 Lord say, ' It repenteth me that I have made that ' 
 man.' But if a man will repent him of the evil, 
 then God will repent Him of the evil also. K a 
 man will let God's Spirit convince him, and will
 
 THE DELUGE. 169 
 
 open his ears and hear, and open his eyes and see, 
 and open his heart to take in the loving thoughts 
 and the right thoughts, and the penitent and 
 humble thoughts, which do come to him — you 
 know they do come to you all at times — then the 
 Lord will repent also, as he repents, and repent 
 concerning the evil which He has declared con- 
 ceruincp that man. So said the Lord, who cannot 
 change, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, 
 the same now that He was in the days of the flood, 
 to Jeremiah the prophet, when He moved him 
 to go down to the potter's house, and watch him 
 there at his work. 
 
 And the potter made a vessel — something 
 which would be useful and good for a certain 
 purpose — but the clay was manned in the hand of 
 the potter. He was good and skilful ; but there 
 was a fault in the clay. What did he do? 
 Throw the clay away as useless? No. He 
 made it again another vessel. He was deter- 
 mined to make, not anything, but something 
 usefid and good. And if the clay, being faulty, 
 failed him once, he would try again. He would 
 change his purpose and plan, but not his right 
 will to make good and useful vessels ; them he 
 would make, if not by one way, then by another. 
 And Jeremiah watched him ; and as he watched, 
 the Spirit of the Lord came on him, and taught 
 him that that poor potter's way of working with
 
 170 SERMON XIII. 
 
 his clay, was a pattern and likeness of the Lord's 
 work on earth. O shame, that this great parable 
 should have been twisted by men to make out 
 that God is an arbitrary tyrant, who works by a 
 brute necessity ! It taught Jeremiah the very 
 opposite. It taught him what it ought to teach 
 us, that God does change, because man changes ; 
 that God's steadfast will is the good of men, and 
 therefore because men change their weak self- 
 willed course, and fall, and seek out many in- 
 ventions, therefore God changes to follow them, 
 like a good shepherd, tracking and following the 
 lost and wandering sheep up and down, right and 
 left, over hill and dale, if by any means He may 
 find him, and bring him home on His shoulders 
 to the fold, calling upon the angels of God, 
 ^ Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep 
 which I had lost.' 
 
 This is the likeness of God. The good and 
 loving will of a Father following His wandering 
 children. The likeness of a loving Father re- 
 penting that He has brought into the world sin- 
 ful children, to be a misery to themselves and 
 all around them, and yet for the same reason 
 loving those children, striving with their wicked 
 wills to the very last, giving them one last chance 
 and time for repentance, as the Lord did to those 
 evil men of the old world, sending to them Noah, 
 a preacher of righteousness, if by any means they
 
 THE DELUGE. 171 
 
 would turn from their sins and be saved. Ay, 
 not only preaching to their ears by Noah, but to 
 their hearts by His Spirit ; as St Peter tells us. 
 He Himself, Christ the Lord, went Himself by 
 His Spirit to those very sinners before the flood, 
 and strove to bring them to their reason again. 
 By His Spirit ; by the very same one and only 
 Holy Spirit of God, St Peter says, by which Christ 
 Himself was raised from the dead, did He try to 
 raise the souls of those sinners before the flood, 
 fi'om the death of sin to the life of righteousness : 
 but they would not. They were disobedient. 
 Their wills resisted His will to the last; and then 
 the flood came, and swept them all away. 
 
 And so the first work of the heavenly ^^''orkman 
 Avas marred in the making by no fault of His, but 
 by the fault of what He made. He made men 
 persons, rational beings with wills, that they 
 might be willingly like Him : but they used 
 those wills to be unlike Him, to rebel against 
 Him, and to fill the earth with violence and cor- 
 ruption. And so, for the good of all mankind to 
 come. He had to sweep them all away. But of 
 that same sinful clay He made another vessel, as 
 it seemed good to Him ; even Noah and his sons, 
 whom He saved that He might carry on the race 
 of the sons of God unto this day. 
 
 And after that again, my friends, in a day 
 more dark and evil still, when the earth was
 
 172 SER310N xiir. 
 
 again corrupt before God, and filled with vio- 
 lence ; when all flesh had corrupted his way upon 
 the earth, so that, as St Paul said of them, there 
 was none that did good, no not one ; then the 
 same Lord, when He saw that all the world lay- 
 in wickedness, and that the clay of human-kind 
 was marred in the hands of the potter, then did 
 He cast away that clay as reprobate and useless, 
 and destroy mankind off the face of the earth ? 
 Not so. Then, when there was none to help. His 
 own arm brought salvation, and His own righ- 
 teousness sustained Him ; He trod the wine-press 
 alone, and of the people there was none with 
 Him. His own righteousness sustained Him. 
 His perfectly good and righteous will never failed 
 Him for a moment ; man He would save, and 
 man He saved. If none else could do it. He 
 would do it Himself. He would brincj salvation 
 with His own arm. He would fulfil His Father's 
 will, which is that none should perish ; He would 
 be made flesh, and dwell among men, that man 
 might behold the likeness of God the Father, full 
 of grace and truth, and see what they were 
 meant to be. Then, in Him, in Jesus who wept 
 over Jerusalem, was fully revealed and shown 
 the likeness and glory of The Lord ; The Lord 
 in whose image man was made ; who walked 
 and spoke with Adam in the garden ; who was 
 not ashamed to say that it repented Him that
 
 THE DELUGE. 173 
 
 He had made man ; whom Ezekiel saw upon His 
 throne, and as it were upon the throne the ap- 
 pearance of the hkeness of a man ; whom Daniel 
 saw, and knew Him to be the Son of Man. Not 
 a man, then, of flesh and blood, but the Eternal 
 Word of God, in whose image man was made, 
 who could be loving and merciful, long-suffering 
 and repenting Him of the evil, but never of the 
 good. He came, and He swept away, as He had 
 told the apostles that He would do, by such afflic- 
 tions as man had never seen since the beginning 
 of the world until then, that Roman world with all 
 its de\dHsh systems and maxims, whereby the 
 nations were kept down in slavery and sin ; and 
 He founded a ncAv heaven and a ncAv earth, 
 Avherein dwell righteousness, even this Holy 
 Catholic Church, to which we all belong this day. 
 Yes, my friends, this is our gospel, our good 
 news, that there is a God whose Spirit strives 
 with sinners to change them into His owti like- 
 ness. A God who is no dark, obstinate, inexo- 
 rable Fate, whose arbitrary decrees must come 
 to pass ; but a loving and merciful God, long- 
 suffering, and who repenteth Him of the evil; 
 who repents Him of the evil which is in man, 
 and hates it, and has sworn to Himself to fight 
 against it, till He has put all enemies under His 
 feet, and cast out of His kingdom all things which 
 offend. Who repents Him of the evil in man,
 
 174 SERMON XIII. 
 
 but who will never again repent Him of having 
 made man, for then He would repent of having 
 made Himself ; He would repent of having been 
 conceived of the Holy Ghost ; He would repent 
 of having been born of the Virgin Mary ; He 
 would repent of having been crucified, dead, 
 aiid buried ; fie would repent of having risen 
 from the dead, and ascended up into heaven in 
 His man's body, and soul, and spirit ; He would 
 repent of sitting on the right hand of God ; He 
 would repent of coming to judge the quick and 
 the dead ; He would repent of having done His 
 Father's will on earth, even as He did it from all 
 eternity in the bosom of the Father. For He is 
 a man; and even as the reasonable soul and body 
 are one man, so God and man are one Christ. 
 As man, He did His Father's will in Judea of 
 old ; as man. He will judge the world ; as man. 
 He rules it now; as man, St John saw Him 
 fifty years after He ascended to heaven, and His 
 eyes were like a flame of fire, and His hair like 
 fine Avool, and He was girt under the bosom with 
 a golden girdle, and His voice was like the sound 
 of many waters ; as man. He said, ' Fear not :. I 
 am the first and the last ; 1 am He that Kveth, 
 and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive for ever- 
 more. Amen ; and have the keys of death and 
 hell.' Yes. This is the gospel, the good news 
 for fallen man, that there is a Man in the midst
 
 THE DELUGE. 175 
 
 of the throne of God, to whom all power is glren 
 in heaven and earth ; that the fate of the world, 
 and all that is therein — the fate of suns and stars 
 — the fate of kings and nations — the fate of every 
 publican and harlot, and heathen and outcast — 
 .the fate of all wdio are in death and hell, depends 
 alike upon the sacred heart of Jesus ; the heart 
 which groaned at the tomb of Lazarus His friend; 
 the heart which wept over Jerusalem ; the heart 
 which said to the blessed Magdalene, the woman 
 Avho was a sinner, ' Go in peac^ ; thy sins are 
 forgiven thee ;' the heart w^hich now yearns after 
 every sinful and wandering soul in His church, 
 and all over the earth of God, cr3dng to you all, 
 ' Why will ye die ? Have I any pleasure in the 
 death of him that dieth, saith the Lord, and not 
 rather that he should turn from his wickedness 
 and live ? Come unto me, all ye that are weary 
 and heaA-y-laden, and I will give you rest.' Oh, 
 my friends, wonderful as my words are — as won- 
 derful to me who speak them as they can be to 
 you who hear them — yet they ai'e true. True ; 
 for on that table stand the bread and the wine 
 whereof He Himself said, standing upon this very 
 earth which He Himself had made, ' This is my 
 body which is given for you ; this cup is the new 
 covenant in my blood, which I will give for the 
 life of the world.'
 
 XIV. 
 
 THK KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 Luke xvii. 21. 
 
 ' The kingdom of God is within youj 
 
 These words ^re in the second lesson for tins 
 morning's service. Let us think a little about 
 them. 
 
 What they mean must depend on what the 
 kingdom of God means; for that is the one thing 
 about which they speak. 
 
 Now, the kingdom of God is very often spoken 
 of in the New Testament. Indeed, it is the thing 
 it speaks of above all others. It was the thing 
 which our Lord went about preaching. It was 
 the thing of which He spoke in His parables, 
 likening the kingdom of God first to one thing, 
 then to another, that He might make men under- 
 stand what it was like. 
 
 Now, it is worth remarking, that we — I mean 
 even religious people — speak very little about the 
 kingdom of God now-a-days. One hears less 
 about it than about any other words, almost, 
 which stand in the New Testament. Both in
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 177 
 
 sermons and in religious books, and in the talk of 
 godly people, one hears the kingdom of God 
 spoken of very seldom. One hears words about 
 the church, which are very good and true : but 
 very little, if anything, about the kingdom of 
 God, though both St Paul, and St John, and 
 the blessed Lord Himself, speak of the two 
 together, as if they could not be parted ; as if 
 one could not think of the one without thinking ■ 
 of the other. And we hear words about the 
 gospel, too, some of them very good and true, 
 and others, I am sorry to say, very bad and false : 
 but, time or false, they are not often joined now 
 in men's minds, or mouths, or books, with tlie 
 kingdom of God. But the New Testament joins 
 them almost always. It says that gospel means 
 good news. Therefore the gospel must be good 
 news about something. But about what ? We 
 hear all manner of answers now-a-days ; but we 
 hear the right one very seldom. People talk of 
 the gospef as if it only meant the good news that 
 one man can be saved here, and another man 
 can be saved there. And that is good news, 
 certainly. It is good and blessed news to hear 
 that any one poor sinner can be saved from sin, 
 and from the wages of sin. But the holy scrip- 
 tures, when they talk of the gospel, call it the 
 gospel of the kmgdom of God. And I think it 
 best and wisest to call it oftenest, what the holy 
 
 M.
 
 178 SERMON XIV. 
 
 scripture calls it oftenest, and to try and under- 
 stand, first of all, what that means, what the 
 good news of the kingdom of God is : and to 
 understand that, we must first understand what 
 the kingdom of God is. 
 
 But some may answer, holy scripture speaks 
 of the gospel of salvation. True, it does, once or 
 twice. But what does that show? Is that a 
 different gospel from the gospel of the kingdom 
 of God? Are there two gospels? Surely not. 
 Else why would holy scripture speak so often of 
 ' the gospel' — ' the good news,' by itself, without 
 any word after to show what it was about ? It 
 says often simply ^ the gospel ;' because there is 
 but one gospel ; and, as St Paul says, if any man 
 or angel preach any other than that one, 'Let 
 him be anathema.' 
 
 Therefore the gospel of salvation must be the 
 same as the gospel of the kingdom of God ; and, 
 therefore, it seems to me, that salvation and the 
 kingdom of God must be one and the same thing. 
 
 Now, do you think so ? When I say ' The 
 kingdom of God is salvation,' do you think it is ? 
 Have you even any clear notion of what I mean 
 when I say it? Some of you have not, I am 
 afraid; you cannot see at first sight what salva- 
 tion and the kingdom of God have to do with 
 each other. And why? You think salvation 
 means being saved from hell, and going to heaven
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 179 
 
 when jou die. And so it does : but I trust in 
 God and in God's holy scripture, that it means a 
 great deal more; for I think it means being unfit 
 for hell, and fit for heaven before we die. At 
 least, so says the Church Catechism, which 
 teaches every little child to thank his Heavenly 
 Father for ha-ving brought him into such a state 
 of salvation in this life, even while he is young. 
 Thanks be to The Spirit of God which taught 
 our forefathers to put these precious words into 
 the Church Catechism, to guard us against falling 
 into the very same mistake as the Pharisees of 
 old fell into, when they asked our Lord when the 
 kingdom of God was to come. And, believe me, 
 it is easy enough and common enough to fall into 
 the same mistake. 
 
 For what was theii- mistake ? They fancied 
 that the kingdom of God was not yet come. 
 And do not most of you think the same ? They 
 did not deny, of course, that God was almighty, 
 and could rule and govern all mankind if He 
 chose so to do. But they did not believe that 
 He was ruling and governing all mankuid then, 
 because they did not know what His rule and 
 government were like. Now, Saint Paul tells us 
 what God's kingdom is like. The kingdom of 
 God, he says, is righteousness, and peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Spirit. So Avherever there is 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
 
 180 SERMON XIV. 
 
 Spirit, tliere the kingdom of God is. But His 
 kingdom over what? Over dmiib animals, or 
 over men ? Over men, certainly ; for dumb 
 animals cannot have righteousness, or joy in the 
 Holy Spirit. But over what part of a man? 
 Over his body or over his spirit, as we call it 
 now-a-days ? Over his spirit, certahily ; for it is 
 only our spmts which can be righteous, or peace- 
 ful, or joyful in God's Spirit. Therefore God's 
 kingdom, of which St Paul speaks, is a kingdom, 
 a government over the souls, the spirits of men. 
 Now, are our spirits the inward part of us, or our 
 bodies ? Our spirits, certainly. We all say, 
 and say rightly, that our bodies are the ovttv/ard 
 part of us, and that our spirits are within us. 
 Now, do you not see how that agrees exactly 
 with the blessed Lord's saying in the text, ' Be- 
 hold, the kingdom of God is within you,' — that 
 is, in your spirits, because it is righteousness and 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit ; and these are 
 things which only our souls, not our bodies at all, 
 can have. 
 
 But these Pharisees were not righteous ; they 
 were wicked and hypocritical men. Was the 
 kingdom of God within them? The blessed 
 Lord said plainly that it was. He said not, 
 'The kingdom of God is within some people's 
 hearts ;' or, ' The kingdom of God is within the 
 hearts of believers ;' or, ' The kingdom of God
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 181 
 
 might be within you if you liked.' But He 
 said that the kino;dom of God was then raid there 
 within the hearts of those wicked and unbehev- 
 ing Pharisees. 
 
 Now, how could that be ? In the same way 
 that some time before that, as St Luke tells us, 
 the power of the Lord was present to heal those 
 same Pharisees; and they were for the time 
 amazed, and glorified God, and were filled with 
 fear at His mighty works; but not healed. Then- 
 souls were not cured of their sin and folly by any 
 means ; for we find in the very next chapter, 
 that because Jesus cured a palsied man on the 
 Sabbath-day they were filled with madness, and 
 consulted together how to kill Him. 
 
 For, my friends, as it was with them, so it is 
 with us. God's kingdom is within every one of 
 us ; but it may make us worse, as well as make 
 us better. It may fill us with righteousness, and 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit ; or it may fill 
 us, as it filled the Pharisees, with madness, and 
 hatred of religion and of goodness ; as it is 
 \ATitten, that the gospel may be a savour of death 
 unto death to us, as well as a savour of life unto 
 hfe. And it depends on us which it shall be. 
 
 This is what I mean: — God's kingdom is within 
 each of us. God is the King of our hearts and 
 souls ; our baptism tells us so ; and it tells us 
 truly. And because God is the King of each of
 
 182 SEEMON XIV. 
 
 our hearts, He comes everlastingly to take posses- 
 sion of our hearts, and continues claiming our 
 souls for His own. He speaks in our hearts day 
 and night ; whenever we have a good thought, He 
 speaks in our hearts, and says to us, ' I am the 
 King of your spirit. It must obey me. I put this 
 good thought into your hearts, and you are bound 
 to follow that good thought, because it is a law of 
 my kingdom.' Or again, God speaks in our 
 hearts, and says to us, 'You have done this 
 wrong thing. You know that it is wrong. You 
 know that it is an offence against my law. Why 
 have you rebelled against meV Or again, 
 when we see any one do a good, a loving, or a 
 noble action ; or when we read of the lives of 
 good and noble men and women ; above all, when 
 we read or hear of the character and doings of 
 the blessed Lord Jesus, then and there God speaks 
 in our hearts, and stirs us up to love and admire 
 these noble and blessed examples, and says to us, 
 ' That is right. That is beautiful. That is what 
 men should do. That is what you should do. 
 Why are not you like that man 1 Why are you 
 not like my saints ? Why are you not like me, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ f 
 
 You all surely know what I mean. You know 
 that I do not mean that you hear a voice 
 speaking to your ears, but that thoughts and 
 feelings come into your heart, without you put-
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 183 
 
 ting them there: ay, often enough, in spite of your 
 trjdng to cli'ive them away. Now, those right 
 thoughts are the kingdom of God within you. 
 They are the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 speaking by His Holy Spirit to your spirit, and 
 telHng you that He is your King, and that you 
 ought to obey Him; and that obeying Him means 
 being righteous and good, as He is righteous and 
 good; and caUing on you to give up your own 
 wills and fancies, and to do His will, and let Him 
 make you holy, even as He is holy. That, I say, 
 is the kingdom of God showing itself within you, 
 telling you that God is yovir King, and telling 
 you how to obey Him. 
 
 But what if a man will not hear that voice? 
 What if a man rebels proudly against the good 
 thoughts which rise in his mind, and tries to 
 forget them, and grows angry with them, angrj^ 
 with the preacher, the Church Service, the 
 Bible itself, because they icill go on reminding 
 him of what he knows in his heart to be right ? 
 What if those good thoughts only make him the 
 more stubborn and determined to do his own 
 pleasure, and follow his own interests, and do his 
 own will? 
 
 Do you not see that to that man God's king- 
 dom over his heart is a savour of death unto 
 death — that his findino; out that God is his 
 Lord only makes him more rebellious — that
 
 184 SERMON XIV. 
 
 God's Spirit striving with liis heart to biing it 
 right, only stirs up his stubbornness and self-will, 
 and makes him go the more obstinately wrong ? 
 
 Oil, ray friends, this is a fearful thoiight! 
 That man can become worse by God's loving 
 desire to make him better I But so it is. So it 
 Avas with Pharaoh of old. All God's pleading 
 with him by the message of ISIoses and Aaron, 
 by the mighty plagues which God sent on Egypt, 
 only hardened Pharaoh's heart. The Lord God 
 spoke to him, and His message only lashed 
 Pharaoh's proud and wdcked will into greater 
 fury and rebellion, as a vicious horse becomes 
 the more unmanageable the more you punish it. 
 Therefore, it is said plainly in scripture, that The 
 Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart; not as some 
 fancy, that the Lord's will was to make Pharaoh 
 hard-hearted and wicked. God forbid. The 
 Lord is the fountain of good only, and not He, but 
 we and the devil, make evil. But the more the 
 Lord pleaded with Pharaoh, and tried to bend 
 his will, the more self-willed he became. The 
 more The Lord showed Pharaoh that The Lord 
 was King, the more he hated the kingdom and 
 will of God, the more he determined to be king 
 himself, and to obey no law but his own wicked 
 fancies and pleasures, and asked, ' Who is. the 
 Lord, that I should obey Plim?' 
 
 And so it was with the Pharisees. When
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 185 
 
 thej found out that the kingdom of God was 
 within them, that God was the King of their 
 hearts and minds, and was trying to change their 
 feelings and alter their opinions, it only maddened 
 them. They were determined not to change. 
 They were determined not to confess that they 
 had been wrong, and had mistaken the meaning 
 of holy scripture. They were too proud to confess 
 what Jesus told them, that they were no better 
 than the poor ignorant common people whom 
 they despised. And yet they knew in their 
 hearts that He was riHit. When The Lord told 
 them the parable of the vineyard, they answered, 
 ' God forbid !' They felt at once that the parable 
 had to do with them — that they were the wicked 
 husbandmen on Avhom He said their master would 
 take vengeance : but tliat only maddened them 
 the more, till they ended by crucifying The Lord 
 of Glory, upon a pretence which they knew was 
 a false and lying one ; and when Judas Iscariot 
 said, ' I have betrayed the innocent blood,' they 
 did not deny that the Lord Jesus was innocent ; 
 all they answered was, ' What is that to us V 
 They were determined to have their owti way, 
 whether He was innocent or not. Thej'- had 
 seen God's Ukeness. They had seen what God 
 was hke, by seeing tlie conduct of His only- 
 begotten Son Jesus Christ. And when they 
 saw God's likeness, they hated it, because it was
 
 186 SERMON XIV. 
 
 not like themselves. And the more God strove 
 with their hearts, and tried to make them obey 
 Him, the more, in short, they felt His kingdom 
 within them, the more they hated that kingdom 
 of God within them, because it reproved them, 
 and convinced them of sin. 
 
 Oh, my friends, yovmg people especially, be- 
 ware ; beware lest you fall into the same miser- 
 able state of mind. The kingdom of God is 
 within you. The Holy Spirit, by which you 
 were regenerate in holy baptism, is stirring and 
 pleading with your hearts, making you happy 
 when you do right, unhappy when you do wrong. 
 Oh listen to those good thoughts and feelings 
 within you! Never fancy that they are your own 
 thoughts and feelings : else you will fancy that 
 you can put them away and take them back 
 again when you choose to change and become 
 religious. Do not let the devil deceive you into 
 that notion. These good thoughts and feelings 
 are the Spirit of God. They are the signs that 
 the kingdom of God is within you ; that God is 
 King and Master of your hearts and minds, and 
 that you cannot keep Him out of them, but that 
 He can enter into them when He likes, and put 
 right thoughts into them. But though you 
 cannot prevent God and His kijigdom enter 
 ing into you, you can refuse to enter into it. 
 Alas ! alas ! how many of you do shut your ears
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 187 
 
 to God's voice, try to drive God's Spirit out of 
 your own hearts; try to forget what is right, 
 because it is unpleasant to remember it, and 
 say to yourselves, ^ I wuU have my own way. I 
 will try and forget what the clergyman said in 
 his sermon, or what I learnt at school. I am 
 "gro\vn up now, and I will do what I like.' Oh, 
 my friends, is it a wise or a hopeful battle, to 
 fight against the living God? Grieve not the 
 Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed to the 
 day of redemption, lest He go away from you, 
 and leave you to yourselves, spiritually dead, 
 twice dead, plucked up by the roots, whose end 
 is to be burned. Grieve Him not, lest He depart, 
 and with Him both the Father and the Son. 
 And then you will not know right from wrong, 
 because God the Holy Spmt, the Spirit of right, 
 has left you. You will not know what a man 
 ought to be or do, because the Son of Man, the 
 perfect likeness of God, and therefore the perfect 
 pattern of man, has left you. You will not 
 know that God the Father is your Father, but 
 only fancy Him a stern taskmaster, reaping 
 where He has not sown, and requiring of you 
 more than you are bound to pay, because God 
 the Father has left you. 
 
 You may, indeed, keep out ugly thoughts for a 
 time. You may go on wantonly in sin, and world 
 liness, and self-will. And then, by way of falling
 
 188 SERMON XIV. 
 
 deeper still, you may take up with some false sort 
 of religion, which makes people fancy that they 
 know God, and are one of His elect, while in works 
 they deny Him, and their sinful heart is unchanged. 
 Then your mouth indeed may be full of second- 
 hand talk about the gospel. But what gospel ? 
 I call tliat a devil's gospel, and not God's gospel, 
 whicli makes men fancy that they may continue 
 in sin that grace may abound. I call any grace 
 which leaves men in their sins the devil's grace, 
 and not God's grace. Certainly it is not the 
 gospel of tlie kingdom of God ; for if it was, it 
 would produce in men the fruits of that kingdom, 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Spirit, instead of the fruits which we see too 
 often, bigotry and self-conceit, bitterness, evil- 
 sjjeaking, and hard judgments, and joy in a most 
 unholy and damnable spmt, not to mention 
 covetousness and deceitfulness, or even in some 
 cases wantonness and lust. And vet such men 
 will often fancy that they belong especially to 
 God, and doubt whether He will have mercy on 
 any who do not exactly agree with them ; while 
 in reality God and His kingdom have utterly left 
 their hearts, and they are as blind and dark as the 
 beasts which perish. May God preserve us from 
 that second death which comes on sinners, when, 
 after a sinful youth, their terrified souls begin to 
 cry out in fear at the sight of their sins ; and they.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 189 
 
 instead of casting awaj their sins, keep their sins, 
 or change old sins for more respectable and safe 
 new ones, and drug their souls with false doc- 
 trines, as foolish nurses quiet children's crying 
 by giving them poisonous medicines. There are 
 -some in this parish who have fallen, I really 
 fear at times, into that state of mind, and are 
 like those Pharisees of whom om- Lord said, ' Ye 
 serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye 
 escape the damnation of hell?' Even for them 
 it is not too late : but, let them recollect, if the 
 kingdom of God is within them, if they have any 
 feelings of right and wrong left in them, that their 
 covetousness, and h'ing, and slandering, and con- 
 ceit, is fighting against God ; that these are j List 
 what God desires to cast out of them ; and that 
 unless they give up their hearts to God, and let 
 Him cast out their sins, and be converted, and 
 become like little children, gentle, humble, teach- 
 able, friendly, and kind-hearted, obedient to their 
 heavenly Father, God will cast them out of His 
 kingdom among the things which offend, and 
 bring a bad name on religion ; among those very 
 profligate and open sinners Avhom they are so 
 ready to despise and curse.
 
 XV. 
 
 THE LIQHT. 
 
 Ephesians v. 13, 14. 
 
 ' But all things that are rejjroved are made manifest by the 
 light : for tvhaisoever doth make manifest is light. 
 Wherefore He saith, Aivake thou that sleepest, and 
 arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' 
 
 St Paul has been telling the Ephesians who they 
 are. That they are God's dear children. To 
 whom they belong. To Christ who has given 
 Himself for them. What they ought to do. To 
 follow God's likeness, and live in love. That they 
 are light in the Lord ; and are to walk as children 
 of the light; and have no fellowship with the 
 unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove 
 them. As much as to say : Do not believe those 
 who tell you that there is no harm in young 
 people going wrong together before marriage, 
 provided they intend to marry after all. Do not 
 beHeve those who tell you that there is no harm 
 in filthy words, provided you do not do filthy 
 things; and no harm in swearing, provided you 
 do not mean the curses which you speak. Do not
 
 THE LIGHT. 191 
 
 believe those who tell you that there is no harm 
 in poaching another man's game, provided you 
 do not steal his poultry, or anything except his 
 game. Do not believe those who tell you that 
 there is no harm in being covetous, provided you 
 .do not actually cheat your neighbours ; and that 
 the sin Kes, not in being covetous at all, but in 
 being more covetous than the law will let you be. 
 Do not beheve those who tell you that you may 
 keep dark thoughts, spite, suspicion, envy, cun- 
 ning, covetousness in your hearts day after day, 
 year after year, provided you do not openly act 
 on them so as to do your neighbours any great 
 notorious injury. 
 
 Plenty of people wiU tell you so, and try 
 to deceive you with vain words, and give you 
 arguments, and texts of scripture perhaps, to 
 prove that sin is not sin, and that the children of 
 light may do the worlcs of darkness. But do not 
 beheve them, says St Paul. They are deceivers, 
 and their words are vain. These are the very 
 thiniTS which bring down God's wrath on His 
 disobedient children. These are the bad ways 
 which make young people when they are maraed 
 despise, and distrust, and quarrel with each other, 
 and live miserable lives together, as children of 
 wrath, pce\ash, and wratliful, and discontented 
 with each other, because they feel that God is 
 angiy with them, just as Adam in the garden,
 
 192 SEKMON XV. 
 
 when he felt that he had sinned, and that God 
 was wroth with liim, haid the blame on his wife, 
 and accused her, whom he ought to have loved, 
 and protected, and excused. 
 
 These are the bad ways which make people 
 ashamed when they meet a good and a respect- 
 able person, make them afraid of being overheard, 
 afraid of being found out, fond of haunting low 
 and out-of-the-way places where they will not 
 be seen ; fond of prowling and lurching out at 
 night after their own sinful pleasures, because 
 the darkness hides them from their neighbours, 
 and seems to hide them from themselves, though 
 it cannot hide them from God. These are the 
 sins which make men silent, cunning, dark, sour, 
 double-tongued, afraid to look any one full in the 
 face, unwilling to make friends, afraid of opening 
 their minds to any one, because they have some- 
 thing on their minds which they dare not tell 
 their neighbours, which they dare not even tell 
 themselves, but think about as little as they can 
 help. Do you not know what I mean ? Do you 
 not often see it in others ? Have you never felt 
 it in yourselves when you have done wrong, that 
 dark feeling within which shows itself in dark 
 looks ? You tall?: of a ' dark-looking man,' or a 
 ' dark sort of person ;' and you mean, do you not, 
 a man Avhom you cannot make out, who does 
 not wish you to make him out ; who keeps his
 
 THE LIGHT. 193 
 
 thoughts and his feelings to himself, and is never 
 frank or free, excej^t with bad companions, when 
 the world cannot see him ; who goes about hang- 
 ing down his head, and looking out of the comers 
 of his eyes, as if he were afraid of the very sun- 
 shine — afraid of the light. We know that 
 such a man has something dark on his mind. 
 We call him a 'dark sort of man.' And we 
 are right. We sa}^ of him what St Paul says of 
 him in this very epistle, when he says, that sin 
 is darkness, and sinful works the deeds of dark- 
 ness; and that goodness, and righteousness, and 
 truth, are light, the very light of God and of the 
 Spirit of God. Our reason, our common sense, 
 which is given us by God's Spirit, the Spirit of 
 light, makes us use the right words, the same 
 words as St Paul does, and call sin darkness. 
 
 But rather reprove these dark works, says St 
 Paul ; that is, look at them, and see that they are 
 utterly w'orthless and damnable. And how ? 
 ' All things that are reproved,' he says, ' are 
 made manifest by the light. For whatsoever 
 makes manifest is light.' Whatsoever makes 
 manifest, that is, makes plain and clear. What- 
 soever makes you see anything or person in 
 heaven or earth as it really is ; whatsoever makes 
 you understand more about anything; whatso- 
 ever shows you more what you are, where you 
 are, what you ought to do ; whatsoever teaches 
 
 N
 
 194 SERMON XV. 
 
 you any single hint about your duty to God, or | 
 man, or the dumb beasts which you tend, or the ' 
 soil which you till, or the business and line of life ■ 
 which you ought to follow; whatsoever shows ' 
 you the right and the wrong in any matter, the 
 truth and the falsehood in any matter, the pru- ; 
 dent course and the imprudent course in any 
 matter ; in a word, whatsoever makes your mind 
 more clear about any single thing in heaven or 
 earth, is light. For, mind, St Paul does not i 
 say, whatsoever is light makes things plain ; but ] 
 whatsoever makes things plain is light. That is i 
 saying a great deal more, thank God ; for if he \ 
 had said, whatsoever is light makes things clear, i 
 we sliould have been puzzled to know what was J 
 light ; we should have been tempted to settle for ' 
 ourselves what was light. And, God knows, 
 people in all ages, and people of all religions, : 
 christians as well as heathens, have been tempted - 
 to say so, and to misread this text, till they said, ; 
 ' Whatsoever agrees with our doctrine is light, of \ 
 course, but all other teaching is darkness, and j 
 comes from the devil;' and so they oftentimes 
 blasphemed against God's Holy Spirit by calling \ 
 good actions bad ones, just because they were i 
 done by people who did not agree with them, and ; 
 fell into the same sin as the Pharisees of old, who i 
 said that The "Xford cast out devils by Beelzebub I 
 the prince of the devils. i 
 
 i
 
 THE LIGHT. ' 195 
 
 But St Paul says, whatsoever makes anything 
 whatsoever clearer to you, is light. There is the 
 gospel, and there is the good news of salvation 
 again, coming out, as it does all through St 
 Paul's epistles, at eveiy turn, just where poor, 
 sinful, dark man least expects it. For, what does 
 St Paul say in the very next verse? ' Where- 
 fore,' he says, ' arise from the dead, and Christ 
 shall give thee light.' ' Christ shall give thee 
 light !' Oh blessed news ! Christ gives us the 
 hght, and therefore we need not be afraid of it, 
 but trust it, and welcome it. And Chi'ist gives 
 us the light, therefore we have not to hunt and 
 search after it ; for He will give it us. Let us 
 think over these two matters, and see whether 
 there is not a gospel and good news in them for 
 all wretched, ignorant, sinful, dark souls, just as 
 much as for those who are learned and wise, or 
 blight and full of peace. 
 
 1. Christ gives us the hght. This agrees with 
 what St John savs, ' that He is the lifcht who 
 lights every man who comes into the world.' 
 And it agrees also with what St James says, 
 ' Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. Every 
 good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 
 and cometh down from God, the Father of lights, 
 with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of 
 tarning.' And it agrees also with what the 
 prophet says, that it is the Spirit of God which
 
 196 SERMON XV. 
 
 gives man understanding. And it agrees also 
 with what the Lord Himself promised us when 
 He was on earth, that He would send down on 
 us the Spirit of God— the Spirit which proceeds 
 alike from Him and from His Father, to guide 
 us into all truth. Ah, my friends, if we really 
 behoved this, what a solemn and important thing 
 education woidd seem to us ! If we really be- 
 lieved that all hght, all true understanding of 
 any matter, came from the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 and if we remembered what the Lord Jesus' 
 character was ; how He came to do good to all ; 
 to teach not merely the rich and -powerfal, but 
 the poor, the ignoi'ant, the outcast, the sinful; 
 should we not say to ourselves, then, 'If knowledge 
 comes from Christ, who never kept anything to 
 Himself, how dare we keep knowledge to our- 
 selves? If it comes from Him who gave Himself 
 freely for all, surely He means that knowledge 
 should be given freely to all. If He and His 
 Father, and our Father, will that all should come 
 to the knowledge of the truth, how dare we keep 
 the truth from any one V So we should feel it 
 the will of our heavenly Father, the solemn 
 command of our blessed Saviour, that our chil- 
 dren, and not only they, but every soul around 
 us, young and old, should be educated in the 
 best possible way, and in any way wdiatsoever, 
 rather than in none at all. The education of the
 
 THE LIGHT. 197 
 
 poor would be, in our eyes, the most sacred duty. 
 A school would be, in our eyes, as necessary and 
 almost as sacred a thing as a chui'ch. And to 
 neglect sending our children to school, or to 
 leave oiu' servants or work-people in ignorance, 
 would seem to us an awful sin against the Father 
 of lights ; a rebellion against the Lord Jesus, 
 who lights every man who comes into the world, 
 and against our Father in heaven, who willeth 
 not that one of these little ones should perish. 
 
 And this is made still more plain and certain 
 by the next woi*d in the text, ' Christ shall r/ive 
 thee lio-ht :' not sell thee lio-lit, or allow thee to find 
 light after great struggles, and weary years of 
 study. But, give thee light. Give it thee of His 
 free grace and generosity. We might have 
 expected that, merely from remembering to whom 
 the light belono-s. The mere fact that liorht 
 belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the 
 express hkeness of His Father, might have made 
 us sure that He would give His light freely to 
 the unthankful and to the evil, just as His Father 
 makes His sun to shine alike on the evil and on 
 the eood. Therefore this text does not leave us to 
 find out the good news for ourselves. It declares 
 to us plainly that He will give it us, as freely as 
 He gives us all things richly to enjoy. 
 
 But, some one will say, you surely cannot 
 mean that we shall have understanding without
 
 198 SERMON XV. 
 
 study ? You cannot mean that we are to become 
 wise without careful thought, or that we are to 
 understand books without learning to read ? Of 
 course not, my friends. The text does not say^ 
 ' Christ will give thee eyes ; Christ will give thee 
 sense :' but, ' Christ will o;ive thee light.' . . . 
 Do you not see the difference 1 Of what use would 
 your eyes be without light? And of what use 
 would light be if your eyes were shut, and you 
 asleep ? In darkness you cannot see. Yom* eyes 
 are there, as good as ever; the world is there, 
 as fair as ever: but you cannot see it, because 
 there is no light. You can only feel it, by 
 groping about with your hands, and laying hold 
 of whatsoever happens to be nearest you. And 
 do you think that though your bodily eyes can- 
 not see, unless God puts His light in the sky^ 
 to shine on everything, and show it you, yet 
 your minds and souls can see without any light 
 from God? Not so, my friends. What the 
 sun is to this earth, that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Word of God, is to the spirit — that 
 is, the reason and conscience — of every man who 
 comes into the world. Now, the good news of 
 holy baptism is, that the light is here; that 
 God's Spirit is with us, to teach us the truth 
 about everything, that we may see it in its true 
 light, as it is, as God sees it ; that the day-spring 
 fix)m on high has visited us, to give light to those
 
 THE LIGHT. 199 
 
 who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, 
 to guide our feet into the way of peace ; and that 
 you are children of the hght and of the day. 
 But what if those who sit in darkness, hke the 
 darkness, and wilfully shut their eyes tight that 
 they may not see the day-spring fi'om on high, 
 and the light which God has sent into the world ? 
 Then the light will not profit them, but they will 
 walk on still in darkness, not knowing whither 
 they are going. 
 
 But some may say, wacked men are very wise ; 
 although they rebel against God's Spirit, and do 
 not even believe in God's Spirit, but say that 
 man's mind can find out everything for itself, 
 without God's help, yet they are very wise. Are 
 they? The Bible tells us again and again that 
 the wisdom of such men is roily, that God takes 
 such wise men in their own craftiness. And the 
 Bible speaks truth. If there is one thing of which 
 I am more certain than another, my friends, 
 it is, that, just in proportion as a man is bad, 
 j ust in proportion as he does not believe in a good 
 Spirit of God who wills to teach him, and gives 
 him light, he is a fool. If there is one thing 
 more than another which such men's books have 
 taught me, it is that they are in darkness, when 
 they fancy they are in the brightest light ; that 
 they make the greatest mistakes when they 
 intend to say the clearest things, and when they
 
 200 SEKMON XV. 
 
 least fancy it, fall into nonsense and absurdities, 
 not merely on matters of religion, but on points 
 wliicli they profess to have studied, and in cases 
 where, by their own showing, they ought to have 
 known better. But our business to-day is rather 
 with ourselves. Our business, in this time of 
 Lent, is to see whether we have been shutting 
 oiir eyes; whether we have been walking in 
 darkness, while God's light is all around us. 
 And how shall we know that ? Let St John tell 
 us : ' He that saith he is in the light, and hateth 
 his brother, is in darkness until now, and knowetli 
 not whither he goeth, because darkness has 
 blinded his eyes.' Hating our brother. Covet- 
 ousness, which is indeed hating our brother, for 
 it teaches us to prefer our good to our neighbour's 
 good, to fatten ourselves at our neighbour's 
 expense, to get his work, his custom, his money, 
 away from him to ourselves ; bigotry, which 
 makes men hate and despise those who differ from 
 them in religion ; spite and malice against those 
 who have injured us ; suspicions and dark distrust 
 of our neighbours, and of mankind in general — 
 selfishness, which sets us always standing on our 
 own rights, makes always ready to take offence, 
 always ready to think that people mean to insult 
 us or injure us, and makes us moody, dark, 
 peevish, always thinking about ourselves, and our 
 plans, or our own pleasures, shut up as it were
 
 THE LIGHT. 201 
 
 within ourselves — all these sins, in proportion 
 as any one gives way to them, darken the eyes of 
 a man's soul. They really and actually make 
 him more stupid, less able to understand his 
 neighbours' hearts and minds, less able to take a 
 reasonable view of any matter or question what- 
 soever. You may not believe me. But so it is. 
 I know it by experience to be true. I warn you 
 that you will find it true one day. That all 
 spite, passion, prejudice, suspicion, hard judg- 
 ments, contempt, self-conceit, blind a man's 
 reason, and heart, and soul, and make him stumble 
 and fall into mistakes, even in worldly matters, 
 just as surely as shutting one's eyes makes us 
 stumble in broad daylight. He who gives way 
 to such passions is asleep, while he fancies himself 
 broad awake. His life is a dream, and like a 
 dreamer, he sees nothing really, only appearances, 
 fancies, pictures of things in his own selfish brain. 
 Therefore it is written, 'Aw^akethou that sleepest, 
 and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give 
 thee life.' You may say, Can I awaken myself? 
 Perhaps not, unless some one calls thee. And 
 therefore Christ calls on thee to awake. He says 
 by my mouth, Awake, thou sleeper, and I will 
 give thee light; awake, thou dreamer, who fanciest 
 that the sinful works of darkness can give thee 
 any real profit, any real pleasure; awake, thou 
 sleep-walker, who art going about the world in a
 
 202 SERMON XV. 
 
 dream, groping thy way on from clay to~ clay 
 and year to year, only kept from fall and ruin 
 by God's guiding and preserving mercy. Open 
 thine eyes, and let in the great eternal loving 
 light, wherein God beholds everything which He 
 has made, and behold it is very good. Open 
 thine eyes, for it is day. The light is here if 
 thou wilt but use it. 'I will guide thee,' 
 saith the Lord, ' and inform thee with mine eye, 
 and teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go.' 
 Only believe in the light. Believe that all know- 
 ledge comes from God. Expect and trust that 
 He will give thee knowledge. Pray to Him 
 boldly to give thee knowledge, because thou art 
 sure that He wishes thee to have knowledge. He 
 wishes thee to know thy duty. He wishes thee to 
 see everything as He sees it. ' If any man lack 
 wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all 
 liberally and upbraideth not, and he shall receive 
 it.' And when thou hast prayed for knowledge, 
 expect it to come ; as it is written. When thou 
 prayest for anything, believe that thou wilt 
 receive it, and thou wilt receive it. If thou 
 dost not believe that thou wilt have it, of course 
 thou wilt not have it. And why? Because 
 thou wilt pass by it without seeing it. It will 
 be there ready for thee in thy daily walks; Wis- 
 dom will cry to thee at the head of every street ; 
 God will not deny Himself or break His promise ;
 
 THE LIGHT. 203 
 
 but thou wilt go past the place where wisdom is, 
 and miss the lessons which God is strewing in 
 thy path, because thou art not looking for them. 
 Wisdom is here, my friends, and understanding 
 is here, and the Spirit of God is here, if our eyes 
 were but open to see them. O, my friends, of 
 all the sins of which we have to repent in this time 
 of Lent, none ought to give us more solemn and 
 bitter thoughts of shame than the way in which 
 we overlook the teaching of God's Spirit, and 
 shiit our eyes to His light, times without number, 
 eveiy day of our lives. My friends, if our hearts 
 were what they ought to be, if we had hum- 
 ble, loving, trustful hearts, full of faith and hope 
 in God's promise to lead us into all truth, I be- 
 lieve that every joy and every sorrow which befel 
 us, eveiy book which we opened, every walk 
 which we took upon the face of God's earth, ay, 
 every human face into which we looked, would 
 teach us some lesson, whereby we should be wiser, 
 better, more aware of where we are and what 
 God requires of us as human beings, neighbours, 
 citizens, subjects, members of His church. All 
 thintrs would be clear to us ; for we should see 
 them in the light of God's Spirit. All things 
 would look bright to us, for we should see them 
 in the light of God's love. All things would 
 work together for good to us, for we should 
 understand each thing as it came before us,
 
 204 SERMON XV. 
 
 and know what it was, and what God meant 
 it for, and how we wei'e to use it. And know- 
 ing and seeing what was right, we should see 
 how beautiful it was, and love it, and take delight 
 in doing it, and so we should walk in the 
 light. Dark thoughts would pass away from 
 our minds, dark feelings from our hearts, dark 
 looks from our faces. We should look our neigh- 
 hours cheerfully and boldly in the face ; for our 
 consciences would be clear of any ill-will or 
 meanness toward them. We should look cheer- 
 fully and boldly up to God our Father ; for we 
 should know that He was with us, guiding and 
 teaching us, well-pleased with all our endeav- 
 ours to see things as He sees them, and to live 
 and work on earth after His image, and in 
 His- likeness. We should look out cheerfully 
 and boldly on the world around us, tiying to get 
 knowledge from everything we see, expecting 
 the light, and welcoming it, and trusting it, 
 because we know that it comes from Him who is 
 true and cannot lie. Him who is love and cannot 
 injure. Him who is righteousness and cannot 
 lead us into temptation : Jesus Christ, the Light 
 who lighteth eveiy man that cometh into the 
 world.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 
 
 Matthew xii. 31, 32.* 
 
 ' Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and 
 blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men : but the blas- 
 phemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven 
 unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against 
 the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him : but ivhoso- 
 ever speaketh a word against the Holy Ghost, it shall 
 not be forgiven him, either in this world, or in the 
 tvorld to come.' 
 
 These awful words were the Lord's answer to 
 the Pharisees, when they said of Him, ' He casts 
 out de^^ls by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.' 
 
 A^Hiat was it now which made this speech of 
 the Pharisees so terrible a sin ; past all forgive- 
 ness 1 
 
 Of course we all feel that they were very sin- 
 ful ; we shrink with horror from their words as 
 we read them. But why ought they to have 
 done the same? We know, thank God, who 
 Jesus Christ was. But they did not ; at that 
 time, when He was first beginning to preach,
 
 206 SERMON XVI. 
 
 they hardly could have known. And mind, we 
 must not say, ' They ought to have known that 
 He was the Son of God by His having the power 
 of casting out devils ;' for the Lord Himself says 
 that the sons of these Pharisees used to cast them 
 out also, or that the Pharisees believed that they 
 did ; and only asks them, ' Why do you say of 
 my casting out devils, what you will not say of 
 your sons' casting them out V Pray bear this in 
 mind; for if you do not — if you keep in your 
 mind the vulgar and unscriptm'al notion that the 
 Pharisees' sin was not being convinced bv the 
 great power of Christ's miracles, you will never 
 understand this story, and you will be very likely 
 to get rid of it altogether as speaking of a sin which 
 do^s not concern you, and a sin which you cannot 
 commit. Now, if the Pharisees did not know that 
 Jesus was the Son of God, the Maker and King 
 of the world, as we do, why were they so awfully 
 wicked in saying that He cast out devils by the 
 prince of the devils? Was it anything more 
 than a mistake of theks % Was it as wicked as 
 crucifying tlie Lord ? Could it be a worse sin 
 to make that one mistake, than to mm'der the 
 Lord Himself? And yet it must have been. 
 For the Lord prayed for His murderers : ' Father, 
 forgive them, for they know not what they do.' 
 And these Pharisees, they knew not what they 
 did; and yet the Lord, far from praying for
 
 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 207 
 
 them, told them that even He did not see how 
 such serpents, such a generation of vipers, could 
 escape the damnation of hell. 
 
 It is worth our while to think over this question, 
 and try and find out what made the Pharisees' 
 sin so great. And to do that, it will be wiser 
 for us, first, to find out Avhat the Pharisees' 
 sin was; lest we should sit here this morning, 
 and think them the most wicked wretches who 
 ever trod the earth, and then go away, and be- 
 fore the week is over, commit ourselves the very 
 same sin, or one so fearfully like it, that if other 
 people can see a difference between them, I con- 
 fess I cannot. And to commit such a sin, my 
 good friends, is a far easier thing to do than some 
 people fancy, especially here in England now. 
 
 Now, the worst part of the Pharisees' sin was 
 not, as we are too apt to fancy, their insulting the 
 Lord : but their insialting the Holy Spirit. For 
 what does the Lord Himself say ? That all manner 
 of blasphemy as well as sin should be forgiven ; 
 that whosoever spoke a word against Him, the 
 Son of Man, should be forgiven; but that the 
 unpardonable part of their offence was, that they 
 had blasphemed the Holy Spirit. 
 
 And who is the Holy Spirit ? The Spirit of 
 holiness. And what is holiness ? What are the 
 fruits of holiness"? For, as the Lord told the 
 Pharisees on this very occasion, the tree is known 
 
 ^
 
 208 SERMON XVI. 
 
 by its fniit. AVhat says St Paul? The fruit of 
 the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance. 
 Those who do not show these fr'uits have not God's 
 Spirit in them. Those who are hard, unloving, 
 proud, quarrelsome, peevish, suspicious, ready to 
 impute bad motives to their neighbours, have not 
 God's Spirit in them. Those who do show these 
 fruits; who are gentle, forgiving, kind-hearted, 
 ready to do good to others, and believe good of 
 others, have God's Spirit in them. For these 
 are good fruits, which, as our Lord tells us, can 
 only spring from a good root. Those who have 
 the fruit must have the root, let their doctrines 
 be what they may. Those who have not the 
 fruit cannot have the root, let their doctrines be 
 what they may. 
 ^ That is the plain truth ; and it is high time 
 for preachers to proclaim it boldly, and take the 
 consequences from the scribes and Pharisees 
 of this generation. That is the plain truth. Let 
 doctrines be what they will, the tree is known by 
 its fruit. The man who does wrong things is 
 bad, and the man who does right things is good. 
 • It is a simple thing to have to say, but very few 
 believe it in these days. Most fancy that the 
 men who can talk most neatly and correctly 
 about certain religious doctrines are good, and 
 that those who cannot are bad. That is no new
 
 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 209 
 
 notion. Some people thought so in St John's 
 time; and what did he say of them? 'Little 
 children, let no man deceive you ; it is he that 
 doeth righteousness who is righteous, even as 
 God is righteous.' And again, 'He who says, 
 I know God, and keeps not His command- 
 ments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.' St 
 John was the apostle of love. He was always 
 preaching the love of God to men, and entreating 
 men to love one another. His own heart was 
 overflowing with love. -Yet when it came to such 
 a question as that; when it came to people's 
 pretending to be rehgious and orthodox, and yet 
 neither obeying God nor loAong their neighbours, 
 he could speak sternly and plainly enough. He 
 does not say, 'My dear friends, I am sorry to 
 have to differ from you, but I am afraid you are 
 mistaken ;' he says, ' You are liars, and there is 
 no truth in you.' 
 
 Now this was just what the Pharisees had for- 
 gotten. They had got to think, as too many have 
 now-a-days, that the sign of a man's having God's 
 Spirit in him, was his agi'eeing with them in 
 doctrine. But if he did not agree with them ; if 
 he would not say the words which they said, and 
 did not belong to their party, and side with them 
 in despising every one who differed from them, it 
 was no matter to them, as they proved by their 
 opinion of Jesus Himself, how good he might
 
 210 SERMON XVI. 
 
 be, or how much good he might do ; how loving, 
 
 gentle, patient, benevolent, helping, and caring j 
 
 for poor people ; in short, how like God he was ; ^ 
 
 all that went for nothing if he was not of their j 
 
 party. For they had forgotten what God was ] 
 
 like. They forgot that God was love and mercy ; 
 
 itself, and that all love and mercy must come ] 
 
 from God; and that, therefore, no one, let his i 
 
 creed or his doctrine be what it might, could I 
 
 possibly do a loving or merciful thing, but by the : 
 
 grace and inspiration of God, the Father of j 
 
 mercies. And yet their own prophets of the i 
 
 Old Testament had told them so, when they , 
 
 ascribed the'good deeds of heathens to the inspira- • 
 
 tion of God, just as much as the good deeds of | 
 
 Jews, and agreed, as they do in many a text, ] 
 
 with what St James, himself a Jew, said after- , 
 
 wards : ' Be not deceived ; every good gift, and \ 
 
 every perfect gift is from above, and cometh j 
 
 down from the Father of lights.' But the Phari- i 
 
 sees, Hke too many now-a-days, did not think so. 
 
 They thought that good and perfect gifts might " 
 
 some of them very well come from below, from i 
 
 the father of darkness and cruelty. They saw ; 
 
 the Lord Jesus Christ doing good things ; driving 
 
 out evil, and deliveiing men from the power of it ; [ 
 
 healing the sick, cleansing the leper, curing the i 
 
 mad, preaching the gospel to the poor : and yet ' 
 
 they saw in that no proof that God's Spirit was ,|
 
 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 211 
 
 working in Him. Of course, if He had been one 
 of their own party, and had held the same doc- 
 trines as they held, they would have praised Him 
 loudly enough, and held Him up as a great saint 
 of then' school, and boasted of all His good deeds 
 as proofs of how good their party was, and how its 
 doctrines came from God. But as long as He 
 was not one of them. His good works went for 
 nothincr. They could not see God's likeness in 
 that loving and merciful character. All His 
 charity and benevolence made them only hate 
 Him the more, because it made them the more 
 afraid that He would draw the ])eople away from 
 them. 'And of course,' they said to themselves, 
 ' whosoever draws people away from us, must be 
 on the devil's side. We know all God's law and 
 will. No one on earth has anything to teach us. 
 And, therefore, as for any one who differs fi'om 
 us, if he cast out devils, it must be because the 
 devil is helping him, for his own pm'poses, to do 
 it.' 
 
 In one word, then, the sin of these Pharisees, 
 the mipardonable sin, which ruins all who give 
 themselves up to it, was bigotry : calling right 
 wrong, because it did not suit their party pre- 
 judices to call it right. They were fancying 
 themselves veiy religious and pious, and all the 
 while they did not know right when they saw it ; 
 and when The Lord came doing right, they
 
 212 SERMON XVI. 
 
 called it wrong, because He did not agree ^^ntli 
 their doctrines. They fancied that they were 
 the only people on earth who knew how to wor- 
 ship God perfectly ; and yet while they pretended 
 to worship Him, they did not know what He was 
 like. The Lord Jesus came down, the perfect 
 likeness of God's glory, and the express pattern 
 of His character, helping, and healing, and de- 
 livering the souls and bodies of all poor wretches 
 whom He met; and these Pharisees could not 
 see God's Spirit in that ; and because it was cer- 
 tainly not their own spirit, called it the spirit of 
 a devil, and blasphemed against The Holy Spirit, 
 The Spirit of Right and Love. 
 
 This was bigotry, the flower and crown of all 
 sins into which man can fall; the worst of all 
 sins, bec9,use a man may keep from every other 
 sin with all his might and main, as the Pharisees 
 did, and yet be led by bigotry into almost every 
 one of them without knowing it ; into harsh and 
 imcharitable judgment ; into anger, clamour, and 
 railing ; into misrepresentation and slander ; and 
 fancying that the God of truth needs the help of 
 their lying ; perhaps, as has often happened, alas ! 
 already, into devilish cruelty to the souls and 
 bodies of men. The worst of all sins; because a 
 man who has given up his heart to bigotry can 
 have no forgiveness. He cannot; for how can 
 a man be forgiven unless he repent % and how
 
 THE UNPAEDONABLE SIN. 213 
 
 can a bigot repent ? how can he confess himself 
 in the Avrong, while he fancies himself infallibly 
 in the right ? As The Lord said to these very 
 Pharisees, ' If ye had been bhnd, ye had had no 
 sin : but now ye say, We see ; therefore your 
 .sin remaineth.' 
 
 How can the bigot repent ? for repenting is 
 turning to God ; and how can a man turn to 
 God who does not know where to look for God, 
 who does not know who God is, who mistakes 
 the devil for God, and fancies the all-loving 
 Father to be a taskmaster, and a tyrant, and an 
 accuser, and a respecter of persons, without mercy 
 or care for ninety-nine hundredths of the souls 
 which He has made ? How can he find God ? 
 He does not know whom to look for. 
 
 How can the bigot repent ? for to repent means 
 to turn from wrong to right ; and he has lost the 
 veiy notion of right and wrong, in the midst of 
 all his religion and his fine doctrines. He fancies 
 that right does not mean love, mercy, goodness, 
 patience, but notions like his own ; and that 
 -svi'ong does not mean hatred, and evil-speaking, 
 and suspicion, and uncharitableness, and slander, 
 and lying, but notions unlike his own. Wliat 
 he agrees with he thinks is heavenly, and what 
 he disagrees with is of hell. He has made his 
 own god for himself out of himself His own 
 prejudices are his god, and he worships them
 
 214 SEEMON xvr. 
 
 rio-ht wortliily : and if The Lord were to come 
 doAvn on earth again, and would not say the 
 words which he is accustomed to say, it would 
 (TO hard but he would crucify The Lord again, 
 as the Pharisees did of old. 
 
 ^ly friends, there is too much of this bigotry, 
 this blasphemy against God's Spirit, abroad in 
 England now. May God keep us all from it \ 
 Pray to Plim night and day to give you His 
 Spirit, that you may not only be loving, chari- 
 table, full of good works yourselves, but may be 
 ready to praise and enjoy a good, and lo^^ng, and 
 merciful action, whosoever does it, whether he 
 be of your religion or not ; for nothing good is 
 done by any living man without the grace of 
 Christ, and the inspiration of the Spirit of God, 
 the Father of lights, from whom comes down 
 every good and perfect gift. And whosoever 
 tries to escape from that great truth, when he 
 sees a man whose doctrines are wrong doing a 
 right act, by imputing bad motives to him, or 
 saying, ' His actions must be evil, however good 
 they may look, because his doctrines are ■^^Tong,' 
 — that man is running the risk of committing 
 the very same sin as the Pharisees, and blas- 
 ])heming against the Holy Spirit, by calling good 
 e\dl. And be sure, my friends, that whosoever 
 indulges, even in little matters, in hard judg- 
 ments, and suspicions, and hasty sneers, and loud
 
 THE UNPAEDONABLE SIN. 215 
 
 railing, against men who differ from him in 
 religion, or in poKtics, or in anything else, is 
 deadening his own sense of right and wrong, and 
 sowing the seeds of that same state of mind, 
 which, as the Lord told the Pharisees, is utterly 
 the worst into which any human being can fall.
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BONDAQE. 
 
 RoBiANS viii. 15. 
 
 ' For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to 
 fear ; hut ye have received the Spirit of adoption, 
 ifhereby we cry, Abba, Father.' 
 
 Some of you here may not understand this text 
 at all. Some of you, perhaps, may misunder- 
 stand it ; for it is not an easy one. Let us, then, 
 begin, by finding out the meaning of each word 
 in it ; and, let us first see what is the meaning of 
 the spirit of bondage unto fear. Bondage means 
 slavery; and the spirit of bondage means the 
 spirit which makes men look up to God as slaves 
 do to their taskmaster. Now, a slave obeys his 
 master from fear only ; not from love or gi'atitude. 
 He knows that his master is stronger than he is, 
 and he dreads being beaten and punished by him ; 
 and, therefore, he obeys him only by compulsion, 
 not of his own good will. This is the spirit of 
 bondage ; the slavish, superstitious spirit in reli- 
 gion, into which all men fall, in proportion as 
 they are mean, and sinful, and carnal, fond of 
 
 k
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE. 217 
 
 indulging themselves, and not loving God or 
 right things. They know that God is stronger 
 than they ; they are afi'aid that God will take 
 away comforts from them if they offend Him ; 
 they have been taught that He will cast them 
 into endless torment if they offend Him; and, 
 therefore, they are afraid to do wrong. They 
 love what is -^Tong, and would like to do it ; but 
 they dare not, for fear of God's punishment. 
 The}^ do not really fear God ; they only fear 
 punishment, misfortune, and hell. That is bet- 
 ter, perhaps, than no religion at all. But it is 
 not the faith which we oue-ht to have. 
 
 In this way the old heathens lived : — loving 
 sin and not holiness, and yet continually tor- 
 mented with the fear of being punished for the 
 very sins Avhich they loved ; looking up to God 
 as a stem taskmaster ; fancying Him as proud, 
 and selfish, and revengeful as themselves ; trying 
 one day to quiet this wrath of His which they 
 knew they deserved, by all sorts of flatteries and 
 sacrifices to Him ; and the next day trying to 
 fancy that He was as sinful as themselves, and 
 was well-pleased to see them sinful too. And yet 
 they could not keep that lie in their hearts ; 
 God's light, which lights every man who comes 
 into the world, was too bright for them, and 
 shone into their consciences, and showed them 
 that the wages of sin was death. The law of
 
 218 SERJMON XVII. 
 
 God, St Paul tells us, was written in their hearts; 
 and how much soever, poor creatures, they might 
 try to blot it out and forget it, yet it would rise up 
 in judgment against them, day by day, and night 
 by night, convincing them of sin. So they, in 
 their terror, sold themselves to false priests, who 
 pretended to know of plans for helping them to 
 escape from this angry God, and gave themselves 
 up to superstitions, till they even sacrificed their 
 sons and their daughters to devils, in some sort 
 of confused hope of bujang themselves off from 
 misery and ruin. 
 
 And in the same way the Jews lived, for the 
 most part, before the Lord Jesus came in the 
 flesh of a man. Not so viciously and wickedly, 
 of course, because the law of ISIoses was holy, and 
 just, and good ; the law which the Lord Himself 
 had given them, because it was the best for them 
 then ; because they were too sinful, and slavish, 
 and stupid, for any thing better. But, as St 
 Paul says, Moses's law could not give them life, 
 any more than any other law can. That is, it 
 could not make them righteous and good ; it 
 could not change their hearts and lives ; it could 
 only keep them from outward wrong-doing by 
 threats and promises, saying, 'Thou shalt not.' 
 It could, at best, only show them how sinful 
 their own hearts were ; how little they loved 
 what God commanded ; how little they desired
 
 THE SPIEIT OF BONDAGE. 219 
 
 what He promised ; and so it made tliem feel 
 more and more that they were guilty, unworthy 
 to look up to a holy God, deserving His anger 
 and punishment, worthy to die for their sins ; 
 and thus by the law came the knowledge of sin, 
 a deeper feeling of guilt, and shame, and slavish 
 dread of God, as St Paul sets forth, wath w' onder- / 
 ful wisdom, in the seventh chapter of Romans. 
 
 Now, let us consider the latter half of the text. 
 'But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, 
 whereby we cry, Abba, Father.' 
 
 What is this adoption? St Paul tells us in 
 the begiiming of the fourth chapter of his epistle 
 to the Galatians. He says, As long as a man's 
 heu" is a child, and under age, there is no differ- 
 ence in law between him and a slave. He is his 
 father's property. He must obey his father, 
 whether he chooses or not; and he is under 
 tutors and governors, until the time appointed by 
 his father ; that is, until he comes of age, as we 
 call it. Then he becomes his own master. He 
 can inherit and possess property of his OAvn after 
 that. And from that time forth the law does 
 not bind him to obey his father ; if he obeys him 
 it is of his owTi free will, because he loves, and 
 trusts, and reverences his father. 
 
 Now, St Paul says, this is the case with us. 
 When we were infants, we were in bondage 
 under the elements of the world ; kept strait, as
 
 220 SERMON XVII. 
 
 children are, bj rules which they cannot under- 
 stand, by the fear of punishment which they can- 
 not escape, with no more power to resist their 
 Father than slaves have to resist their master. 
 But when the fulness of time was come, God 
 sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under 
 a law, that He might redeem those who were H 
 under a law, that we might receive the adoption l 
 of sons. I 
 
 As much as to say. You were God's children 1 
 all along : but now you are more ; you are God's 1 
 sons. You have arrived at man's estate ; you I 
 are men in body and in mind ; you are to be men -] 
 in spirit, men in life. You are to look up to the ! 
 great God who made heaven and earth, and | 
 know — glorious thought ! that He is as truly your 3 
 Father, as the men whose earthly sons you call -■ 
 yourselves. And if you do this. He will give i 
 you the Spirit of adoption, and you shall be able | 
 to call Him Father with your hearts, as well as | 
 with your lips ; you shall know and feel that He is I 
 your Father ; that He has been loving, watching, '^ 
 educating, leading yon home to Him all the while '}. 
 that you were wandering in ignorance of Him, 
 in childish self-will, and greediness after pleasure 
 and amusement. He will give you His Spirit to 
 make you behave like His sons, to obey Him of 
 yom- own free will, from love, and gratitude, and 
 honour, and filial reverence. He will make you
 
 THE SPIRIT or BONDAGE. 221 
 
 love what He loves, and hate what He hates. 
 He will give you clear consciences and free hearts, 
 to fear nothing on earth or in heaven, but the 
 shame and ingratitude of disobeying your Father. 
 
 This Spirit of adoption, by which you look up 
 to God as your Father, is your right. He has 
 given it to you, and nothing but your own want 
 of faith, and wilful turning back to cowardly 
 superstition, and to the wilful sins which go 
 before superstition, and come after it, can take it 
 from you. So said St Paul to the Romans and 
 the Galatians, and so I have a right, ay, and a 
 bounden duty, to say to every man and woman 
 in this church this day. 
 
 For, my dear friends, if you ask me, what has 
 this to do with us ? Has it not every thing to 
 do with us? Whether we are leading good 
 lives, or middling lives, or utterly bad, worth- 
 less lives, has it not every thing to do with us ? 
 Who is there here who has not at times said 
 to himself, 'God so holy, and pure, and glo- 
 rious ; while I am so unjust, and unclean, 
 and mean ! And God so gi'eat and powerful ; 
 while I am so small and weak ! What shall I 
 do ? Does i!ot God hate and despise me ? Will 
 He not take from me all which I love best? 
 Will He not hurl me into, endless torment when 
 I die ? How can I escape from Him ! Wretched 
 man that I am, I cannot escape from Him !
 
 222 SERMON XVII. 
 
 How, then, can I turn away His hate 1 How 
 can I make Him change His mind ? How can 
 I soothe Him and appease Him I What shall I 
 do to escape hell-fire ? ' 
 
 Did you ever have such thoughts ? / have, in 
 years which, thanks be to the Lord, are long 
 
 gone by, as I hope and trust in His love, never, i 
 
 never to return. J 
 
 But, did you find those thoughts, that slavish ' 
 
 terror of God's wrath, that di'ead of hell, made : 
 
 you any better men ? I never did. I never saw ■ 
 
 them make any human being better. Unless j 
 
 you go beyond them — as far beyond them as | 
 
 heaven is beyond hell, as far above them as a 'i 
 
 free son is above a miserable crouching slave, ] 
 
 they will do you more harm than good. For 1 
 
 this is all that I have seen come of them : — i 
 
 That all this spirit of bondage, this slavish ter- \ 
 
 ror, instead of bringing a man nearer to God, [ 
 
 only drove him further from God. It did not , 
 
 make him hate what was wrong ; it only made ; 
 
 him dread the punishment of it. And then, ; 
 
 when the first burst of fear cooled down, he ' 
 
 began to say to himself, ' I can never atone for my j 
 
 sins. I can never win back God to love me. i 
 
 What is done, is done. If I cannot escape j 
 
 punishment, let me be at least as happy as I can ] 
 
 while it lasts. If it does not come to-day, it : 
 
 will come to-morrow. Let me alone, thou tor ;
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE. 223 
 
 meriting conscience. Let me eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow I die !' And so back rushed the poor 
 creature into all his wrong-doing again, and fell 
 most probably deeper than ever into the mire, 
 because a certain feeling of desperation and de- 
 fiance rose up in him, till he began to fancy 
 that his terror was all a dream — a foolish, acci- 
 dental rising up of old superstitious words which 
 he learnt from his mother or his nurse ; and he 
 tried to forget it all, and did forget it — God 
 help him ! — and his latter end was worse than his 
 jfirst. 
 
 How, then, shall a man escape shame and 
 misery, and an evil conscience, and rise out of 
 these sins of his ? For do it he must. The wages 
 of sin is death — death to body and soul; and 
 from sin he must escape. 
 
 There is but one way, my fi'iends. There 
 never was but one way. Believe the text, and 
 therefore believe the warrant of your Baptism. 
 Beheve the message of your Confirmation. 
 
 Your baptism says to you, God does not hate 
 you, be you the greatest sinner on earth. He 
 does not hate you. He loves you ; for you are 
 His child. He hateth nothing that He hath 
 made. He willeth not the death of a sinner, but 
 that all should come to be saved. And your 
 baptism is the sign of that to you. But God 
 hates evervthino; that He has not made ; for
 
 224 SERMON XVII. 
 
 eveiything which He has not made is bad ; and 
 He has made all things but sin ; and therefore 
 He hates sin, and, loving you, wishes to raise 
 you out of sin ; and baptism is the sign of that 
 also. Man was made originally in the image 
 and likeness of God, and of Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of Man, the express image of God the Father ; 
 and therefore everything which is sinful is un- 
 manly, and everything which is truly manful, 
 and worthy of a man, is like Jesus Christ ; and 
 God's will is, that you should rise out of all 
 these unmanly sins, to a truly manfal life — a life 
 like the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. 
 And baptism is God's sign of this also. That is 
 the meaning of the words in the Baptism Service 
 which tell you that you were baptised into Jesus 
 Clu'ist, that you might put off the old man — the 
 sinful, slavish, selfish, unmanly pattern of life 
 which we all lead by nature ; and put on the 
 new man — the holy and noble, righteous and 
 lo^dng pattern of life, which is the likeness of the 
 Lord Jesus. That is the message of yom* bap- 
 tism to you; that you are God's children, and 
 that God's will and wish is that you should grow 
 up to become His sons, to serve Him lovingly, 
 trustingly, manfully ; and that He can and will 
 give you power to do so— ay, that He has given 
 you that power already, if you will but claim it 
 and use it. But you must claim it and use it,
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE. 225 
 
 because you are meant not merely to be God's 
 ■\vilful, ignorant, selfish children, obeying Him 
 from mere fear of the rod ; but to be His willing, 
 loving, loyal sons. And that is the message 
 which Confirmation brings you. Baptism says. 
 You are God's child, whether yovi know it or not. 
 Confirmation says, Yes ; but now you are to 
 know it, and to claim your rights as His sons, of 
 full age, reasonable and self-governing. 
 
 Baptism says. You are regenerate and born 
 from above, by water and the Holy Spirit. Con- 
 firmation answers, True, most true ; but there 
 is no use in a child's being born, if it never comes 
 to man's estate, but remains a stunted idiot. 
 
 Baptism says. You may and ought to become 
 more or less such a man as the Lord Jesus Avas. 
 Confirmation says. You can become such, for you 
 are no longer children, you are gi'own to man's 
 estate in body, you can grow to man's estate in 
 soul if you will. God's Spmt is with you, to 
 show you all things in their true light ; to teach 
 you to value them or despise them as you ought ; 
 to teach you to love what He loves, and hate 
 what He hates. God wishes you no longer to be 
 merely His children, obeying Him you know not 
 why ; still less His slaves, obeying Him from mere 
 brute coward fear, and then breaking loose the 
 moment that you forget Him, and fancy that His 
 eye is not on you ; but He wishes you to be His
 
 226 SERMON XVII. 
 
 sons, to claim the right and the power which He 
 has given you to trample your sins under foot, to 
 rise up by the strength which God your Father 
 will surely give to those who ask Him ; and be 
 new men, free men, true men, who do look boldly 
 up to God, knowing that, however wicked they 
 may have been, and however weak they are 
 still, God's love belongs to them, God's help be- 
 longs to them, and those who trust in Him shall 
 never be confounded, but shall go on from 
 strength to strength to the measure of the stature 
 of a perfect man, to the noble likeness of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 
 
 For this is the message of the blessed sacra- 
 ment of the body and blood of Christ, to which 
 you have been all called this day. That sacra- 
 ment tells you that in spite of all your daily sins 
 and failings, you can still look up to God as your 
 Father ; to the Lord Jesus Christ as your life ; 
 to the Holy Spirit as your guide and your in- 
 spirer ; that though you be prodigal sons, your 
 Father's house is still open to you, your Father's 
 eternal love ready to meet you afar off, the 
 moment that you cry from your heart, ' Father, 
 I have sinned ; ' and that you must be converted 
 and turn back to God your Father, not merely 
 once for all at Confirmation, or at any other time, 
 but weekly, daily, hourly, as often as you forget 
 and disobey Him ; and that He will receive you.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE. 227 
 
 This is the message of the blessed sacrament, 
 that though you cannot come there trusting in 
 your own righteousness, you can come trusting 
 in His manifold and great mercies ; that though 
 you are not wortliy so much as to gather up 
 the crumbs under His table, yet He is the 
 same Lord whose property is ever to have 
 mercy; that He will, as surely as He has ap- 
 pointed that sign of the bread and wine, grant 
 you so to eat and drink that spiritual flesh and 
 blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the life 
 of the world, that your sinful bodies may be made 
 clean by His body, and yom' souls washed in His 
 most precious blood, and that you may dwell in 
 Him, and He in you, for ever.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 j 
 
 T H E F A L L . 
 
 i 
 
 Romans v. 12. '] 
 
 ' As hy one man sin entered into the world, and death hy 
 
 sin ; and so death passed on all men, for that all have ^ 
 
 sinned.' ' 
 
 We have been reading the history of Adam's - 
 
 fall. With that fall we all have to do ; for we j 
 
 all feel the fruits of it in the sinful corruptions j 
 
 which we bring into the world with us. And j 
 
 more, every fall which we have is like Adam's ] 
 fall ; every time we fall into wilful sin, we do 
 
 what Adam did, and act over again, each of us '■ 
 many times in our lives, that which he first 
 acted in the garden of Paradise. At least, 
 
 all mankind suffer for something. Look at the I 
 
 sickness, death, bloodshed, oppression, spite, and ; 
 
 cruelty, with which the world is so full now, of ' 
 
 which it has been full, as we know but too well j 
 
 from history, ever since Adam's time. The I 
 
 world is full of misery, there is no denying that, j 
 
 How did that come ? It must have come some- ■ 
 
 how. There must be some reason for all this i
 
 THE FALL. 229 
 
 sorrow. The Bible tells us a reason for it. If 
 any one does not like the Bible reason, they are 
 bound to find a better reason. I say that the 
 Bible reason, the Bible story of Adam's fall, is 
 the only rational and sensible explanation which 
 -ever has been, or ever will be given, of the way 
 in which death and misery came among men. 
 
 Some people will say. What puzzle is there in 
 it. All animals die, why should not man ? All 
 animals fight and devour each other, why should 
 not men do so too? But why need we suppose 
 that man is fallen? ^\Tiy should he not have 
 been meant by nature to be just what he is? 
 And scholars, and rich men, and men who fancy 
 themselves learned, and think that the}'- know 
 better than the Bible, will say that now, and 
 pride themselves on having said a very fine thing; 
 and how men too are led into the same mistake, 
 and are wilHug enough to say, ' What if we are 
 brutish, and savages, and ignorant, and spitefiil, 
 indulging ourselves, hating and quarrelling with 
 each other? God made us what we are, and we 
 cannot help it.' But there is a voice in the heart 
 of every man ; and just in proportion as a man is 
 a man, and not a beast and a savage, that voice 
 cries in his heart more loudly and clearly. No; God 
 did not make you what you are. You are not 
 meant to be what you are, but something better. 
 You are not meant to fight and devour each
 
 230 SEEMON XVIII. 
 
 Other as the animals do ; for you are meant to be 
 better than they. You are not meant to die as 
 the animals do; for you feel something, in you 
 which cannot die, which hates death. You may 
 try to be a mere savage and a beast, but you 
 cannot be content to be so. And yet you feel 
 ready to fall lower, and get more and more 
 brutish. What can be the reason ? There must 
 be something wrong about men, something 
 diseased and corrupt in them, or they would not 
 have this continual discontent with themselves 
 for being no better than they are ; this continual 
 hankering and longing after some happiness, 
 some knowledge, some good and noble state, 
 which they do not see round them, and never 
 have felt in themselves. Man must have fallen , 
 fallen fi'om some good and right state into 
 which he was put at first, and for which he 
 is hankering and craving now. There must be 
 an original sin in him ; that is, a sin belonging to 
 his origin, his race, his breed, as we say, which 
 has been handed down from father to son; an 
 original sin, as the church calls it. And I believe 
 firmly that the heart of man, even among savages, 
 bears witness to the truth of that doctrine, and 
 confesses that we are fallen beings, let false philo- 
 sophers try as they will to persuade us that we 
 are not. 
 
 Then, again, there are another set of people.
 
 T'HE FALL. 231 
 
 principally easy, well-to-do, respectable people, 
 who run into another mistake, the same into 
 which the Pelagians did in old time. They 
 think, ' !Man is not fallen. Eveiy man is born 
 into the world quite good enough, if he chose 
 to remain good. Every man can keep God's 
 laws if he likes, or at all events keep them well 
 enough. As for his having a sinfal nature which 
 he got from Adam, they do not believe that 
 really, though often they might not like to say 
 so openly. They think, Adam fell, and he was 
 punished ; and if I fall, I shall be punished : 
 but Adam's sin is nothing to me, and has not 
 hurt me. I can be just as good and right as 
 Adam was, if I like.' That is a comfortable 
 doctrine enough for easy-going, well-to-do folks, 
 who have but few trials, and few temptations, 
 and who love little, because little has been for- 
 given them. But what comfort is there in that 
 for poor sinners, who. feel sinful and base passions 
 dragging them down, and making them brutish 
 and miserable, and yet feel that they cannot 
 conquer their sins of themselves, cannot help 
 doing wrong, all the while they know that is 
 wrong? They feel that they have something 
 more in them than a will and power to do what 
 they choose. They feel that they have a sinful 
 nature which keeps their will and reason in 
 slavery, and makes sin a hard bondage, a miser-
 
 232 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 able prison-house, from which they cannot escape. 
 In short, they feel and know that they are fallen. 
 Small comfort, too, to every thinking man, who 
 looks upon the great nations of savages, which 
 have Kvecl, and hve still, upon God's earth, and 
 sees how, so far from being able to do right if they 
 choose, they go on from father to son, generation 
 after generation, doing wrong, more and more, 
 whether they like or not, becoming more and more 
 children of -\vrath, given up to fierce wars, and 
 cruel revenge, and violent passions, all their 
 thought, and talk, and study, being to kill and to 
 fight — how they become more and more children 
 of darkness, forgetting more and more the laws of 
 right and wrong, becoming stupid and ignorant, 
 until they lose the very knowledge of how to pro- . 
 vide themselves with houses, clothes, fire, or e\'en 
 to till the ground, and end in feeding on the 
 roots, and on filth, like the beasts which perish. 
 And how, too, long before they fell into that state, 
 death works in them. How, the lower they fall, 
 and the more they yield to their original sin and " 
 their corrupt nature, they die out. By wars 
 with each other ; by murdering their own chil- 
 dren, to avoid the trouble of rearing them ; by 
 diseases wdiich they know not how to cure, and 
 which they too often bring on themselves by their 
 own brutishness ; by bad food and exposure to the 
 weather, they die out, and perish off the face of the
 
 THE FALL. 233 
 
 earth,'fulfilling the Lord's words to Adam : ' Thou 
 shalt surely die.' I do not say that their souls 
 go to hell. The Bible tells us nothing of where 
 they go to. But God's mercy is boundless. 
 And the Bible tells us that sin is not imputed 
 -Avhere there is no law, as there is none among 
 them. So we may have some hope for them, 
 and leave them in God's hand. But how can 
 we hope for any heaven for them who are utterly 
 dead in trespasses and sins ? Well for them, 
 if, having fallen to the hkeiiess of the brutes, they 
 perish with the brutes. I fancy if you, as some 
 may, ever go to Australia, and there see the 
 wretched black people, who are dying out there, 
 faster and faster, year by year, after havmg fallen 
 lower than the brutes, then you will understand 
 what original sin may bring man to, what it 
 would have brouo;ht us to, had not God in His 
 mercy raised us and our forefathers up from that 
 fearful down-hill com'se, when we were running 
 headlong on it fifteen hundred years ago. 
 
 And another thing which shows that these 
 poor savages are not as God intended them to be, 
 but are falling, generation after generation, by 
 the working of original sin, is, that they, almost 
 all of them, show signs of having been better off 
 long ago. Many, like the South Sea Islanders, 
 have curious arts remaining among them in 
 spite of their brutish ignorance, which they could
 
 234 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 only have learned when they were far more 
 clever and civilised than they are now. And 
 almost all of them have some sad remembrance, 
 handed down from father to son, kept up in 
 songs and foolish tales, of having been richer, 
 and more prosperous, and more numerous, a long 
 while ago. They will confess to you, if you ask 
 them, that they are worse than their fathers — 
 that they are going down, dying out — that the 
 gods are angry with them, as they say. The 
 Lord have mercy upon them ! But what is, to 
 my mind, the most awful part of the matter 
 remains yet to be told — and it is this : That man 
 may actually fall by original sin too low to 
 receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, and be re- 
 covered again by it. For the negroes of Africa 
 and the West Indies, though they have fallen 
 very low, have not fallen too low for the gospel. 
 They have still understanding left to take it in, 
 and conscience, and sense of right and wrong 
 enough left to embrace it; thousands of them 
 do embrace it, and are received unto righteous- 
 ness, and lead such lives as would shame many 
 a white Englishman, born and bred under the 
 gospel. 
 
 But the black people in Australia, who are 
 exactly of the same race as the African negroes, 
 cannot take in the gospel. They have become 
 too stupid to understand it; they have lost the
 
 THE FALL. 235 
 
 sense of sin and of righteousness too completely 
 to care about it. And all attempts to bring 
 them to a knowledo-e of the true God have as 
 yet failed utterly. God's grace is all-power- 
 ful ; He is no respecter of persons, and He may 
 -yet, by some great act of His wisdom, quicken 
 the dead souls of these poor brutes in human 
 shape. But, as far as we can see, there is no 
 hope for them, but that, like the Canaanites of 
 old, they must perish oif the face of the earth, as 
 brute beasts. 
 
 I have said so much to show you that man is 
 fallen ; that there is original sin, an inclination to 
 sin and fall, sink down lower and lower, in man. 
 Now comes the question. What is this fall of 
 man ? I said that the Bible tells us rationally 
 enough. And I have also made use several 
 times of words, which may have hinted to some 
 of you already what Adam's fall was. I have 
 spoken of the likeness of the beasts, and of men 
 becoming like beasts by original sin. And this 
 is why I said it. 
 
 If you want to understand what Adam's fall 
 was, you must first understand what he fell from, 
 and what he fell to. That is plain. 
 
 Now, the Bible tells us, that he fell from 
 God's grace to nature. 
 
 What is nature ? Nature means what is born, 
 and hves, and dies, and is parted and broken up.
 
 236 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 that the parts of it may go into some new shape, 
 and be born, and live, and die again. So the 
 plants, trees, beasts, are a part of nature. They 
 are born, live, die ; and then that which was them 
 goes into the earth, or into the stomachs of other 
 animals, and becomes in time part of that animal, 
 or part of the tree or flower, which grows in the 
 soil into which it has fallen. So the flesh of a 
 dead animal may become a grain of wheat, and 
 that grain of wheat again may become part of 
 the body of an animal. You all see this every 
 time you manure a field, or grow a crop. 
 Natiu'e is, then, that which lives to die, and dies 
 to live again in some fresh shape. And, in the 
 first chapter of Genesis, you read of God creating 
 nature, earth, and water, and light, and the 
 heavens, and the plants, and animals, each after 
 their kind, born to die and change, made of dust, 
 and returning to the dust again. But after that 
 we read very different words ; we read that when 
 God created man, He said, 'Let us make man in 
 our image, after our likeness ; and let them have 
 dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all 
 the earth, and over every creeping thing that 
 creepeth upon the earth.' He was made in God's 
 likeness ; therefore he could only be right in as 
 far as he was like God. And he could not be 
 like God if he did not will what God willed, and
 
 THE FALL, 237 
 
 wash what God wished. He was to Hve by faith 
 in God; he was justified by faith in God, and 
 by that only. 
 
 Never fancy that Adam had any righteousness 
 of his own, any goodness of which he could say, 
 'This is mine, part of me; I may pride myself on 
 it.' God forbid. His righteousness consisted, as 
 ours must, in looking up to God, trusting Him 
 utterly, believing that he was to do God's will, 
 and not his own. His spirit, his soul, as w^e 
 call it, was given to him for that purpose, and 
 for none other, that it might trust in God and 
 obey God, as a child does his father. He had 
 n free will ; but he was to use that will as 
 we must use our wills, by giving up our will 
 to God's will, by clinging with our whole hearts 
 and souls to God. 
 
 Adam fell. He let himself be tempted by a 
 beast, by the serpent. How, we cannot tell, but 
 so it was. He took the counsel of a brute animal, 
 and not of God. He chose between God and 
 the serpent, and he chose wrong. He wanted to 
 be something in himself, to have a knowledge 
 and power of his own, to use it as he chose. He 
 was not content to be in God's likeness ; he 
 wanted to be as a god himself. And so he 
 threw away his faith in God, and disobeyed Him. 
 And instead of becoming a god, as he expected, 
 he became an animal, he put on the likeness of
 
 238 SERMON XVIII. % 
 
 the brutes, who cannot look up to God in trust 
 
 and love, who do not know God, do not obey : 
 Him, but follow their own lusts and fancies, as 
 
 they may happen to take them. Whether the ! 
 
 change came on him all at once, the Bible does i 
 
 not say, but it did come on him ; for from him it i 
 
 has been handed down to all his children even to j 
 
 this day. Then was fulfilled against him the I 
 
 sentence. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou ' 
 
 shalt surely die : not that he died that moment. | 
 
 But death began to work in him. He be- I 
 
 came like the branch of a tree cut off from i 
 the stem, which may not wither at the instant 
 
 it is cut off, but is yet dead, as we find out i 
 by its soon decaying. He had come down 
 
 from being a son of God, and he had taken ] 
 his place in nature, among the things which 
 
 grow only to die ; and death began to work in j 
 
 him, and in his children after him. He handed j 
 
 down his nature to his children as the animals j 
 
 do; his children inherited his faults, his weak- I 
 
 nesses, his diseases, the seed of death which was [ 
 
 in him, just as the animals pass down to their | 
 
 breed their defects, and diseases, and certainty of ' 
 dying after their appointed life is past. 
 
 For this, my friends, is the lesson which \ 
 
 Adam's fall teaches us, that in God alone is the i 
 
 life of immortal souls, whether of men, or of i 
 
 angels, or of archangels; and in God alone is righ- j 
 
 I
 
 THE FALL. 239 
 
 teousness ; in God alone is every good thing, and 
 all good in men or angels comes from Him, and 
 is only His pattern, His likeness ; and that the 
 moment either man or angel sets up his will 
 against God's, he falls into sin, a lie, and death. 
 That He has given us reasonable souls for that 
 one purpose, that with our souls we may look 
 up to Him, with our souls we may cling to Him, 
 with our souls w^e may trust in Him, with our 
 souls we may understand His will, and see 
 that it is a good, and a right, and a loving will, 
 and delight in it, and obey it, and find all our 
 delight and glory, even as the Lord Jesus, the 
 Son of Man, the New Adam, did, in doing not our 
 own will, but the will of our Father. 
 
 For, as St Augustine says, many may live in 
 two ways, either according to himself, or accord- 
 ing to God ; by self-will or by faith. He may 
 determine to do his own will or to do God's will, 
 to be his own master or to let God be his master, 
 to seek his own glory, and try to be something 
 fine and grand in himself, or to seek God's glory 
 and obey Him, believing that what God com- 
 mands is the only good for us, what makes God 
 to be honom'ed in the eyes of our neighbours is 
 the only real honour for us. 
 
 But, says St Augustine, if he tries to live 
 according to himself, he falls into misery, because 
 he was meant to live according to God. So he
 
 240 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 puts himself into a lie, into a false and wrong 
 state, and because lie has cut himself off from 
 God he falls below what a man should be, and 
 puts on more and more of the likeness of the 
 beasts, and is more and more the slave of his own 
 lusts, and passions, and fancies, as the dumb 
 animals are. And, as St Paul says, the animal 
 man, the carnal man, understands not the things 
 of God. And we need no one to tell us that this 
 is the state of nature which we bring into the 
 world witli us. We feel it ; from our very child- 
 hood, from the earliest time we can recollect, 
 have we not had the longing to do what we 
 liked? to please ourselves, to pride ourselves on 
 ourselves, to set up our own wills against our 
 parents, against what we learnt out of the Bible ? 
 Ay, has not this wilful will of ours been so 
 strong, that often we would long after a thing, 
 we would determine to have it, only because we 
 were forbidden to have it; we might not care 
 about the thing when we had it, but we would 
 have our own way just because it was our own 
 way. Li short, like Adam, we would be as gods, 
 knowing good and evil, and choosing for our- 
 selves what we should call good and what we shall 
 call evil. And, my dear friends, consider: did 
 not every wrong that we ever did come from this 
 one root of all sin — determinino- to have our own 
 Avay? That root-sin of self-will first brought
 
 THE FALL. 241 
 
 death and mlseiy among mankind; that sin of 
 self-will keeps it up still : that sin of self-will it is 
 which hinders sinners from giving themselves up 
 to God ; and that sin must be broken through, 
 or religion is a mockery and a dream. 
 
 O my friends, say to yourselves once for all, 
 I was made in God's likeness ; and therefore His 
 will, and not my own, I must do. I have no 
 wisdom of my own, no strength of mind of my 
 own, no goodness of my own, no lovingness of 
 my own. God has them all ; God, who is wis- 
 dom, strength, goodness, love ; and I have none. 
 And then, when the fearful thought comes over 
 you, 'I have no goodness, and I cannot have any. 
 I cannot do right. There is no use struggling 
 and trying to be better. My passions, my lusts, 
 my fancies are too strong for me. If I am brutish 
 and low, brutish and low I must remain. If I 
 have fallen in Adam, I must lie in the mire till 
 I die '— 
 
 Then, then, my friends, answer yourselves, 'No! 
 Not so. Man fell in the first Adam : but man 
 rose again in the second Adam, the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. I belong no more to the old Adam, who 
 fell in Paradise. I belong to the New Adam, 
 who was conceived without sin, and born of a 
 pure virgin, who hved by perfect faith, in perfect 
 obedience, doing His Father's will only, even to 
 that death upon the cross, wherein He took away 
 
 Q
 
 242 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 the sins of the whole world. And now for His 
 sake my original sin, ray fallen, brutish nature, 
 is forgiven me. God does not hate me for it. 
 He loves me, because I belong to His Son. My 
 baptism is a witness and a warrant, a sign and a 
 covenant between me and God, that 1 belong 
 not to old Adam of Paradise, but to the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who sits at God's right hand. 
 The cross which was signed on my forehead 
 when I was baptised is God's sign to me that I 
 am to sacrifice myself and give up my own will 
 to do God's will, even as the Lord Jesus did 
 when He gave Himself to die, because it was 
 His Father's will. And because I belong to 
 Jesus Clirist, because God has called me to be 
 His child, therefore He will help me. He will 
 help me to conquer this low, brutish nature of 
 mine. He will put His Spirit into me, the Spirit 
 of His Son Jesus Christ, that I may trust Him, 
 cry to Him, My Father ! that I may love Him ; 
 understand His will, and see how good, and 
 noble, and beautiful, and full of peace and com- 
 fort it is ; delight in obeying Him ; glory in sac- 
 rificing my own fancies and pleasures for His 
 sake ; and find my only honour, my only happi- 
 ness, in doing His will on earth as saints and 
 angels do it in heaven.
 
 XIX. 
 
 GOD'S COVENANTS. 
 
 Genesis ix. 13. 
 
 ' / do set my how in the cloud, and it sliall he for a toTcen 
 of a covenant hetween me and the earth.' 
 
 The text says that God made a covenant with 
 Noahj and with his seed after him — that is, mth 
 all mankind ; with us who sit here, and om: chil- 
 dren after us, and ^A-ith all human beings who 
 will ever live upon the face of the earth. God 
 made a covenant with them. Now, what is a 
 covenant ? We say that two men make a cove- 
 nant with each other when they make a bargain, 
 an agreement ; in this way : — If you will do this 
 thing, then I vnl\ do that : but if you will not do 
 this thing, I will not do that. If you do not 
 keep to our agreement, I am free of it. If I do 
 not do my part of the agreement, you are free. 
 Is not that what we call a covenant — a bargain 
 between two parties, which, if either party breaks 
 it, becomes null and void, and binds neither? 
 Let us see whether God's covenants with man 
 are of this kind.
 
 244 SERMON XIX. 
 
 Does God say to Noali, 'If you and your chil- 
 dren are righteous, I will look upon the rainbow, 
 and remember my covenant : but if you and 
 your children are unrighteous, I will not look on 
 the rainbow, and I will break my covenant because 
 you have broken itf We read no such words; 
 God made no conditions with Noah and his sons. 
 Whether they forgot the covenant or not, God 
 would remember it. It was a covenant of free 
 grace, even as all God's covenants are. Not a 
 bargain, but a promise. 'By Myself have I 
 sworn, saith the Lord, that I will not fail 
 David.' By Himself He swear to Abraham, 
 'Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying 
 I will multiply thee.' That is the form of God's 
 covenants. God swears by Himself— by God 
 who cannot change. If God can change, then 
 His covenant can change. If God can fail 
 Himself, then can He fail His covenant to 
 which He has sworn by Himself. If it had 
 been a mere bargain, like men's bargains, and 
 not a promise out of His absolute love, His free 
 grace. His boundless mercy, would He have 
 sworn by Himself? Nay, rather. He would 
 have sworn by Abraham ; By thy obedience 
 or disobedience I swear to bless thee or curse 
 thee. But He swore by Himself, the absolute, 
 the unchangeable, the Giver whose name is 
 Love.
 
 god's covenants. 245 
 
 Consider now the token of the covenant which 
 God gave to Noah. It was the rainbow. What 
 is the rainbow? Sunhght tui'ned back to our 
 eye, through drops of falhng rain. "N^Hiat sign 
 could be more simple? And yet what sign 
 could be more perfect ? Noah's sons would fear 
 that another flood was coming, perhaps flood 
 after flood. The token of the rainbow said to 
 them, No. Floods and rain are not to be the 
 custom of this earth. Sunshine is to be the 
 custom of it. Do not fear the clouds and storm 
 and rain ; look at the bow in the cloud, in the 
 veiy rain itself That is a sign that the sun, 
 though you cannot see it, is shining still. That 
 up above, beyond the cloud, is still sunlight, and 
 warmth, and cloudless blue sky. Believe in 
 God's covenant. Believe that the sun will 
 conquer the clouds, warmth will conquer cold, 
 calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, 
 light will conquer darkness, joy will conquer 
 sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer destruc- 
 tion and the devouring floods ; because God is 
 light, God is love, God is life, God is peace and 
 joy eternal and without change, and labours to 
 give life, and joy, and peace, to man and beast 
 and all created things. This was the meaning of 
 the rainbow. Not a sudden or strange token, a 
 miracle, as men call it, like as some voice out of 
 the sky, or fiery comet, might have been ; but a
 
 246 SERMON XIX. 
 
 regular, orderly, and natural sign, to witness that 
 God is a God of order. Whenever there was a 
 rainy day there might be a rainbow. It came by 
 the same laws by which everything else comes in 
 the world. It was a witness that God who made 
 the world is the friend and preserver of man ; 
 that His promises are like the everlasting sun- 
 shine which is above the clouds, without spot or 
 fading, without variableness or shadow of turning. 
 
 And do you fancy, my friends, that the new 
 covenant, the covenant which God made with all 
 mankind in the blood of His only-begotten Son, 
 is narrower or weaker than the covenant which 
 He made with Noah, Abraham, and David? 
 He asked no conditions fx'om them. Do you 
 think He asks them from us ? He called them 
 by free grace. Do you think He calls us by 
 anything else? He swore by Himself to them. 
 How much more has He sworn by Himself to us? 
 He who was born, and died, and rose again for 
 us, who now sits at the right hand of the Father, 
 very Man of the substance of a human mother, 
 yet very God of very God begotten. 
 
 His covenants of old stood true and faithful, 
 however disobedient and unfaithful men might 
 be ; as it is written, ' I have sworn once for all 
 by my holiness, that I will not fail David.' And 
 those words, the New Testament declares to us, 
 again and again, are true of the new covenant,
 
 god's covenants. 247 
 
 and fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, into whose 
 name we are baptised. Yes ; into whose name 
 we are baptised. There is the sign of the new 
 covenant; of a covenant of free grace. There- 
 fore we can bring our children to be baptised 
 as we were baptised ourselves, before they have 
 done either good or evil, for a sign that God's 
 love is over them, God's Idngdom is their in- 
 heritance, God's love their everlasting portion. 
 
 But we may fall from grace; and then what 
 good will our baptism be to us? We shall be 
 lost, just as if we had never been baptised. 
 
 My friends, if, though the sun was shining in 
 the sky, you shut your eyes close, and kept out 
 the hght, what use would the sunlight be to youl 
 You would stumble, and fall, and come to harm, 
 as certainly as in the darkest night. But would 
 the sun go out of the sky, my friends, because 
 you were un^vise enough to shut your eyes to 
 it? The sun would still be there, shining as 
 bright as ever. You would have only to be 
 reasonable and to open your eyes, and you wo uld 
 see your way again as well as ever. 
 
 So it is with holy baptism. In it we were 
 made members of Christ, childi'en of God, mheri- 
 tors of the kingdom of heaven. God's love is 
 above us and around us, like a warm, bright, life- 
 giving sun. We may shut our eyes to it, but it 
 is there still. We may disbelieve our baptism
 
 248 SERMON XIX. 
 
 covenant, but it is true still. VV^e are children of 
 God; and nothing that we can do, no sin, no 
 unfaithfulness of ours, can make us anything else. 
 We can no more become not God's children, 
 than a child can become not his own father's son. 
 But this we can do by sinning, by disbelieving 
 that we are God's children, by behaving as the 
 devil's children when we are God's ; we can try to 
 be what we are not ; we can enter into a lie, and 
 into the misery to which all lies lead ; we can walk 
 in darkness, and stumble, and fall, when all the 
 while we are children of the light, and have only 
 to open our eyes to walk in the light. Ay, we 
 can shut our eyes to the light so long, that at last 
 we forget that there is any light at all ; and that 
 is the gate of hell. We may wrap ourselves up 
 in our selfishness, in selfish pleasures, selfish cun- 
 ning, selfish covetousness, and selfish pride, till 
 we forget that there is anything better for us 
 than selfishness, till we forget that God is love, 
 and that we His children are meant to be loving 
 even as He is loving ; and that also is the gate 
 of hell. And worst and darkest of all, when in 
 that stupid, sinful, loveless state of mind, God's 
 loving Spirit still strives and pleads with us, and 
 tries to awaken us, and terrify us with the sight 
 of the everlasting misery and ruin into which we 
 have thrown ourselves, we may turn those 
 pleadings of God's Spirit, by our own evil wills,
 
 god's covenants. 249 
 
 into a darker cui'se than all which have gone 
 before. We may refuse to believe that God is 
 love, and fancy Him as hard, and cruel, and 
 proud, and spiteful, and unloving as we ourselves 
 are. We may refuse, though scripture, prayer 
 book, sacraments, preachers assure us of it, that 
 God is our Father still ; and deny His covenant 
 of baptism, and blaspheme His holy name, by 
 fancying Him our tyrant and taskmaster, who 
 hates us, and willeth the death of a sinner, and 
 has pleasure in the death of him that dieth. 
 And then we may behave according to the lie 
 which we ourselves have invented, and all sorts 
 of inventions of our own to escape God's wrath, 
 when, in reahty, it is He who is wishing to turn 
 His wrath away from us ; and to win back His 
 favour, when, in reality, it is not we who are out 
 of favour with Him, but He who is out of favour 
 with us, who dread Him and shrink from Him ; 
 we may try to deliver ourselves from Him, when 
 all the while it is He, the very God whom we 
 are dreading and flying from, who alone is able 
 and willing to deliver us ; and with all our fears, 
 and self-tormentings, and faithless terrors, and 
 blasphemings of God by fancpng Him the very 
 opposite what He has declared Himself, we shall 
 get no peace of conscience, no deliverance from 
 sins, or from the fear of punishment, but only a 
 fearful and ficiy looking forward to judgment,
 
 250 SERMON XIX. 
 
 which is hell. That is superstition ; hell on earth; 
 
 when men have so utterly forgotten the likeness ■ 
 
 of God, which He manifested in His Son Jesus | 
 
 Christ, that they look on Him as a stern and j 
 
 dreadful taskmaster, a tyrant, and not a deliverer. \ 
 
 Hell on earth, which may and must lead to hell ; 
 
 hereafter ; a hell of fear, and doubt, and hatred - 
 
 of Him who is all lovely ; the hell whereof it is j 
 
 written, that its worst torment is being cast out ] 
 
 from the sight of God : — unless the hapless sinner 
 
 opens his eyes and believes the covenant of his \ 
 
 baptism, and sees that God cannot lie, God can- i 
 
 not change, cannot break His covenant, cannot . 
 
 alter His love; that though he have left his ; 
 
 Father's house, and wandered into far comitries, i 
 
 and wasted his Father's substance in riotous ; 
 
 living, he is still his Father's son, his Father's ; 
 
 house is still where it was from the beginning, j 
 
 his Father's heart still what it was from the begin- : 
 
 ning ; and so arises and goes back to his Father's ; 
 
 house, confessing that he is no more worthv to be . 
 
 called His son, willing to be only as one of His j 
 
 hired servants ; and then — sees not the stern coun- i 
 
 tenance, the cruel punishments w^hich he dreaded : | 
 
 but — ' While he was yet afar oflP, his Father saw . 
 
 him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed j 
 
 him !' : 
 
 And if, in our sins, our only hope of comfort, , 
 
 and peace, and strength lies in remembering our j 
 
 i 
 
 • i
 
 god's covenants. 251 
 
 baptismal covenant, and being sure and certain 
 that thougli we have changed, God has not; 
 that though we are dark, God's love shines bright 
 and clear for ever, how much more when the 
 dark day of affliction comes? Why should I 
 speak of this and that affliction? Each heart 
 knows its own bitterness ; each soul has its own 
 sorrow ; each man's life has its dark days of storm 
 and tempest, when all his joys seem flown away 
 by some sudden blast of ill-fortune, and the desire 
 of his eyes is taken from him, and all his hopes and 
 plans, all which he intended to do or to enjoy, are 
 hid with blinding mist, so that he cannot see his 
 way before him, and knows not whither to go, and 
 whither to flee for help ; when faith in God seems 
 broken up for the moment, when he feels no 
 strength, no will, no purpose, and knows not what 
 to determine, what to do, what to believe, what 
 to care for; when the very earth seems reeling 
 under his feet, and the fountains of the abyss are 
 broken up : then let him think of God's cove- 
 nant, and take heart; let him think of his baptism, 
 and be at peace. Is the sun's warmth perished 
 out of the sky, because the storm is cold with 
 hail and bitter winds? Is God's love changed, 
 because we cannot feel it in our trouble ? Is the 
 sun's light perished out of the sky, because the 
 world is black with cloud and mist ? Has God 
 forgotten to give light to suffering souls, because
 
 252 SEEMON XIX. 
 
 we cannot see our way for a few short days of 
 perplexity 1 
 
 For this is the gospel, this is the message 
 which we have received from God, to preach to 
 every sad and desolate heart on earth, that God 
 is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. That 
 God is love, and in Him there is no cruelty at all. 
 That God is one, and in Him there is no change 
 at all. And therefore, we all, the most ignorant 
 of us as well as the wisest, the most sinful of us 
 as well as the holiest, the saddest and most 
 wretched of us as well as the happiest, have a 
 right to join in . that Litany which is offered up 
 here thrice every week during the time of Lent, 
 and to call upon God to deliver us and all man- 
 kind, not merely because we wish to be delivered 
 from evil, but because God wishes to deliver us 
 from evil. If we pray that Litany in any dark 
 dread of God, in doubt of His love and good-will 
 towards us, like terrified slaves crying out to a 
 hard taskmaster, and entreating him not to tor- 
 ment them, we do not pray that Litany aright; we 
 do not pray it at all. For it asks God not to leave 
 us alone, but to come to us; not to stop punishing 
 us, but actually Himself to dehver us, to defend us, 
 to set us free. Therefore it begins by calling on 
 God the Father, because He is our Father ; on 
 God the Soh, because He has already redeemed 
 and bought us for His own ; on God the Holy
 
 god's covenants. 253 
 
 Spirit, because He has been striving Matli our 
 • wilful hearts from our youth up till now, lovingly 
 desiiing to teach us, to change us, to sanctify us. 
 Therefore it calls on the holy blessed and glorious 
 Trinity, tlu'ee Persons and one God, because the 
 §on does not love us better than the Father does, 
 or than the Holy Spirit does, but in the life and 
 death of the Man Christ Jesus, whom we call on 
 to dehver us by His birth. His baptism, His death, 
 his resurrection, by all that His manhood did and 
 suffered here on earth, in His hfe and death, I 
 say, were shown forth bodily the glorj-, and con- 
 descension, and love, and good-will of the fulness 
 of the Godhead, of all three Persons of the one 
 and undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost. Therefore we may pray boldly to Him 
 to spare us, because we know that we are already 
 His people, ah-eady redeemed with His most 
 precious blood, already declared by holy baptism 
 to be bound to Him in an everlastina; covenant. 
 Therefore we may pray boldly to Him not to be 
 angry with us for ever, because we know that He 
 desires to bless us for ever, if we will only let Him; 
 if we will only let His love have free course, and 
 not shut our hearts to it, and truii om' backs 
 upon it. Therefore we can ask Him to deliver 
 us in all time of our tribulation and misery ; in all 
 time of the still more dangerous temptations which 
 wealth and prosperity bring with them; in the
 
 254 SEEMON XIX. 
 
 lioiir of death, whether of our own death or the 
 death of those we love ; in the day of judgment, • 
 whereof it is written, ' It is God who justifieth 
 us, who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ 
 who died, yea rather who is risen again, wdio 
 even now maketh intercession for us.' To that 
 boundless love of God which He showed forth in 
 the life of Christ Jesus ; to that utter and perfect 
 will to deliver us, which God showed forth in the 
 death of Christ Jesus, when the Father spared 
 not His only-begotten Son, but fi*eely gave Him 
 for us ; to that bomidless love we may trust our- 
 selves, our fortunes, our families, our bodies? 
 our souls, the souls of those we love. Trusting 
 in that great love, we may pray in that Litany 
 for deliverance ; to be delivered from distress 
 and accidents, from all sins which drag us down, 
 and make us miserable, ashamed, confused, terri- 
 fied, selfish, hateful, and hating each other. We 
 may pray to be delivered fi'om evil, because God 
 is righteousness, and hates evil. We may pray 
 to be delivered from our sins, because God is 
 righteousness, and hates our sins. We may pray 
 for the Queen, her ministers, her parliament, be- 
 cause God's love and care is over them ; for all 
 orders and ranks of men, whether laymen or 
 clergymen, high or low, in God's holy church ; 
 for all who are afflicted and desolate ; for all who 
 are wandering in ignorance, and mistakes, and 
 
 i
 
 god's covenants. 255 
 
 sin ; ajf for all mankind, for God loves them all, 
 the Son of God has bought them all with Plis 
 most precious blood. And however dark, and 
 sad, and sinful the world may seem around us ; 
 however dark, and sad, and sinful our o\\ti hearts 
 may be within us, we may find comfort in that 
 Litany, and pour out in it our sorrows and our 
 fears, if we begin only as it begins, vnth. the 
 thought of God who is righteousness, God who 
 is love, God who is the Deliverer. And then, as 
 the rainbow reflects the sunbeams for a sign and 
 token that the sun is shining, though we see it 
 not ; so will that blessed Litany, with its sacred 
 name of God, its calls to Him who was born of 
 the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius 
 Pilate ; its entreaties to God to deliver us, be- 
 cause He is a deliverer ; to hear us, and send us 
 good, because He is a good Lord Himself; its 
 remembrances of the noble works which God did 
 in our fathers' days, and in the old time before 
 them; its noble declaration that God does not 
 despise the sighing of a contrite heart, nor the 
 desire of a humble spirit, and that it is the very 
 glory of His name to turn from us those evils 
 which we most justly have deserved; — that 
 Litany, I say, will be like a rainbow declaring 
 to our dark and stormy hearts that the sun is 
 shining still above the clouds ; that over and 
 above us, and all mankind, and all the changes
 
 256 SERMON XIX. 
 
 and chances of this mortal life, is the still bright 
 sunshine, the life-giving warmth of the Sun of 
 Kighteousness, the absolute eternal love of our 
 Father who is in heaven, who, as He has de- 
 clared by the mouth of His only-begotten Son, 
 is perfect in this, that He does not deal with us 
 after our sins, nor reward us according to our 
 iniquities, but is good to the unthankful and the 
 evil, sending His rain alike upon the just and on 
 the unjust, and making His sun to shine alike 
 upon the evil and the good. .
 
 XX. 
 
 ^_ THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. 
 
 1 Timothy iii. 1 6. 
 
 * Qi^eat is the mystery of godliness : God ivas manifest in 
 the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached 
 to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up 
 into glory. ^ 
 
 St Paul here sums up in one verse the whole 
 of christian truth. He gives us in a few words 
 what he says is the great mystery of godHness. 
 
 Now, men had heen inventing for themselves 
 all kinds of mysteries of godliness; all sorts of 
 mysterious and wonderful notions about God ; 
 all sorts of mysterious and strange ceremonies, 
 and ways of pleasing God, or turning away His 
 anger. 
 
 And christian men are apt to do so also, as 
 well as those old heathens. They feel that they 
 are very mysterious and w^onderful beings them- 
 selves, simply because they are men. They say 
 to themselves, ^ How strange that I should have 
 a body of flesh and blood, and appetites and pas- 
 sions, like the animals, and yet that I should have
 
 258 SERMON XX. 
 
 an immortal spirit in me. How strange this 
 notion of duty which I have, and which the 
 other animals have not ; this notion of its being 
 riglit to do some things, and wrong to do others! 
 From wlience did that notion come ? And again, 
 this strancre notion which I have, and cannot 
 help having, that I ought to be like God : and 
 yet I do not know what God is like. From 
 whence did that notion come ? 
 
 Again, I fancy that God ought to be good. 
 But how do I know that He really is good? 
 I see the world full of injustice, and misery, and 
 death. How do I know that this is not God's 
 doing, God's fault in some way V 
 
 Again, says a man to himself, 'I have a fair 
 right to believe that mankind are not the only 
 persons in the universe — that there are other 
 beino;s beside God whom I cannot see. I call 
 them angels. I hardly know what I mean by 
 that. The really important question about them 
 to me is, Will they do me harm ? Can they do 
 me good? Are they stronger than I? Ought 
 I not to fear them, to try to please them, to keep 
 them favourable to me V 
 
 Again, he asks: 'Does God care whether I 
 know what is ricfht? Does God care to teach me 
 about Himself? Is God desirous that 1 should 
 do my duty ? For if He does not care about my 
 being good, why should I care about it V
 
 THE SITSTERY OF GODLINESS. 259 
 
 Again lie asks : ' But if I knew my duty, 
 might I not find it something too far-fetched, too 
 difficult, for poor simple folk to do; so that I 
 should be forced to leave a riojht life to o-reat 
 scholars, and to rich people, or to people of a very 
 ^evout delicate temper of mind, who have a 
 natural turn that way V 
 
 And last of all : ' Even if I did strucrgle to do 
 right ; even if I gave up everj^thing for the sake 
 of doing right ; how do I know that it will profit 
 me to do so ? I shall die as every man dies, and 
 then what will become of me ? Shall I be a man 
 still, or only — horrible thought I — some sort of 
 empty ghost, a spirit without body, of which I 
 dream, and shudder while I dream of if?' 
 
 Men in all ages, heathens and christians, have 
 been puzzled by such thoughts as these, as soon 
 as they began to feel that there was a world 
 which they could not see, as well as a world 
 which they could see ; a spiritual world, wherein 
 God the Spirit, and their o-wn sph-its, and spiritual 
 things, such as right, wrong, duty, reason, love, 
 dwell for ever ; and a strange hidden duty on all 
 men to obey that unseen God, and the laws of 
 that spiritual world ; in short, a mystery of god- 
 liness. 
 
 Then they have tried to answer these questions 
 for themselves; and have run thereby into all 
 manner of foUies and superstitions, and often.
 
 260 SERMON XX. 
 
 too, into devilish cruelties, in the hope of pleasing 
 God according to some mystery of godliness of 
 their own invention. 
 
 But to each of these puzzles St Paul gives an 
 answer in the text. Let us take them each in 
 its order, and you will see what I mean. 
 
 The first puzzle was: How is it that while 
 I am like the animals in some things, and yet feel 
 as if I ought to be, and can be, like God in other 
 things'? How is it that I feel two powers in me; 
 one dragging me downward to make me lower 
 than the beasts, the other lifting me upward — I 
 dare not think whither ? It seems to me to be 
 my body, my bodily appetites and tempers which 
 drag me down. Is my body me, part of me, or a 
 thing I should be ashamed of and long to be rid of? 
 I fancy that I can be like God. But can my body 
 be hke God ? Must I not crush it, neglect it, get 
 rid of it before I can follow the good instinct 
 which draws me upward t 
 
 To which St Paul told Timothy to answer : 
 God was manifest in the flesh. God sent down 
 His only-begotten Son, co-equal and co-eternal 
 with Himself, very God of very God, the very 
 same person who had been putting into men's 
 minds those two notions of which we spoke, that 
 there is a right and a wrong, and that men 
 ought to be hke God ; Him the Father sent into 
 the world that He might be born, and live, and die,
 
 THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. 261 
 
 and rise again, as a man ; that so men might see 
 from His example, manifestly and plainly, what 
 God was like, and what man ought to be like. And 
 so Jesus Christ was God manifested in the flesh. 
 Now we do know what God is like. We 
 ..know that He is so Hke man, that He can take 
 upon Him man's flesh and blood without changing, 
 or lowering, or defiling Himself. That proves 
 that man must have been originally made in God's 
 likeness ; that man's being fallen, means man's 
 falling from the likeness of God, and taking up 
 instead with the likeness of the brutes Avhich 
 perish ; that the fault cannot be in our bodies, 
 but in our spirits which have yielded to our 
 bodies, and become their slaves instead of their 
 masters, as Christ's Spirit was master of His body.. 
 But the Son of God, by being born and living 
 as a man, showed us that we are not fallen past 
 hope, not fallen so low that we cannot rise again. 
 He showed that though mankind are sinful, yet 
 they need not be sinful; for He was a man as 
 exactly, and perfectly, and entirely as we are, and 
 yet in Him was no sm. So He showed that 
 brutishness and sinfulness is not our proper state, 
 but our disease and our fall; and a disease of 
 which we can be cured, a fall out of which we can 
 rise and be renewed into the true and real pattern 
 of mankind, the new Adam, Jesus the sinless Son 
 of Man and Son of God.
 
 2r>2 SEEMON XX. 
 
 The next question, I said, that rose in men's 
 minds was : ' How do I know that God is good, 
 as I fancy sometimes that He must be ? I see 
 the world full of sin, and injustice, and misery, 
 and death. Perhaps that is God's doing, God's 
 fault.' That is a common puzzle enough, and a 
 sad and fearful one. The sin and the misery and 
 the death are here. If God did not bring it 
 here, yet why did He let it come here ? He could 
 have stopped it if He would, and kept out all this 
 wretchedness: why did He not? Was He just 
 or loving in lettino; sin into the world ? 
 
 To all which St Paul answers, ' God was justi- 
 fied in the Spirit.' 
 
 You do not see what that has to do with it ? 
 Then let me show you. 
 
 To be justified means to be shown and proved 
 to be just, righteous. Now what justified God 
 to man was the Spirit of God, as He showed 
 Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. For when 
 God became man and dwelt among men, what 
 sort of works were His? What was His conduct, 
 His character; of what sort of spirit did He show 
 Himself to be ? He went about, we read, doing 
 good, for God was with Him. Not of His own 
 will, but to do His Father's will, and because He 
 was filled without measui'e by the Spirit of God, 
 He did good. He healed the sick. He rebuked 
 the proud and self-conceited hypocrite, lie pro-
 
 THE MYSTERY OE GODLINESS. 263 
 
 claimed pardon and mercy to the broken-hearted 
 sinner, wearied and worn out by the burden of his 
 sins. Thus, in every action of His hfe, He was 
 fighting againstevil and miser}", and conquering it ; 
 and so showing that God hates evil and raiseiy, 
 -and that the evil and the misery in the world are 
 here against God's Avill. Strange as it may seem 
 to have to say it, so it is. Jesus Christ showed 
 that howsoever sin and sorrow came into the 
 world, it is God's will and purpose to root them 
 out of the world, and that He is righteous. He is 
 loving. He is merciful, He does and will fight 
 against evil, for those who are crushed by it ; and 
 help poor sufferers always when they call upon 
 Him, and often, often, of His most undeserved 
 condescension and free grace, when they are 
 forgetting and disobepng Him. And so, by the • 
 good, and loving, and just spirit which Jesus 
 showed, God was justified before men, and showed 
 to be a God of goodness and justice. 
 
 The next puzzle, I said, was about angels and 
 spirits, whether we need to pray to them to help 
 us, and not to hurt us. St Paul answers, God, 
 when He was manifested in the flesh of a man, 
 was seen by these angels. And that is enough 
 for us. They saw the Lord God condescend to be 
 born in a stable, to live as a poor man, to die on 
 the cross. They saw that His will to man was 
 love. And they do His will. And therefore
 
 264 SEEMON XX. 
 
 they love men, they help men, they minister to 
 men, because they follow the Lord's example, 
 and do the will of their Father in heaven, even 
 as we ought to do it on earth. Therefore we 
 have no need to fear them, for they love us 
 already. And, on the other hand, we have no 
 need to pray to them to help us, for they know 
 already that it is their duty to help us. They 
 know that the Son of God has put on us a higher 
 honour than He ever put on them ; for He took 
 not on Him the nature of angels. He took on 
 Him the nature of man ; and thus, though man 
 was made a little lower than the angels, yet by 
 Christ's taking man's nature, man is crowned 
 with a glory and honour higher than the angels. 
 Know ye not, says St Paul, that we shall judge 
 angels ? And the angels, as they told St John, 
 are our fellow-servants, not our masters; and 
 they know that ; for they saw the Son of God 
 doing utterly His Father's will, and therefore 
 they know that their duty is to do their Father's 
 will also; not to do their own wills, and set 
 themselves up as our masters, to be pleaded with 
 by us. They saw the Son of God take our 
 nature on Him, when they sang to the shepherds 
 on the first Christmas night, 'Peace on earth, 
 and good-Avill toward men ; ' and therefore they 
 look on us with love and honour, because we wear 
 the human nature which Clurist their Master
 
 THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. 265 
 
 wore, and are partakers of the Holy Spirit of 
 God, even as they are. For no an^el or arch- 
 angel could do a right thing, any more than 
 we, except by the Holy Spirit of God. And 
 that Holy Spirit is bestowed on the poorest 
 _,jnan who asks for it, as freely as upon the highest 
 of the heavenly host. 
 
 And this leads us on to the next puzzle of 
 which I spoke : Men were apt, and are apt now, 
 to say to themselves, Does God care whether I 
 know what is right ? Does God care to teach me 
 about Himself? Is God desirous that I should 
 do my duty ? For if He does not care about my 
 being good, why should I care about it ? 
 
 To this St Paul answers : ' God, who was 
 manifest in the flesh, was preached to the 
 Gentiles.' 
 
 God does care that men should know about 
 God ; for He loves them. He yearns after them as 
 a father after his childi*en, and He knows that to 
 know God, to know the truth about God, is the 
 beginning of all Avisdom, the root of all safety, 
 and honour and happiness. He willeth not that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to 
 the knowledge of the trutli. And, therefore, 
 when the Son of God died for our sins. He did 
 not stop at that great deed of love ; but He 
 ordained apostles, and put upon them especially 
 and above all men. His Holy Spirit, that they
 
 266 SERMON XX. 
 
 might go and preach to all nations the good news 
 that God had become flesh, and dwelt among 
 men, and borne their sorrows and infirmities, and 
 to baptise them into the very name of God itself, 
 into the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost; that so, instead of fancying 
 now that God did not care for them, they might 
 be sure that God so longed to teach them, that 
 He called every child, even from its cradle, to 
 come into His kingdom, and be taught the whole 
 mystery of godliness. 
 
 The next puzzle I mentioned was : ' But this 
 right life, this mystery of godliness, is it not 
 something yery strange and difficult, and past 
 the understanding of simple men who are not 
 extraordinarily clever and learned scholars or 
 deep philosophers'?' To that St Paul answers, 
 No. It is not past any man. It is not too deep 
 or too difficult for the simplest, the most unlearned 
 countiyman. For, says St Paul in the text, we 
 apostles have had proof of that ; we have tried it; 
 we apostles preached the mystery of godliness, 
 and it was believed on in the world. People of 
 the world, plain working men and women going 
 about their Avorldly business, who had no time to 
 be great readers, or great thinkers, or to shut 
 themselves up in monasteries to meditate on 
 heavenly things, but had to live and work in 
 the common-place, busy, work-day world ; they
 
 THE MYSTEKY OF GODLINESS. 267 
 
 believed our message. We apostles told them tliat 
 the Son of God had showed Himself in the likeness 
 of man, and called on every man to repent, and to 
 be such a man as He was. And worldly people 
 believed us and tried, and found that without 
 "giving up their worldly work, or deserting the 
 station in w^hich God had put them, they could 
 live godlike lives, and become the sons of God 
 without rebuke. They saw that scholarship w^as 
 not wanted, leisure was not wanted, but only the 
 humble heart which hungers and thirsts after 
 righteousness. About their daily work, by their 
 cottage firesides, among their poor neighbours, the 
 Spirit of Almighty God gave them strength to 
 live as Jesus their pattern lived ; He filled them 
 with all holy, pure, noble, brave, loving thoughts 
 and feelings, fit for angels and archangels. He 
 enabled them to rise out of their sins, to trample 
 their temptations under foot, to leave their old 
 low brutish sinful way of life behind them, and 
 become new men, and persevere in every word, 
 and thought, and action, in virtues such as the 
 greatest heathen sages could not copy ; ay, even 
 to shed their life-blood freely and boldly in 
 martvrdom, for the sake of God and the truth of 
 God. They, these plain simple people, living in 
 the world, could still live the life of God, and die 
 like heroes for the sake of God. 
 
 And this again brings us to the last puzzle of
 
 2G8 SERMON XX. 
 
 which I spoke : 'But what became of those holy 
 and gocUike people when they died ; what reward 
 did they receive for all that they had done, and 
 given up, and suffered? AVhat will become 
 of us after we die ? What will the next world 
 be hke ? What is heaven like ? Shall I be able 
 to enjoy it ? Shall I be a man there, or only a 
 ghost, a spirit without a body f 
 
 To this St Paul answers. That Christ, the Son 
 of God, after He was manifested in the flesh, was 
 received up into glory. He does not tell us what 
 heaven is like ; for though he had been caught 
 up into the third heaven, yet what he saw there, 
 he says, was unspeakable. He neither ought to 
 tell, or could tell, what he saw. Neither does 
 St Paul tell us what the next life will be like ; 
 for as far as we can find, God had not told him. 
 All he says is: The man Christ Jesus, who 
 walked this earth like other men, was received 
 up into glory ; and He did not leave His man's 
 mind. His man's heart, even His man's body, 
 beliind Him. He carried up into heaven with Him 
 His whole manhood, spirit, soul, and body, even to 
 the print of the nails in His hands and in His 
 most holy feet, and the wound of the spear in 
 His most holy side. And that is enough for us. 
 Because the man Christ Jesus is in heaven, we 
 as men may ascend to heaven. Where He is we 
 shall be. And what He is, in as far as He is man,
 
 THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. 269 
 
 we shall be. Wliat we shall be we know not ; 
 but this we know, that we shall be hke Him, for 
 we shall see him as He is. And He is a man 
 still; for it is written, 'There is one Mediator 
 between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' 
 •-And He wUl be a man at the day of judgment ; 
 for it is written that ' God hath ordained a day in 
 which He will judge the world by a man whom 
 He hath chosen.' And He will be a man for ever ; 
 for it is written, ' This man abideth for ever.' And 
 He Himself said to His disciples, 'I will not 
 drink of this fruit of the vine, till I drink it new 
 with you in the kingdom of my Father.' And 
 again He declared, even when He was on earth, 
 that He was the Son of Man who is in heaven. 
 And in heaven nothing can grow less. But if 
 Christ were not man for ever as well as God, 
 He would become less ; for He is now God 
 and man also at once; but if He laid down 
 His manhood, and so became not man any more, 
 but God only, He would become less, which is 
 not to be believed of Him of whom it is written. 
 That Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever. For, as the Athanasian Creed 
 teaches us, He is not God alone, nor man alone, 
 but God and man is one Christ ; and, therefore, 
 when Saint John declares that Christ shall reisn 
 for ever and ever, he declares that He shall reign 
 not only as God, but as man also. Therefore,
 
 270 SERMON XX. 
 
 whatever we do not know about the next life, we 
 know this, that we shall be men there ; not sinful, 
 weak, and mortal, as we are here, but holy, strong, 
 immortal, after the likeness of our Lord, the first- 
 born from the dead, who has ascended up on high 
 and raised our human nature to the heaven of 
 heavens, and is gone to prepare a place for us, 
 into which we too shall enter in that day when He 
 shall change these mortal and fallen bodies which 
 we now wear, the bodies of our humiliation, the 
 bodies by wearing which Ave are now a httle 
 lower than the angels; them the Lord will change, 
 that they may be made like unto His glorious 
 body, according to the mighty working whereby 
 He subdueth all things unto Himself, that we may 
 see Him face to face, and dwell with Him in the 
 glory of God the Father for ever. 
 
 O, my friends, who is sufficient for these things? 
 What shall we say of man ? Is he not indeed 
 fearfully and wonderfully made? Here we are, 
 weak creatm'es, more liable to disease and death 
 than the dumb beasts round us ; full of poverty, 
 and adversity, and longings which are never 
 satisfied ; our minds full of mistakes, our hearts 
 full of false conceit, spite and folly, struggles, 
 murmurings, quarrellings ; our consciences full 
 of the remembrance of sins without number. The 
 greatest of all heathen poets said, that there was 
 not a more miserable and pitiable animal upon
 
 THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. 271 
 
 earth than man. He knew no better. He could 
 not know better. How could he, when God had 
 not yet been manifest in the flesh ? How could 
 he di'eam that the Lord God would condescend 
 to be made flesh, and dwell among us, and show 
 jnan His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of 
 the Father, full of grace and truth — how could 
 he dream that ? And more than all, how could 
 he dream that God, instead of throwiug away 
 our human nature when He rose again, as if it 
 was too great a degradation for Him to be a man 
 one moment more, should condescend to take up 
 His human nature, His man's body, soul, and 
 spirit, with Him into everlasting glory, that He 
 might feed with it for ever the bodies and souls 
 of those who trust in Him, so as to make them fit 
 for us at the last day, to share in His everlasting 
 life ? The old heathen poet knew as well as you 
 or I that there was an everlasting life beyond 
 the grave ; that men's souls were immortal, and 
 could not die : but the thought of it was all dark, 
 and dreary, and uncertain to him and to all 
 mankind, till the Son of God brouo;ht life and 
 immortality to light, when He was manifest in the 
 flesh. 
 
 Wonderful mystery of godliness ! Wonderful 
 love of God to man ! Wonderful condescension 
 of God to man ! Still more wonderful patience 
 of God to man I
 
 272 SERMON XX. 
 
 Oh you who live still in sin, when the Son 
 of Gotl died and rose a gainto make you righ- 
 teous ; you who defile your bodies with sins worse 
 than the brutes, when the Son of God offers to 
 raise those bodies of yours to be equal with the 
 angels ; how shall you escape if you neglect so 
 great salvation ; if you despise this unspeakable 
 love ; if you trample under foot, Kke swine, the 
 everlasting glory and happiness which God offers 
 you freely, without fee or price, for the sake of 
 His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died 
 to buy them for you ?
 
 XXI 
 
 -THE WORK OF GOD'S SPIRIT 
 
 John xvi. 7-11. 
 
 ^ If I go not away, the Comforter ivill not come unto you; 
 but if I depart, I ivill send Him unto you. And when 
 He is come. He will reprove the world of sin, and of 
 righteousness, and of judgment : of sin, because they 
 believe not on me : of righteousness, because I go to my 
 Father, and ye see me no more: of judgment, because 
 the prince of this world is judged.' 
 
 I DO not pretend to be able to explain to jou the 
 whole meaning of this text, or even more than a 
 very small part of it. For it speaks of God ; of 
 God the Holy Spirit. And God is boundless ; 
 and, therefore, every text which speaks of God is 
 boundless too, as God is. No man can ever see 
 the w^hole meaning of it, or do more than under- 
 stand dimly a little of its truth. But what we 
 can see, we must think over and make use of. 
 What can we see, now, from this text ? First, 
 we may see that the Holy Spirit, the Holy 
 Ghost, the Comforter, is a person. Not a mere 
 thing, or a state of our own hearts, or a feeling
 
 274 SEKMON XXI. 
 
 in us, or a power, like the powers and laws by 
 which the trees and plants grow, and the sun 
 and moon move in their courses ; but a person, 
 just as each of us is a person. ' He, the Holy 
 Sphit, gives life to trees and plants, sun and 
 moon : but He is not their life. He gives them 
 their life ; and, therefore, that life of theirs is not 
 He, or He could not give it; for you can only give 
 something which is not you. The scripture 
 speaks of the Holy Spirit, not as it, but as He ; 
 as a person, and not as a tiling ; as a person who 
 can speak to men's souls, guide and teach them. 
 ' When He, the Spirit of truth, is come. He will 
 guide yoa into all truth ; for He shall not speak 
 of Himself.' 
 
 But we may see also that the Holy Spirit is 
 neither God the Father, nor the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. For the Lord speaks of Him, the Holy 
 Spirit, as a different person either from Him or 
 from the Father. ' The Spirit,' He says, ' shall 
 glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and 
 shall show it unto you.' 
 
 But we may see also that there is no difference 
 in will, or opinion, or love, between the Holy 
 Spirit and the Father and the Son. For .the 
 Spirit does not speak of Himself; there is no 
 self-will in Him. There is not one will of the 
 Father, and another of the Son, and another of 
 the Holy Ghost ; or, one love of the Father,
 
 THE WORK OF GOD's SPIRIT. 275 
 
 another love of the Son, and another of the Holy 
 Ghost ; or, one righteousness of the Father, 
 another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost ; 
 or, one mercy and grace of the Father, another 
 of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost. For 
 '~ then there would be three Gods and three Lords ; 
 and the substance of God would be divided. 
 But they have all one will, and one love, and one 
 righteousness, and one mercy. And such as the 
 Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 And remember always, that the Holy Spirit is 
 very and indeed God. For He is the Spuit of 
 holiness itself, of righteousness itself, of goodness 
 itself, of love itself, of truth itself; and, therefore. 
 He is the Spirit of God, who is the perfect 
 holiness, and righteousness, and truth, and love. 
 All other holiness, and righteousness, and truth, 
 and love, are only pictures and patterns of God, 
 just as the sun's reflexion in water, or in a glass, 
 is a picture and pattern of the sun. As the 
 epistle for to-day tells us, ' Every good gift and 
 every perfect is from above, and cometh down 
 from the Father of lights.' 
 
 But the Spirit of God must be God. For 
 else what do the words mean ? Is not the spirit 
 of a man, a man ? Is not your spirit, what you 
 call your soul, you? Is not your soul you, just 
 as much as your body is you; ay, a hundred
 
 276 SERMON XXI. 
 
 times more ? Just so, the Spirit of God is God, 
 God Himself; and the Godhead of the Father, of 
 the Son, of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory 
 equal, the majesty co-eternal. 
 
 This, then, is the glorious promise made to 
 you, and to me, and to all who believe and are 
 baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit ; that that Spirit will come 
 to us, and take charge of our spirits, and work in 
 them, and teach them. We cannot see Him 
 with our eyes, or hear Him with our ears ; we 
 cannot even feel Him at work in our hearts and 
 thoughts. For He is a Spirit ; and His likeness, 
 the thing in this world which is a pattern of 
 Him, is the wind ; as indeed the name Spirit 
 means. You cannot see the wind ; you cannot 
 even really feel the wmd or hear it : you 
 only know it by its effects, by what it does ; by 
 the noise among the branches, the force against 
 your faces, the bending boughs, and flying dust. 
 The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and thou hear- 
 est the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
 it Cometh, or whitlier it goeth ; even so is every 
 one who is born of the Spu'it. On him the 
 Spirit of God will work unseen, and unfelt, only 
 to be discovered by the change which He makes 
 in the man's heart and thoughts ; and first, by the 
 way in which He convinces him of sin, because 
 men beheve not on Jesus Christ.
 
 THE WORK OF GOD's SPIRIT. 277 
 
 The Holy Spirit shows men that the sins of 
 the world, the sin of all sins, the sin which is 
 the root of all other sins, is not believing on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ ; that it was because they 
 would not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 .they had been falling into eveiy other sort of sin. 
 
 But you may say, ' How could they believe on 
 
 Him before He came, and was born in Judea of 
 
 the virgin Mary? How could they believe on 
 
 Him w^hen He was not there?' Ah! my friends, 
 
 who told you that the Lord Jesus Christ was not 
 
 there, in the world, all along ? Not the Bible, 
 
 certainly. For the Bible tells us that He is tlie 
 
 Light who lights every man who cometh into the 
 
 world ; that from Him came, and have come, all 
 
 the right thoughts and feelings which ever arose 
 
 in the heart of every human being. The Bible 
 
 tells us that when God created the world. He 
 
 was daily rejoicing in the habitable parts of the 
 
 earth, and His delights were with the sons of 
 
 men. The Bible tells us that He was in the 
 
 world, and the world knew Him not ; that all 
 
 along, through the dark times of heathendom, the 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ was a light shining in dark- 
 en o 
 
 ness, which the darkness could not close round, 
 and hide, and quench. 
 
 Not merely to the Jews, but to all heathens 
 who hungered and thirsted after righteousness, 
 did the Lord Jesus show something of His truth ;
 
 278 SEEMON xxr. 
 
 as it is written, God is no acceptor of persons ; 
 that is, no shower of partiality, or unjust favour : 
 but in every nation, he that feareth God and 
 worketh righteousness is accepted of Him. 
 
 But at the time that the Lord Jesus sent down 
 His Holy Spirit, men were not working righteous- 
 ness. There was not one who did good, no not 
 one. For men had forgotten what righteousness 
 was like, what a righteous man ought to do and 
 be. Men are ready to forget it eveiy day. You 
 and I are ready to forget it, and invent some false 
 righteousness of our own, not like Jesus Christ, 
 but like what we in our private fancies think is 
 most graceful, or most agreeable, or most easy ; or 
 most grand, and far-fetched, and difficult. But 
 the Holy Spirit came to convince men of righ- 
 teousness ; to show them what true righteousness 
 was like. 
 
 And how? In the same Avay that He must 
 convince us of righteousness, if we are ever to 
 know what righteousness is, or are ever to be 
 righteous ourselves. He must show us goodness ; 
 or we shall never see it, or receive it, or copy it. 
 
 And where is this righteousness, this perfect 
 goodness of which the Holy Spirit will convince 
 us ? Where, but in the Lord Jesus Christ? Li 
 the Lord Jesus's character, the Lord Jesus's good 
 works ; His love, His patience. His perfect obedi- 
 ence, His life. His death. The Holy Spirit, if
 
 THE WORK OF GOD's SPIRIT. 279 
 
 we give up om* hearts to be taught by Him, will 
 make us believe, and be sure, and feel in our 
 very inmost hearts, how noble, how beautiful, how 
 holy, how perfectly Godlike, was He who was 
 born of a poor virgin, who walked this earth for 
 jhirty-three years in toil and sorrow, who gave His 
 back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that 
 plucked off the hau-, and hid not His face from 
 shame and spitting, who died upon a cross 
 between two thieves. And the Holy Spirit will 
 convince us of righteousness, by making us feel 
 what the Lord Jesus's righteousness consisted in; 
 what was the root of all his gx)odness and holiness, 
 namelj'', his perfect obedience to His Father and 
 our Father in heaven. That is the righteousness, 
 which is not our own, but God's ; the righteous- 
 ness which comes by faith ; not to trust in oui-' 
 selves, but in God ; not to please ourselves, but 
 God; not to do our own will, but God's will. 
 That is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, Avhich 
 God set His seal on and approved, when He 
 exalted Him far above all principality and powers, 
 and set Him at His o^^ti rio;ht hand for a sign to 
 all men, and angels, and archangels ; that righ 
 teousness means to trust and to obey God even 
 to the death. 
 
 3. Of judgment, because the prince of this 
 world is judged. 
 
 This may seem a puzzling speech at first. We
 
 280 SERMON XXI. 
 
 shall imderstand it best, I think, by considering 
 who the prince of this world was in our Lord's 
 time, and what he was like. A little before our 
 Lord's time the Roman emperor had conquered 
 almost the whole world which was then known, 
 and kept all nations in slavery, careless about 
 their doing right, provided they obeyed him and 
 paid him tribute ; nay, forcing them and tempt- 
 ing them into all brutal and foul sin and ignor- 
 ance, tliat he might keep up his own power 
 over man. 
 
 But now the Lord of all the earth, and the 
 Prince of men's hearts and thoughts, was come to 
 visit that poor enslaved and sinftil world. He 
 came ; the princes of this world knew Him not, 
 and crucified the Lord of Glory. They crucified 
 the righteous and the just One; and so they were 
 judged. They judged themselves ; they con- 
 demned themselves. For they showed that what 
 they admired and what they wanted was not 
 righteousness and love, but wealth and power. 
 They showed that no doing of good, no healing 
 of the sick, or giving of sight to the blind, or 
 preaching the gospel to the poor, no hohness, no 
 love, not the perfect likeness of God's own good- 
 ness, which shone forth in the spotless Jesus, was 
 anything to them ; was any reason why they 
 should not put Him to death with the most cruel 
 torments, because they were afraid of His taking
 
 THE WORK OF GOD's SPIRIT. 281 
 
 away their power. He said He was a King ; and 
 therefore they crucified Him, lest His kingdom 
 should interfere with theirs; and for the same 
 reason these same Roman emperors and their 
 magistrates, for hundreds of years afterwards, 
 persecuted the christians, and hunted them down 
 like wild beasts, and put them to death by all 
 horrible tortures, for the same reason that Cain 
 slew Abel ; because his brother's deeds were 
 righteous, and his own wicked. 
 
 So these Roman emperors, and their magis- 
 trates, and generals were judged. They had 
 shown what was in their evil hearts. They had 
 been tried in God's balances, and found w^anting. 
 The sentence of the Lord God had gone forth 
 against them. The man Christ Jesus, whom they 
 rejected, God accepted, and raised to His own 
 right hand. They crucified Him ; but God gave 
 Him all power in heaven and earth ; and the 
 Lord Jesus used His power; yea, and uses it 
 still. He gave His saints and martyrs strength 
 to defy those Roman tyrants, and to witness to 
 all the earth that the righteous -Son of God was 
 the Kino; of heaven and earth, and that the 
 princes of this -world, who washed to break His 
 yoke off their necks, and crush all nations to 
 powder for their own pleasure, and fatten them- 
 selves upon the plunder of all the earth, would 
 surely come to nought, as it is written in the
 
 282 SEEMON XXI. 
 
 second Psalm : ' The kings of the earth set them- 
 selves, and the rulers take counsel together, 
 Biiainst the Lord and His Anointed. Yet have I 
 set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Thou 
 shalt break them with a rod of iron ; thou shalt 
 dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.' 
 
 And they did come to nought. That great 
 Roman empire rotted away miserably after years 
 of such distress as had never been seen on the 
 earth before; and the emperors came, one after 
 another, to shameful or dreadful deaths. And 
 all the while the gospel spread, and the church 
 grew, till all the kingdoms of the Roman empire 
 had become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ, 
 by the power of the Holy Spirit working in men's 
 hearts, and showing them, as om^ Lord said He 
 would, that Jesus of Nazareth was both Lord 
 and King. And so w^as fulfilled The Lord's 
 words in the gospel for to-day : ' The Holy Spirit 
 shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, 
 and shall show it unto you. All things that the 
 Father hath are mine ; therefore said I that He 
 should take of mine, and show it unto you.' 
 
 O my friends, pray for yourselves, and join me 
 while I pray for you, that the holy and righteous 
 Spirit of God may convince you, and me, and all 
 mankind, more and more, day by day, of sin, of 
 righteousness, and of judgment. 
 
 Pray to that Holy Spirit to convince you of
 
 THE WORK OF GOD'S SPIRIT. 283 
 
 sin, dav by day, whensoever you do the least 
 wrong thing. Pray to Him to keep yom* con- 
 sciences tender and quick, that you may feel 
 instantly, and lament deeply, every A^Tong thing 
 you do. 
 
 - Pray to Him to give you, every time you do 
 wrong, that godly soitow which brings peace and 
 health, that heart-repentance never to be re- 
 pented of. Pray to Him to convince you more 
 and more, as you grow older, that all sin comes 
 from not believing in Jesus Christ, not believing 
 that He is near you, with you, in you, putting 
 into your hearts all right thoughts and good 
 desires, and willing, if you will, to help you to 
 put those thoughts and desires into good practice. 
 
 Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more 
 and more of righteousness ; to make you see 
 Avhat righteousness is ; that it is the very charac- 
 ter and likeness of God the Father, because it is 
 the character and likeness of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who was the brightness of the Father's 
 glory, and the express image of His person. 
 Pray to Him to make you see the beauty of 
 holiness ; how fair, and noble, and glorious a 
 thing goodness is ; how truly Solomon says ' that 
 all the tilings that may be desired are not to be 
 compared to it.' 
 
 Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more 
 and more of judgment, and to make you sure
 
 284 SERMON XXI. 1 
 
 that the Lord is Khig, a righteous Judge, of a 
 purer eyes than to behold iniquity, whose fan is | 
 in His hand, who througlily purges His floor, "J 
 who comes quickly, and His reward is with Him, \ 
 and who surely casts out of His kingdom, sooner > 
 or later, all things that offend, and whosoever ^ 
 loveth and maketh a lie. Pray to Him to make \ 
 you sure by faith, though you cannot see it, that 
 the prince of this world is judged; that e\dl 
 doing, oppression, tyranny, injustice, cheatmg, 
 neglect of man by man, cannot and will not 
 prosper upon the face of God's earth ; for the 
 everlasting sentence and wrath of God is revealed 
 forth every moment against all unrighteousness 
 of men, which He will surely punish, yea, and 
 does hourly punish by Him by whom He judges 
 the world, Jesus Christ, The Lord, who is exalted 
 high above all principalities and powers, and has 
 all power given to Him in heaven and earth, 
 which He uses, as He used it in Judea of old, 
 utterly and always for the good of all mankind, 
 whom He hath redeemed with His most precious 
 blood.
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE GOSPEL. 
 
 1 Corinthians xv. 1-4. 
 
 • Moreover, hrethren, I declare unto you the gospel which 
 I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and 
 wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye 
 keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye 
 have believed in vain : for I delivered unto you first of 
 all that which I also received, how that Christ died for 
 our sins according to the scriptures; and that He tvas 
 buried, and that He rose again the third day according 
 to the scriptures* 
 
 This is St Paul's account of the gospel ; the 
 good news which he preached to the sinful and 
 profligate Corinthians, when they were sunk 
 lower than the beasts which perish. And be- 
 cause they beUeved this good news, he said, they 
 were saved then and there, and would be safe 
 only as long as they believed that good news, 
 and kept it in their memories. Now, from what 
 did this good news save them ? From their sins. 
 There was something in St Paul's good news
 
 286 SERMON XXII. 
 
 which made them hate their sins, and repent of 
 them, and throw them away, and rise up to be 
 new men and women, living new lives in godli- 
 ness, and purity, and justice, such as they had 
 never lived before. Now mind, it was not bad 
 news which made the Corinthians repent of their 
 sins ; it was good news. It was not that St Paul 
 told them that God was going to cast them into 
 endless torment for their sins, and that therefore 
 they were terrified and afraid, and so repented. 
 Doubtless St Paul told them, as he told other 
 heathens, that the wrath of God was revealed 
 from heaven against all unrighteousness ; that 
 tribulation and anguish was laid up in store for 
 every soul of man who worketh e^dl. But still, 
 St Paul says plainly here, that what saved the 
 Corinthians was not that or any other fearful 
 and terrifying news, but a gospel — good news. 
 And he says that this good news did not merely, 
 as some would wish it to do, make them comfort- 
 able in their minds while they went on in their 
 old wicked ways. No. He says that it made 
 them stand. That is, made them upright, strong- 
 minded, righteous, self-restraining people; and 
 that they were saved by it from those sins which 
 had been dragging them down, and keeping them 
 diseased in soul, weak, miserable, the slaves of 
 their own passions and foul pleasures. 
 
 What wonderful good news was this, then.
 
 THE GOSPEL. 287 
 
 which could work so strano;e a chanfje in these 
 poor heathens, and how could it change them ? 
 Let us see, first, what it was. 
 ' That Christ died for our sins accordino; to the 
 scriptm-es, and that He was buried, and that He 
 ^ rose again the third day according to the scrip- 
 tures; and that He was seen of Peter, then of 
 the twelve ; after that He was seen of above five 
 hundred bretlu'en at once ; of whom the greater 
 part remam unto this day, but some are fallen 
 asleep. After that He was seen of James, then 
 of all the apostles. And last of all, He was seen 
 of me also, as of one born out of due time.' 
 
 You see here, that St Paul, for some good 
 reason, says much more about the Lord's rising 
 again than even about His most precious death 
 and passion on the cross, while about His 
 ascending into heaven he says nothing. And 
 you ^vill find in the New Testament that the 
 apostles often did the same. They spoke of the 
 Lord rising again as if that was the great won- 
 der, the great glory, the great good news ; and 
 as if His most precious death was not perfect 
 without that. They said that the especial office 
 for which the Lord had ordained them, was to be 
 witnesses of His resuiTection. They said that the 
 Lord rose again for our justification. They said, 
 ' If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
 Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God
 
 288 SERMON XXII. 
 
 has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be 
 saved.' Here again, just as in the text, believing 
 in the Lord's resurrection is made the great 
 article of faith. Why is this? Perhaps that 
 last verse which I quoted may tell us, if we con- 
 sider it carefully. 
 
 What does confessing the Lord Jesus with our 
 mouth mean ? It means what we ought to mean 
 when we say, in the Apostles' Creed, I believe in 
 Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. Not 
 merely, I believe that there is an only Son of 
 God; but I believe in a certain man, with a 
 certain character, who is that only Son of God. 
 
 And what, you will ask, does that mean "? 
 
 To know that, I fear, we must go back many 
 many hundred years, to the times when the old 
 mart}Ts confessed the Lord Jesus Christ before 
 the heathen. Those were times in which it was 
 not enough to say the Apostles' Creed in church. 
 Men, ay, and tender women, and little children, 
 had to stand by it through terror and shame, and 
 to die in torments unspeakable, because they chose 
 to say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord.' 
 Now, what was it wdiich made the heathen hate, 
 and persecute, and torture, and murder them for 
 saying that? What was there in those plain 
 words of the Apostles' Creed which made the great 
 heathen emperors of Rome, and their officers and 
 judges, hunt the chi'istians down like wild beasts
 
 THE GOSPEL. 289 
 
 for 300 years, and declare tliat they were not fit 
 to live ■? I will tell you. When the christians 
 were brought before the emperor's judges for 
 being christians, they did not merely say, ' I 
 beheve that Jesus Christ's blood will save my 
 "Soul after death.' They said that : but they said 
 a great deal more than that! If that had been 
 all that the christians said, the judge would have 
 answered, ' What care I for your souls, or for 
 your notions about what will happen to them 
 when you are dead ? Go your way. You may 
 be of what religion you like, and talk and think 
 about your own souls as much as you like, pro- 
 vided you do not trouble the Roman emperor's 
 power.' But the heathen judge did not make 
 that answer ; because he knew well enough that 
 what the christians believed was not a mere 
 religion about what would happen to their souls 
 after death : but something which, if it gained 
 ground, would utterly destroy the Roman em- 
 peror's power. He used generally to say to the 
 christians only this, '■ Will you bum those few 
 grains of incense in honour of the emperor of 
 Rome ? ' And he knew, and the christians knew 
 well enough, that those words meant, ' Will you 
 confess with youi* mouth the emperor of Rome % 
 Will you confess that he is the only lord and 
 king of this whole earth, and of your bodies and 
 souls, and that there is no power or authority
 
 290 SERMON XXIT. 
 
 but of him, for the gods have delivered all 
 things into his hands?' And then came out 
 what confessing the Lord Jesus really means. 
 For the christians used to answer, 'No. The 
 emperor of Rome is the lord and master of our 
 bodies, and we will obey his laws so far as we 
 can without doing wrong : but we cannot obey 
 them when they are contrary to the laws of our 
 Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. For the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose again 
 the third day. He, and not the emperor of Rome 
 at all, is the Lord and King of the whole earth, 
 and of our bodies and souls ; and we must obey 
 Him, before we obey any one else. Power and 
 authority come not from the emperor of Rome, 
 but from the Lord Jesus Christ ; and the em- 
 peror is only His servant and steward, and must 
 obey Him just as much as we, or the Lord will 
 punish him as surely and easily as He will the 
 meanest slave. For God has delivered all things, 
 and the emperor of Rome among the rest, into 
 the hand of His Son Jesus Christ, who sits a 
 King over all, God blessed for ever.' That was 
 confessing Christ. 
 
 And to that the heathen judges used to make 
 but one answer — for there was but one to make. 
 Those heathen judges' guilty consciences, as well 
 as their worldly cunning, told them plainly 
 enough exactly what St Paul told the christians ;
 
 THE GOSPEL. 291 
 
 that those christians, by confessing Christ, were 
 not fighting against flesh and blood, and setting 
 up their selfish interests against other people's 
 selfish interests : but that the battle they were 
 fighting was a much deeper and more terrible 
 ^-one ; that by saying that One Avho had walked 
 the earth as a poor man, and yet a perfectly 
 righteous and lo\ang man, doing nothing but 
 good, and sacrificing Himself utterly for poor 
 fallen creatru'es, they were fighting against the 
 whole state of things all over the world ; against 
 the government, and principles, and religion of 
 that whole unjust and t^nrannical Roman empire, 
 and all its rulers, and generals, and judges ; 
 against principalities, against powers, against the 
 world-rulers of the darkness of those times; against 
 spiritual wickedness in heavenly things. For if 
 Jesus Christ's life was the right life, those rulers' 
 must be utterly wrong ; for it was exactly oppo- 
 site to His. If Jesus Christ was really the 
 Governor of the earth, there was no hope for 
 them ; for their way of governing was exactly 
 opposite to His. So as I say, they made but one 
 answer ; because there was but one to make : 
 ' You say that Jesus Christ is King of kings and 
 Lord of lords. I say the emperor of Rome is. 
 You say you must obey Christ first, and the 
 emperor of Rome afterwards. I say that you 
 must obey the emperor first, and Christ after-
 
 292 SERMON XXII. 
 
 wards. At all events, if you do not, you have 
 no right on this earth of the emperor's ; either 
 the emperor's power must fall, or your notion 
 about Jesus Christ's power must. And we will 
 see whether your heavenly King of whom you 
 talk can deliver you out of the emperor's hand.' 
 And then came the scourge, and the red-hot iron, 
 and the wild beasts, and the cross, and all devilish 
 tortures which man's evil will could invent, 
 brought to bear without shame or mercy upon 
 aged men, and tender girls, and even little chil- 
 dren, just to make them say that the earth belonged 
 to the emperor and not to Jesus Christ. Those 
 who died bravely under those tortures without 
 denying Christ were called martyrs, which means 
 witnesses — people who bore witness before God 
 and man that Jesus Christ was King and Lord. 
 Those who did not die under the tortures, but 
 escaped after all, were called confessors — people 
 who had confessed with their mouths that Jesus 
 Christ was King and Lord, in spite of their 
 terror and agony. . . . That was what con- 
 fessing Jesus Christ meant in the old times. 
 And that was what it ought to mean now, even 
 though there is no persecution or torture for 
 christians in these happier times. 
 
 And now, we may see perhaps why St Paul 
 spoke so much of our Lord's rising again as the 
 most important part of the gospel.
 
 THE GOSPEL. 293 
 
 Because he wanted cliristians to believe, not 
 merely in a Christ who once died, but in Hitn 
 who died and is alive for evermore ; in a Christ 
 who rose again, body, soul, and spirit, and sat at 
 God's right hand, praying for poor creatures 
 'when they were tempted, and persecuted, and 
 tormented for righteousness' sake. St Paul knew 
 well that such fearful times as those of which I 
 have been speaking were coming on the people to 
 whom he wrote. And he knew equally well that 
 the only thought which could save them, when 
 the heathen judges commanded them to deny 
 the Lord Jesus, was the thought that He was 
 really risen. The only thought which could 
 make them bold enough to face all the horrors of 
 death, was the thought that the Lord Jesus had 
 not merely tasted death, but conquered it, and 
 risen again from it. And therefore it is that St 
 Paul speaks so often of Christ's resurrection, and 
 that in the text he takes so much pains to prove 
 that Christ had really risen, by telling them how 
 many persons, well known to him who wrote to 
 them, had seen the Lord Jesus Christ after He 
 rose, and talked with Him, and were sure that 
 He was the very same person still, with the same 
 countenance, and body, and soul, and spirit, as 
 He had when Fie was nailed to the cross, and 
 laid iu the sepulchre. 
 
 What a thought for a poor creature in the last 
 
 s
 
 294 SERMON XXII. 
 
 agony of fear and shame, expecting presently to 
 be torn in pieces, or burnt alive — 'Death, this 
 horrible death, cannot conquer me, weak and ' 
 fearful as I am ; for my Lord and Master, for 
 whom I am going to suffer, has conquered death, | 
 and He will not let it conquer me. He is 
 stronger than death and hell, and He will not j 
 suffer me at my last hour for any pains of death j 
 to fall from Him. He is King of heaven and I 
 earth, and He will take care of His own !' What 
 a comfortable thought to be able to say : ' Ay, I ! 
 am torn from wife and child, and all which I love 
 on earth. But not for ever, not for ever. For 
 Christ rose from the dead. And I, who belong j 
 to Christ, shall rise as He did. This poor flesh 
 of mine may be burnt in flames, devoured by 
 ravenous beasts. What matter? Christ, the King 
 of men, has risen from the dead, and become the 
 first-fruits of them that slept. That same Spirit j 
 of His, which brought back His body from the j 
 grave and hell, will bring our bodies also from : 
 the grave and hell, to a nobler, happier life with ; 
 Him in glory unspeakable. Christ is risen, and i 
 I shall rise with Him at the last day. Christ sits i 
 at God's right hand, watching me, pitying me, i 
 and blessing me, holding out to me a crown of > 
 glory which shall never fade aw^ay!' That was , 
 the thought which gave Stephen courage to ' 
 confess the Lord Jesus Christ, and to die in i
 
 THE GOSPEL. 295 
 
 peace amid the murderous blows of the Jews. 
 For by faith he saw, as he said, the heavens 
 opened, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of 
 God. He knew that his Lord was risen, and 
 that He would hear his dying cry — ' Lord Jesus, 
 receive my spirit.' 
 
 And so with us, my friends ; we have no mar- 
 tyrdom to go through, thank God ; but it is just 
 as true of us as it was of the blessed mart^Ts and 
 confessors, that there is no other name under 
 heaven bv which we can be saved, but the name 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. Saved ; not only from 
 hell, but from sin, from giving way to temjDtation, 
 from denying Christ. O pray for faith. Pray for 
 faith. Pray to be able really to confess with your 
 mouth the Lord Jesus. Pray to beUeve with your 
 hearts that God has raised Him from the dead. 
 Then when you are tempted to do ■v\T.*ong, you, like 
 Stephen, will see, not with your bodily eyes, but 
 by faith, the Lord Jesus sitting at God's right 
 hand, and be able to say to Him, ' Lord Jesus, 
 who hast conquered all temptation, help me to 
 conquer this. Thine eye is on me, how can I do 
 this great wickedness and sin against thee ? ' 
 When you are in terror, and trouble, and aflflic- 
 tion, and know not where to tmm, that same 
 blessed thought — ' Christ is risen from the dead ' 
 — will be a shield and a strength to you which 
 no other thought can give. ' My Lord is risen ;
 
 296 SERMON XXII. 
 
 He is here still — a man, with His man's body, and 
 His man's spirit — His man's love and tenderness; 
 He has taken them all up to heaven with Him. 
 He is a man still, though He is very God of very 
 God. He rose from the dead as a man, and 
 therefore He can understand me, and feel for me 
 still, now, here in England in this very year 1852, 
 just as much as He could when He was walking 
 upon earth in Judea of old.' 
 
 Ay, and in the black jaws of death, when this 
 world is vanishing from our eyes, and we are 
 going we know not whither, leaving behind us 
 all we Ivuow, and love, and understand; then 
 that thought of all thoughts — ' Christ is risen 
 from the dead' — is the only one which mil save 
 us from dark sad thoughts, from fear and despair, 
 or from stupid carelessness, and the death of a 
 brute beast, such as too many die. ' Christ is 
 risen, and I shall rise. Christ has conquered 
 death for Himself, and He will conquer it for me. 
 Christ took His man's body and soul with Him 
 from the tomb to God's right hand ; and He will 
 raise my man's body and soul at the last day, 
 that I may be with Him for ever, and see Him 
 where He is.' In life and in death this is the only 
 thing which will save us from sin, from terror, 
 and from the dread of death; the same good 
 news which St Paul preached to the Corinthians ; 
 the same good news which made St Stephen, and
 
 THE GOSPEL. 297 
 
 the martyrs and confessors of old brave to endure 
 all misery for the sake of the good and blessed 
 news, that God had raised His Son Jesus from 
 the dead.
 
 XXIII. 
 
 aOD'S WAY TVITH MAN. 
 
 EZEKIEL XX. 44. 
 
 * And ye shall know that I am the Lord, ivhen I have 
 wrought with you for my names sake, not according to 
 your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt 
 doings, ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.' 
 
 In this chapter the prophet Ezekiel argues with 
 his sinful and rebellious countrymen, and puts 
 them in mind of all that God had done for them 
 and with them, from the time when He brought 
 them out of Egypt to that day. 
 
 And now comes the old question, What has 
 this to do with us ? Saint Paul tells us that all 
 things which happened to the old Jews happened 
 for our example. What example can we learn 
 from this chapter? 
 
 Tliis, I think, we may learn : Is not the way 
 in which God taught these Jews the same way 
 in which He teaches many a man — perhaps 
 every man ? Which of us, when we were young, 
 has not had his teaching from God? The old
 
 god's way with man. 299 
 
 Catecliisni which our mothers taught us, was 
 not that a word from God Himself to us? The 
 voice of conscience, which made us happy when 
 we had done right, and uneasy and ashamed 
 when we had done wrong ; was not that a word 
 from God to us ? Yes, my friends, those child's 
 feelings of ours about right and wrong, were 
 none other than the voice of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Word of God, the Light which 
 lightens every man who comes into the world. 
 I tell you, every right thought and wish, every 
 longing to be better than you were, which ever 
 came into any one of your hearts, came from 
 Him, the Lord Jesus. It was His word. His 
 voice. His Spirit, speaking to your spirit, just as 
 really as He spoke to His prophet Ezekiel, of 
 whom we have been reading. Think of that. 
 Recollect, never, never forget, that all your 
 good thoughts and feelings are not your own, 
 not your own at all, but the Lord's ; that without 
 His light your hearts are nothing but darkness, 
 blind ignorance, and blind selfishness, and blind 
 passions and lusts; that it is He, He Himself, 
 who has been fighting against the darkness in 
 you all your Hfe long. O think, then, what 
 your sin has been in putting aside those good 
 thoughts and longings ! You were turning yoiu* 
 back, you were shutting your doors to the Lord 
 God Himself, very God of very God begotten.
 
 300 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 by whom all things were made. The Creator 
 came to visit His creature, and His creature 
 shut Him out. The Almighty God pleaded 
 with mortal man, and mortal man bade God go, 
 and come back at a more convenient season ! 
 A voice in your heart seemed to say, ' O, if I 
 could but be a better man ! How I wish that 
 I could but give up these bad habits, and mend ! 
 1 hate and despise myself for being so bad.' And 
 then you fancied that that voice was your own 
 voice, that those good thoughts were your own 
 thoughts. If you had really known whose they 
 were ; if you had really known, as the Bible 
 tells you, that they were the Word of the Lord, 
 the only-begotten Son of the Father, speaking to 
 your heart, I hardly think that you would have 
 been so ready to say yourself, 'Well, then, I 
 will mend ; but not just now : some day or other; 
 somehow or other, I hope, I shall be a better 
 man. It will be time enough to make my peace 
 with God when I am growing old.' You would 
 not have dared to thrust away the good thoughts, 
 and keep them waiting, while you took your 
 pleasure in a few more years' sin; if you had 
 guessed ivhom you were thrusting away ; if you 
 had guessed whom you were keeping waiting. 
 
 And, my good friends, has not God been say- 
 ing to us many a time fi*om our youth up, as He 
 did to the Jews of old, 'Do not walk in the
 
 god's way with man. 301 
 
 statutes of jour fathers, iior defile yourselves with 
 their idols ?' Do you ask me how ? Why, thus. 
 Have you never said to yourself, 'How ill my 
 father prospered, because he would do wrong!' 
 Or, again, 'See how evil doing brings its own 
 pimishment. There is so and so growing rich, 
 bj his cheating and his covetousness, and yet, for 
 all his money, I would not change places with 
 him. God forbid that I should have on my 
 mind what he has on his mind ! ' Why should I 
 make a long stoiy of so simple a matter ? Which of 
 us has not felt at times that thought^ How much 
 misery has come in this very parish from the ill- 
 doing of the generation who are gone to their 
 account, and from the ill-training which tliey 
 gave their children ? 
 
 And what was that but the Word of the Lord 
 Himself speaking to our hearts, and sapng to us, 
 ' Do not defile yourself with their idols ; do not 
 hurt your souls by hunting after the things 
 which they loved better than they loved Me: 
 money, pleasure, drink, fighting, smuggling, 
 poaching, wantonness, and lust ; I am the Lord 
 your God?' 
 
 And yet, young people will not listen to that 
 warning voice of God. They see other people, 
 even their own fathers and mothers, punished for 
 their sins ; perhaps made poor by their sins, per- 
 haps made unhealthy by their sins, perliaps made
 
 302 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 miserable and ill-tempered by tlieir sins: and 
 yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open- 
 eyed into, the very same sins which made their 
 parents wretched. O how many a young person 
 sees their home made a complete hell on earth by 
 ungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness 
 which come from imgodliness ; and, then, as 
 soon as they have a home of their own, set to 
 work to make their own family as miserable as 
 their father's was before them ! 
 
 But people say often, ' How could we help it ? 
 We had na chance ; we were brought up in bad 
 ways; we had a bad example set us; how can 
 you expect us to be better than our fathers and 
 mothers, and our elder brothers and sisters 1 If 
 we had had a fair chance, we. might have been 
 dififerent : but we had none ; and we could not 
 help going the bad way, for we were set in it the 
 day we were born.' 
 
 Well, my dear friends, God shall judge you, 
 not I. If little is given to a man, little is re- 
 quired of him. But not nothing at all ; because 
 more than nothing was given him. A little is 
 given to every man ; and, therefore, a little is 
 required of every man. And so, he who knew 
 not his Master's will shall be beaten with few 
 stripes. But he will be beaten with some stripes, 
 because he ought to have known something, at 
 least, of his Master's will. If you were dumb
 
 god's way with man. 303 
 
 animals, which can only follow their own lusts 
 and passions, and must be what nature has made 
 them, then your excuse would be good enough ; 
 but your excuse is not good now, just because you 
 are men and women, and not dumb beasts, and, 
 therefore, can rise above your natures, and con- 
 quer your lusts and passions, as they cannot, and 
 can do what you do not Hke, because, though 
 you dislike it, you know that it is right. And, 
 therefore, God does not take that excuse which 
 sinners make, that they have had no teaching. 
 But what does He do to them ? 
 
 Suppose, now, that you had a dog which 
 would not be taught, or broken in, or cured of 
 biting, or made useful, or bearable in any way, 
 what would you do to that dog ? I suppose that 
 you would kill it ; you would say, ' It is an ill- 
 conditioned animal, and there is no making it 
 any better ; so the only thing is to put it out of 
 the way, and not let it eat food which might be 
 better spent.' Now, does God deal so with 
 sinners? Wlien yomig people rush headlong 
 into sin, and become a nuisance to themselves 
 and their neighbours, does God kill them at once, 
 that better men may step into their place? No. 
 And why. Just because they are not dumb 
 animals, which cannot be made better, but God's 
 children, who can be made better. If there were 
 really no hope of a sinner repenting and -amend-
 
 304 SEEMON XXIII. 
 
 ing, I think God would not leave him long alive 
 to cumber the ground. But there is hope for 
 every one ; because God the Father loves all ; 
 the loving heart of the Lord Jesus Christ yearns 
 after all ; the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from 
 the Father and the Son, strives with the hearts 
 of all; therefore God, in His patience and tender 
 mercy, tries to bring His foolish children to their 
 senses. And how? Often in the very same 
 way in which Ezekiel says He tried to bring the 
 Jews to their senses, by letting them go on in 
 the road of sin, till they see what an ugly pit 
 that same roads ends in. If your child would not 
 believe you when you warned and assured him 
 that fire would burn him, would it not be the 
 very best way of bringing him to his senses, to 
 tell him, ' Very well ; go your o■v^^l way ; put 
 your hand into the fire, and see what comes of 
 it ; you will not believe me ; you will believe 
 your own feelings, when your hand is burnt.' 
 So did the Lord to those rebellious Jews when 
 they would go after their fathers' sins. He gave 
 them statutes which were not good, and judg- 
 ments by which they could not live, to the end 
 that they might know that He was the Lord. 
 God did not make them commit any sins. God 
 forbid ! He only took away His Spirit, His 
 light and teaching, from them, and let them go 
 on in the light of their own foolish and bewil-
 
 god's WAT WITH MAN. 305 
 
 dered hearts, till their sin bred misery and shame 
 to them, and they were filled with the fruit of 
 their own devices. Then, after all their wealth was 
 gone, and their land w^as wasted by cruel enemies^ 
 and they themselves were carried away captive 
 into Babylon, they began to awake, and to say to 
 themselves, ' We were wrong after all, and the 
 Lord was right. He knew what was really good 
 for us better than we did. We thought that we 
 could do without Him, disobey Him. But He is 
 the Lord after all. He has been too strong for 
 us ; He has punished us. If we had listened to 
 His warnings years ago, we might have been 
 saved all this misery.' 
 
 Ah, how many a poor foolish creatm'e, in 
 miser}^ and shame, with a guilty conscience and 
 a sad heart, sits down, like the prodigal son, 
 among the swinish bad company into which his 
 sins have brought him, longing to fill his belly 
 with the husks which the swine eat ! but he can- 
 not. He tries to forget his sorrow by drinking, 
 by bad company, by gambliiig, by gossiping, like 
 the fools around him : but he cannot. He finds 
 no more pleasure in sin. He is sick and tired of 
 it. He has had enough of it and too much. He 
 is miserable, and he hardly knows why. But 
 miserable he is. There is a longing, and craving, 
 and hunger at his heart after something better ; 
 
 at least after something diiferent. Then he 
 
 u
 
 306 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 begins to remember his heavenly Father's house. 
 Old words which he learnt at his mother's knee, 
 good old words out of his Catechism and his Bible, 
 start up strangely in his mind. He had for- 
 gotten them, laughed at them, perhaps, in his 
 wild days. But now they come up, he does not 
 know where from, like beautiful ghosts gliding 
 in. And he is ashamed of them ; they reproach 
 him, the dear old lessons ; and yet they seem 
 pleasant to him, though they make him blush. 
 And at last he says to himself, ' Would God that 
 I were a little child ao-ain ; once more an innocent 
 little child at my mother's knee ! I thought my- 
 self clever and cunning. I thought I could go 
 my own way and enjoy myself. But I cannot. 
 Perhaps I have been a fool ; and the old Sunday 
 books were right after all. At least I am miser- 
 able. I thought I was my own master. But 
 perhaps He about whom I used to read in the 
 Sunday books is my Master after all. At least I 
 am not my own master ; I am a slave. Perhaps 
 I have been fighting against Him, against the 
 Lord God, all this time, and now He has shown 
 me that He is the stronger of the two.' . . . 
 And so the poor man learns in trouble and shame 
 to know, like the Jews of old, who is the Lord. 
 
 And when the Lord has drawn a man thus far, 
 does He stop ? Not so. He does not leave His 
 Avork half done. If the work is half done, it is
 
 GOD S WAY WITH MAN 307 
 
 tliat we stop, not that He stops. Whosoever 
 comes to Him, howsoever confusedly, or clumsily, 
 or even lazily they may come. He will in no wise 
 cast out. He may afflict them still more to cure 
 that confusion and laziness ; hut He is a physician 
 . who never sends a willing patient away, or keeps 
 him waiting for a single hour. 
 
 How then does the Lord deal with such a man? 
 Does He drive him further ? Not if he will go 
 without being driven. You would call it cruel 
 to drive a beast on with blows, when it was 
 willing to be led peaceably. And be sure God 
 is not more cruel than man. As soon as we are 
 wdlUng to be led, He will take His rod off from 
 us, and lead us tenderly enough. For I have 
 known God do this t-o a man, and a sinful man 
 as ever trod this earth. I have known such a 
 man brought into utter misery and shame of heart, 
 and heavy affliction in outward matters, till liis 
 spirit was utterly broken, and he was ready to 
 say, ' I am a beast and a fool. I am not worth 
 the bread I eat. Let me lie down and die.' 
 And then, when the Lord had driven that man 
 so far, I have seen, I who speak to you now, how 
 the Lord turned and looked on that man, as He 
 turned and looked on Peter, and brought his poor 
 soul to life again, as He brought Peter's, by a 
 loving smile, and not an angry frown. I have 
 seen the Lord heap that man with all manner of
 
 308 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 unexpected blessings, and pay Mm back seven- 
 fold for all his affliction, and raise him up, body 
 and soul, and satisfy him with good things, so 
 that his youth was renewed like the eagle's. And 
 so the man's conversion to God, though it was 
 begun by God's chastisements and afflictions, 
 was brought to perfection by God's mercy 
 and bounty ; and it happened to that man, as 
 Ezekiel prophesied that it would happen to the 
 Jews, that not fear and dread, but honour, grati- 
 tude, and that noble shame of which no man 
 need be ashamed, brought him home to God at 
 last. ' And you shall remember your ways, and 
 all your doings wherein ye have been defiled : 
 and you shall loathe yourselves in your o^\'n sight 
 for all the evils which you have committed. And 
 you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have 
 wrought with you for my name's sake, not accord- 
 ing to your wicked ways, nor according to your 
 corrupt doings, O house of Israel, saith the Lord 
 God.' 
 
 Yoji see that God's mercy to them would not 
 make them conceited or careless. It would 
 increase their shame and confusion when they 
 found out what sort of a Lord He was against 
 whom they had been rebellious ; long-suflFering 
 and of tender mercy, returning good for evil 
 to His disobedient childi-en. That feeling would 
 awake in them more shame and more confusion
 
 god's way with man. 309 
 
 tlian ever: but it would be a noble shame, a 
 happy confusion, and tears of joy and gi'atitude 
 not of bitterness. Such a shame, such a con- 
 fusion, such tears, as the blessed Magdalene's 
 when she knelt at the Lord's feet, and found that, 
 instead of hating her and thrusting her away for 
 all her sins. He told her to go in peace, pardoned 
 and happy. Then she knew the Lord ; she 
 found out His character — His name ; for she found 
 out that His name was love. O my friends, this 
 is the great secret ; the onl}^ knowledge worth 
 li\-ing for, because it is the only knowledge which 
 will enable you to live worthily — to know the 
 Lord. That knowledge will enable you to live 
 a life which will last, and grow, and prosper for 
 ever, beyond the grave, and death, and judg- 
 ment, and eternities of eternities. As the Lord 
 Himself said, when He was upon earth, ' This is 
 eternal life, to know thee, the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' Therefore 
 there is no use my warning you against sin, and 
 telling you, do not do this, and do not do that, 
 unless I tell you at the same time who is the 
 Lord. For tilt you know that The Good God is 
 the Lord, you will have no real, sound, heart-felt 
 reason for giving up your sins ; and what is more, 
 you will not be able to give them up. You may 
 alter your sort of sins from fear of this and that ; 
 but the root of sin will be there still ; and if it
 
 310 SEEMON XXIII. 
 
 cannot bear one sort of fruit, it will bear another. 
 If you dai'e not drink or riot, you may become 
 covetous and griping ; if you dare not give way 
 to young men's sins, you will take to old men's 
 sins instead ; if you dare not commit open sins, 
 you will commit secret ones in your thoughts. 
 Sin is much too stout a plant to be kept from 
 bearing some sort of fruit. As long as it is not 
 rooted up, the root will breed death in you of 
 some sort or other; and the only feeling which can 
 root up sin is to know that Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of God, is your Lord, and that your Lord con- 
 descended to die upon the cross for you ; that 
 you must be the Lord's, and are not your own, but 
 bought with the price of His most precious blood, 
 that you may glorify God with your body and 
 your soul, which are His. 
 
 Just so, the blessed Saint Augustine found 
 that he could never conquer his own sins by 
 arguing with himself, or by any other means, till 
 he got to know God, and to see that God was 
 the Lord. And when his spirit was utterly 
 broken ; when he saw himself, in spite of all his 
 wonderful cleverness and learning, to have been 
 a fool and blind all along, though people round 
 him were flattering him, and running after him 
 to hear his learning ; then the old words which he 
 learnt at his mother's knee came up in his mind, 
 and he knew that God was the Lord after all,
 
 god's way with man. 311 
 
 and that God had been ^yatehing him, guiding 
 him, letting him go wrong only to show him the 
 foUj of going wrong, caring for him e\-en when 
 He left him to himself and his sins, and the sad 
 ways of his sins ; bearing with him, pleading with 
 his conscience, alluring him back to the only 
 trae happiness, as a loving father with a rebel- 
 lious and self-willed child. And then, when 
 Saint Augustine had found out at last that God 
 was his Lord, who had been taking the charge 
 of him all through his heathen youth, he became 
 a changed man. He was able to conquer his 
 sins ; for God conquered them for him. He was 
 able to give up the profligate life which he had 
 been leading : not from fear of punishment, but 
 from the Spirit of God — the spirit of gratitude, 
 honour, trust, and love toward God, which made 
 him abide in God, and God abide in him. To 
 that blessed state may God of His great mercy 
 bring us all. To it He will bring us all unless 
 we rebel and set up our foolish and selfish will 
 against His loving and wise will. And if He does 
 bring us to it, it is Httle matter whether He brings 
 us to it through joy or through sorrow, through 
 honour or through shame, through the garden of 
 Eden, or through the valley of the shadow of 
 death. For, my dear friends, wdiat matter how 
 bitter the medicine is, if it does but save our lives?
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 
 
 John ii. 1, 2. 
 
 ' Tliere was a marriage in Cana of Galilee ; and the 
 mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was 
 called, and His disciples, to the marriage.* 
 
 It is, I think, in the first place, an important, as 
 well as a pleasant thing, to know that the Lord's 
 glory, as St John says, was first shown forth at a 
 wedding, at a feast. Not at a time of sorrow, but 
 of joy. Not about some strange affliction or 
 disease, such as is the lot of very few, but about 
 a mamage, that which happens in the ordinary 
 lot of all mankind. Not in any fearful judgment 
 or destruction of sinners, but in blessing wedlock, 
 by which, whether among saints or sinners, man- 
 kind is increased. Not by helping some great 
 philosopher to think more deeply, or some great 
 saint to perform more wonderful acts of holiness, 
 but in giving the simple pleasure of wine to 
 simple common-place people, of whom we neither 
 read that they were rich or righteous. We do
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 313 
 
 not even read whether the master of the feast 
 ever found out that Jesus had worked a miracle, 
 or whether any of the company ever believed in 
 Him, on the strength of that miracle, except 
 His mother and the disciples, and the servants, 
 :^ who were probably the poor slaves of people in a 
 low or middling class of life. But that is the 
 way of the Lord. He is no respecter of persons. 
 Rich and poor are alike in His sight ; and the 
 poor need Him most, and therefore He began His 
 work with the poor in Cana, as He did in St 
 James' time, when the poor of this world were 
 rich in faith, and the rich of this world were 
 oppressors and taskmasters. So He does in every 
 age. Though no one else cares for the poor. He 
 cares for them. With their hearts He begins His 
 work, even as He did in England sixty years ago 
 by the preaching of Whitfield and Wesley. Do 
 you wish to know if anything is the Lord's work? 
 See if it is a work among the poor. Do you wish 
 to know whether any preaching is the true gospel 
 of the Lord ? See whether it is a gospel, a good 
 news to the poor. I know no other test 
 than that. By doing that, by preaching the 
 gospel to the poor, by working miracles for the 
 poor, He has showed forth His glory, and proved 
 Himself the true, and just, and loving Lord of 
 all. 
 
 But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a task-
 
 314 SERMON XXIV. 
 
 master. He does not demand from us: He ^ives 
 to us. He had been giving from the foundation 
 of the world. Corn and wine, rain and sunshine, 
 and fruitful seasons had been His sending. And 
 now He was come to show it. He was come to 
 show men who it was who had been filling their 
 heart with joy and gladness ; who had been 
 bnnging out of the earth and air, by His unseen 
 chemistry, the wine which maketli glad the heart 
 of man. In every grape that hangs upon the 
 vine, water is changed into wine, as the sap 
 ripens into rich juice. He had been doing that 
 all along in every vineyard and orchard ; and 
 that was His glory. Now He was come to prove 
 that ; to draw back the veil of custom and carnal 
 sense, and manifest Himself. Men had seen the 
 grapes ripen on the tree ; and they were tempted 
 to say, as every one of us is tempted now, ' It is 
 the sun and the air, the nature of the vine, and 
 the nature of the climate, which makes the wine.' 
 Jesus comes and answers, 'Not so. I make the 
 wine ; I have been making it all along. The 
 vines, the sun, the weather are only my tools 
 wherewith I worked, turning rain and sap into 
 wine ; and I am greater than they ; I made them; 
 I do not depend on them ; I can make wine from 
 water without vines or sunshine. Behold, and 
 drink, and see my glory ivithout the vineyard, 
 since you had forgotten how to see it in the
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 315 
 
 vinej'ard ! For I am now, even as I was in 
 Paradise, The Word of the Lord God ; and now, 
 even as in Paradise, I walk among the trees of the 
 garden, and they know me and obey me, though 
 the world knows me not. I have been all 
 along in the world, and the world knows me not. 
 Know me now, lest you lose the knowledge of me 
 for ever ! ' 
 
 Those of the Jews who received that message, 
 as the disciples did, found out their ancient Lord, ' 
 and clrmg to Him, and know now, in the world 
 of spirits, that His message was indeed a true 
 one. Those who did not, lost sight of Him ; to 
 this day their eyes are blinded ; to this day they 
 have utterly forgotten that they have a Lord 
 and Ruler, who is the Word and Son of God. 
 Their faith is no more like the faith of David 
 than their understanding of the scriptures is like 
 his. The Bible is a dead letter to them. The 
 kingdom and government of God is forgotten by 
 them. Of all God-worshipping people in the 
 world, the Jews are the least godly, the most 
 given up to the worship of this world, and the 
 things which they can see, and taste, and handle, 
 and, therefore, to covetousness, cheating, lying, 
 tyranny, and all the sins which spring from for- 
 getting that this world belongs to the Lord, and 
 that He rules and guides it, that its blessings are 
 His gifts, and we His stewards, to use them for
 
 316 SEKMON XXIV. 
 
 the good of all. May God help, and forgive, 
 and convert them ! Doubt not that He will do 
 so in His good time. But let us beware, my 
 friends, lest we fall into the same sin. Do not 
 fancy that we are not in just the same danger. 
 It would be a cowardly thing of a preacher to 
 call Jews, or heathens, or any other absent persons 
 hard names, unless their mistakes and their sins 
 were such as his own people wanted warnings 
 against, ay, perhaps, had the very of root them 
 in their heart already. And we have the root of 
 the Jews' sin in our own hearts. Why is this 
 one miracle read in our churches to this day, if 
 we do not stand just as much in need of the 
 lesson as those for whom it was first worked? 
 We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting 
 who it is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful 
 seasons, love and marriage, and all the blessings of 
 this life. We, as well as the Jews are continually 
 fancying that these outward earthly things, as we - 
 call them in our shallow carnal conceits, have 
 nothing to do with Jesus or His kingdom, but that 
 we may compete, and scrape, even cheat, and lie, 
 to get them, and when we have them, misuse them 
 selfishly, as if they belonged to no one but om'selves, 
 as if we had no duty to perform about them, as 
 if we owed God no service for them. 
 
 And again, we are, just as much as the Jews 
 were, in danger of spiritual pride ; in danger of
 
 THE M ARE! AGE AT CAN A. 317 
 
 fancying that because we are religious, and have, 
 or fancy we have, deep experiences and beautiful 
 thoughts about GTod and Christ and our own 
 souls, therefore we can afford to despise those 
 who do not know as much as ourselves ; to des- 
 pise the common pleasures and petty sorrows of 
 poor creatures, whose souls and bodies are 
 grovelling in the dust, busied with the cares of 
 this world, at their wit's end to get their daily 
 bread ; to despise the merriment of young people, 
 the play of children, and all those every-day 
 happinesses which, though we may turn from 
 them with a sneer, are precious in the sight 
 of Him who made heaven and earth. All such 
 proud thoughts, all such contempt of those who 
 do not seem as spiritual as we fancy ourselves, is 
 evil. It is from the devil, and not from God. 
 It is the same vile spirit which made the Pharisees 
 of old say, * This people — these poor worldly 
 drudging -wretches — who know not the law, are 
 accursed.' And mind, this is not a sin of rich, 
 and learned, and high-born men only. They 
 may be more tempted to it than others ; but poor 
 men, when they become, by the grace of God, 
 wiser, more spiritual, more holy than others, are 
 tempted, just as much as the rich, to despise 
 their poor neighbours to whom God has not given 
 the same light as themselves ; and surely in 
 them it shows ugliest of all. A learned and
 
 318 SERMOI^ XXIV. 
 
 high-born man may be excused for looking down 
 upon the sinful poor, because he does not under- 
 stand their temptations, because he never has been 
 ignorant and struggling as they are. But a poor 
 man who despises the poor — he has no excuse. 
 He ouffht above all men to feel for them, for he 
 has been tempted even as they are. He knows 
 their sorrows ; he has been through their dark 
 valley of bad food, bad lodging, want of work, 
 want of teaching, low cares which drag the soul 
 to earth. Surely a poor man who has tasted God's 
 love and Christ's light, ought above all others, 
 instead of turning his back on his class, to pity 
 them, to make common cause with them, to teach 
 them, guide them, comfort them, in a way no 
 rich man can. Yes ; after all, it is the poor must 
 help the poor ; the poor must comfort the poor ; 
 the poor must teach and convert the poor. 
 
 See, in the epistle for this day, St Paul makes 
 no distinction between rich and poor. This 
 epistle is joined with the gospel for the day, to 
 show us what ought to be the conduct of chris- 
 tians, who believe in the miracle of Cana ; what 
 men should do who believe that they have a Lord 
 in heaven, by whose command suns shine, fruits 
 ripen, men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of 
 marriage, of the comforts which the heathen and 
 the savage, as well as the christian man, partake ; 
 what men should do who believe that they have
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 319 
 
 a Lord in heaven who entered into the common 
 joys and sorrows of lowly men, who was once 
 Himself a poor villager, who ate with publicans 
 and sinners, who condescended to join in a wed- 
 ding feast, and increase the mere animal enjoy- 
 ment of the guests. And what is St Paul's 
 command to poor as well as rich ? Read the 
 epistle for this day and see. 
 
 You see at once that this epistle is written in the 
 same spirit as our Lord's words ; by God's Spirit, 
 in short ; the Spirit which brought the Lord 
 Jesus so condescendingly to the Avedding feast ; 
 the Spirit wliich made Him care so heartily for 
 the common pleasures of those around Him. 
 My friends, these are not commands to one class, 
 but to all. Poor as well as rich may show mercy 
 with cheerfulness, and love mthout dissimulation. 
 Poor as well as rich may minister to others with 
 earnestness, and condescend to those of low 
 estate. Not a word in this whole epistle which 
 does not apply equally to every rank, and sex, 
 and age. 
 
 Neither are these commands to each of us by 
 ourselves, but to all of us together, as members 
 of a family. If you will look through them, they 
 are not things to be done to ourselves, but to our 
 neighbours ; not experiences to be felt about our 
 own souls : but rules of conduct to our fellow-men. 
 They are all different branches and flowers from
 
 320 SEKMON XXIV. 
 
 that one root, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself.' 
 
 Do we live thus, rich or poor 1 Can we look 
 each other in the face this afternoon and say, each 
 man to his neighbour, ' I have behaved like a 
 brother to you. I have rejoiced at your good 
 fortune, and grieved at yoiu" sorrow. I have 
 preferred you to myself. I have loved you with- 
 out dissimulation. I have been earnest in my 
 place and duty in the pai'ish for the sake of the 
 common good of all. I have condescended to 
 those of lower rank than myself. I have ' — Ah, 
 my dear friends, I had better not go on with the 
 list. God forgive us all ! The less we try to 
 justify ourselves on this score the better. Some 
 of us do indeed try to behave like brothers and 
 sisters to their neighboui's ; but how few of us ; 
 and those few how little ! And yet we are 
 brothers. We are members of one family, sons 
 of one Father, joint-heirs with one Lord, the poor 
 Man who sat eatins; and drinkino; at the wedding 
 feast in Cana of Galilee, and mixed freely in the 
 joys and the sorrows of the poorest and meanest. 
 Joint heirs with Christ; yet how unlike Him! 
 My friends, we need to repent and amend our 
 ways ; we need to confess, every one of us, rich 
 and poor, the pride, the selfishness, the careless- 
 ness about each other, which keeps us so much 
 apart, knowing so little of each other, feeling so
 
 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 321 
 
 little for each other. O confess this sin to God, 
 every one of you. Those who have behaved 
 most like brothers, will be most ready to confess 
 how little they have behaved like brothers. 
 Confess, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven 
 ^ and before thee, and am no more worthy to be 
 called thy son, for I have not loved, cared for, 
 helped, my brothers and sisters round, who are 
 just as much thy children as I am.' Pray for the 
 spirit of Jesus, the spirit of condescension, love, 
 fellow-feeling; that spirit which rejoices simply 
 and heartil}' wdth those who are happy, and feels 
 for another's sorrows as if they were its own. 
 Pray for it; for till it comes, there will be no 
 peace on earth. Pray for it ; for when it comes 
 and takes possession of your hearts, and you all 
 really love and live like brothers, children of one 
 Father, the kingdom of God will be come in- 
 deed, and His will be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven .
 
 XXV. 
 
 PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 
 
 Luke xiv. 7-11. 
 
 ' And He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, 
 when He marked how they chose out the chief rooms; 
 saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to 
 a ivedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a 
 more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and 
 he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give 
 this man place ; and thou begin with shame to take the 
 lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go <fnd sit 
 doivn in the lowest room ; that ivhen he that bade thee 
 Cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher : 
 then shalt thou have ivorship in the presence of them 
 that sit at meat loith thee. For whosoever exalteth 
 himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself 
 shall be exalted.^ 
 
 We heard in the gospel for to-day how the Lord 
 Jesus put forth a parable to those who were 
 invited to a dinner with Him at the Pharisee's 
 house. A parable means an example of any 
 rules or laws ; a story about some rule, by hearing
 
 PARABLE OF THE LO^VEST PLACE. 323 
 
 which, people may see how the rule works in 
 practice, and understand it. Now, our Lord's 
 parables were about the kingdom of God. They 
 were examples of the rules and laws by which 
 the kingdom of God is governed and carried on. 
 Therefore He begins many of His parables by 
 saying, The kingdom of God is like something — 
 something wliich people see daily, and understand 
 more or less. ' The kinwlom of God is like a 
 
 CD 
 
 field ;' ' The kingdom of God is like a net ;' ' The 
 kingdom of God is hke a grain of mustard seed ;' 
 and so forth. And even where He did not begin 
 one of His parables by speaking of the kingdom 
 of God, we may be still certain that it has to do 
 with the kingdom of God. For the one great 
 reason why the Lord was made flesh and dwelt 
 among us, was to preach the kingdom of God, 
 His Father and our Father, and to prove to 
 men that God was their King, even at the price 
 of His most precious blood. And, therefore, 
 everything which He ever did, and everything 
 which He ever spoke, had to do with this one 
 great work of His. This parable, therefore, which 
 you heard read in the gospel for to-day, has to 
 do with the kingdom of God, and is an example 
 of the laws of it. 
 
 Now, what is the kingdom of God? It is 
 worth our while to consider. For at baptism we 
 were declared members of the kingdom of God ;
 
 324 SERMON XXV. 
 
 we were to renounce the world, and to lire 
 according to tlie kingdom of God. The kingdom 
 of God is simply the way in which God governs 
 men ; and the world is the way in which men 
 try to manage without God's help or leave. 
 That is the difference between them ; and a most 
 awful difference it is. Men fancy that they can 
 get on well enough without God; that the ways 
 of the world are very reasonable, and useful, and 
 profitable, and quite good enough to live by, if 
 not to die by. But all the while God is King, let. 
 them fancy what they like ; and this earth, and 
 every thing on it, from the king on his throne 
 to the gnat in the sunbeam, is under His govern- 
 ment, and must obey His laws, or die. We are 
 in God's kingdom, my good friends, every one of 
 us, whether we like it or not, and we shall be there 
 for ever and ever. And our business is, therefore, 
 simply to find ovit what are the laws of that king- 
 dom, and obey those laws as speedily as possible, 
 and live for ever thei'eby, lest, if we break them, 
 and get in their way, they should grind us to 
 powder. 
 
 Now, here is one of the laws of God's kingdom : 
 ' Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased ; 
 and whosoever abaseth himself shall be exalted.' 
 That is, whosoever, in any way whatsoever, sets 
 himself up, will be pulled down again ; while he 
 who is contented to keep low, and think little of
 
 PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 325 
 
 himself, will be raised up and set on high. Now 
 the world's rule is the exact opposite of this. 
 The world says, Every man for himself. The 
 way of the world is, to struggle and strive 
 for the highest place ; to be a pushing man, 
 and a rising man, and a man who will stand 
 stiffly by his rights, and give his enemy as good 
 as he brings, and beat his neighbour out of the 
 market, and show off himself to the best advan- 
 tage, and try to make the most of whatever 
 wit or money he has, to look well in the world, 
 that people may look up to him and flatter him 
 and obey him ; and so the world has no objection 
 to people's pretending to be better than they are. 
 Every man must do the best he can for himself, 
 the world says, and never mind his neighbours : 
 they must take care of themselves ; and if they 
 are foolish enough to be taken in, so much the 
 worse for them. So the world thinks that there is 
 no harm in a man, when he has anything to sell, 
 making it out better than it really is, and hid- 
 ing the fault in it as far as he can. When a 
 tradesman or manufacturer sends about 'puffs' 
 of his goods, and pretends that they are better 
 and cheaper tlian other people's, just to get cus- 
 tom by it, the world does not call that what 
 it is — boasting and lying. It says, ' Of course 
 a man must do the best he can for himself. 
 If a man does not praise himself, nobody else will
 
 326 SERMON XXV. 
 
 praise him ; he cannot expect his neighbours to 
 take him for better than his own words.' So again, 
 if a man wants a place or situation, the world 
 thinks it no harm if he gives the most showy 
 character of himself, and gets his friends to say 
 all the good of him they can, and a great deal 
 more, and to say none of the harm — in short, to 
 make himself out a much better, or shrewder, 
 or worthier man than he really is. The world 
 does not call that either what it is — boasting, 
 and lying, and thrusting one's self into callings to 
 which God has not called us. The world says, 
 ' Of course a man must turn his best side out- 
 wards. You cannot expect a man to tell tales on 
 himself.' 
 
 And, my friends, the world would be quite 
 right, and reasonable, and prudent, in telling 
 us to push, and boast, and lie, and puff our- 
 selves and our goods, if it were not for one 
 thing which the foolish bhnd world is always 
 forgetting, and that is, that there is a God who 
 judges the earth. If God were not oiu* King ; if 
 He took no care of us men and our doings ; if 
 mankind had it all their own way on earth, and 
 M'ere forced to shift for themselves without any 
 laws of God to guide them, then the best thing 
 every man could do would be to fight for himself; 
 to get all he could for himself, and leave as little 
 as he could for his neighbours ; to make himself
 
 PAEABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 327 
 
 out as great, and wise, and strong, as he could, 
 and try to make his neighbours buy him at his 
 own price. That would be the best plan for 
 eveiy man, if God was not King ; and therefore 
 the world says that that is the best plan for every 
 man, because the world does not beheve that 
 God is Bang, and hates the notion that God is 
 King, and laughs at and persecutes, as Jesus 
 Christ said it would, those who preach the 
 kingdom of God, and tell men, as I tell you in 
 God's name, ' You were not made to be selfish; 
 you were not meant to rise in the world by 
 boasting and pushing down and deceiving your 
 neighbours. For you are subjects of God's 
 kingdom ; and to do so is to break His laws, 
 and to put youi'selves under His curse; and how- 
 ever worldly-wise all this selfishness and boast- 
 ing may seem, it is sin, whose wages are death 
 and ruin.' 
 
 For, my friends, let the world try to forget God 
 as it will, He does not forget the world. Let 
 men try to make rules and laws for themselves, 
 rules about religion, rules about government, 
 rules about trade, rules about morals and what 
 they fancy is just and fair; let them make as 
 many rules as they like, they are only wasting 
 their time ; for God has made His rules already, 
 and revealed them to us in the Bible, and told us 
 that the earth and mankind are governed in His
 
 328 SERMON XXV. 
 
 way, and not in ours, and that He will not alter 
 His everlasting rules to suit our new ones. As 
 David says, '■ Let the people be never so unquiet, 
 still the Lord is King.' 
 
 Ah, my friends, it is very easy to say all this, 
 but it is not so easy to believe it. Every one, 
 every respectable pex'son at least, is ready enough 
 to talk about God, and God's will, and so forth. 
 But when it comes to practice ; when it comes to 
 doing God's Mill, and not our own ; when it 
 comes to obeying His direct and plain commands, 
 and not the fashions and maxims which men 
 have invented for themselves ; ^vhen it comes to 
 giving vip what we long for, because He has 
 said that if we try after it in oiu" own way, and 
 not in His, we shall never have it at all, then 
 comes the trial ; then comes the time to see 
 whether we believe that God is the King of 
 the earth or not ; tlien comes the time to see 
 whether we have renounced the world, and deter- 
 mined to live as God's sons in God's kingdom, 
 or whether our religion is some form of words, 
 or way of thinking aiid feeling which we hope 
 may save our souls from hell, but which has nothing 
 to do with our daily life and conduct, and leaves 
 us just as worldly as any heathen, in all our 
 dealings with our fellow -men, from Monday 
 morning till Saturday night. Then comes the 
 time to try our faith in God.
 
 PAEABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 329 
 
 And then, alas ! it comes out, in these evil, 
 and godless, and hypocritical times in which 
 we live, that many a man who fancies him- 
 self religious, and respectable, and blameless, 
 and what not, no more really believes that he 
 is living in God's kingdom than the heathen 
 do. And if you ask him, you will find out 
 most probably that he fancies that God's king- 
 dom is not on earth now, but that it will be 
 on earth some day. A cunning delusion of the 
 devil, that, my friends ! To make us go his way, 
 wdiile we fancy that we are going our own way. 
 To make us say to ourselves — ' Ah ! it is very 
 unfortunate that God is not King of the earth 
 now. Of course He will be after the resurrection, 
 in the new heaven and the new earth, where there 
 will be no sin. But He is not King now ; this 
 world is given over to sin and the devil, so fallen 
 and ruined and coiTupt that — that — that, in short, 
 we cannot be expected to behave like God's 
 childi"en in it, but must just follow the ways of the 
 world, and live by ambition, and selfishness, and 
 cunning, and boasting, and competing in this life ; 
 a life of love, and justice, and humbleness, and 
 fellow-help, and mercy, and self-sacrifice is impos- 
 sible in such a world as this ; we cannot live like 
 angels, till we get to heaven!' — So say nine 
 people out of ten ; the devil deceiving them, and 
 their own hearts, alas ! being but too glad to
 
 330 SERMON XXV. 
 
 catch at the excuse for sin which the devil gives 
 them, when he tells them that this present earth 
 is not God's kingdom ; and so they go and act 
 accordingly, selfish, grudging, pushing, boastful, 
 every man's hand against his neighbour and for 
 himself, till they succeed too often in making 
 this earth as fearfully like the devil's kingdom, 
 as it is possible for God's kingdom to be made. 
 
 But what, some may ask, has all this to do 
 with the text that he who sets himself up shall be 
 brought low, he who keeps himself low shall be 
 set up ? Wliat has it to do with the text ? It 
 has everything to do vsdth the text. If people 
 reall}^ believed that they were God's subjects and 
 children in God's kingdom, they would not need 
 to ask that question long. 
 
 If God is really the King of the earth, there 
 can be no use in any one setting up himself. If 
 God is really the King of the earth, those who 
 set up themselves must be certain to be brought 
 down from their high thoughts and high assump- 
 tions sooner or later. For if God is really the 
 King of the earth, He must be the one to set 
 people up, and not they themselves. Look again 
 at the parable. The man who asks the guests to 
 dine with him has surely a right to place each 
 of them where he likes. The house is his, the 
 dinner is his. He has a right to invite whom he 
 likes; and he has a right to settle where they
 
 PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 331 
 
 shall sit. If they choose their owii places ; if any 
 guest takes upon himself to seat himself at the 
 head of the table, because he thinks it his right, 
 he offends against all rules of right feeling and 
 propriety toward the man who has in^^ted him. 
 All he has a right to expect is, that his host will 
 not put him in the wrong place, that he will 
 settle aU places at his table according to people's 
 real rank and deserts, and as our Testaments say, 
 piit 'the worthiest man in the highest room.' 
 And if people really believed in God, which very 
 few do, they would surely expect no less of God. 
 What gentleman, farmer, or labourer, is there, 
 with common sense and good feeling, who 
 would not show most respect to the most respect- 
 able persons who came into his house, and send 
 his best and trustiest workmen about his most 
 important errands ? True, he might make mis- 
 takes, and worse. Being a weak man, he might 
 be tempted to put the rich sinner in a higher 
 place than the poor saint : or he might, from 
 private fancy, be blinded about his workmen's 
 characters, and so send a worse man, because he 
 was his favourite, to do what another man whom 
 he did not fancy as well might do a great deal 
 better. But you cannot suspect God of that. 
 He is no respecter of persons — whether a man be 
 rich or poor, no matter to God : all which He in- 
 quires into is — is he righteous or unrighteous, wise
 
 332 SEEMON XXV. 
 
 or foolish, able to do his work or unable ? And 
 God can make no mistakes about people's char- 
 acters. As St Paul says of the Lord Jesus, 
 ' The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged 
 sword, piercing through to the dividing of the 
 very joints and marrow, so that all things are 
 naked and open in the sight of Him with whom 
 we have to do.' There is no blinding God, 
 no hiding from God, no cheating God, just 
 as there is no flattering God. He knows what 
 each and ever}^ one of us is fit for. He knows 
 what each and every one of us is worth ; 
 and what is more. He knows what we ought to 
 know, that each and every one of us is worth 
 nothing without Him. Therefore there is no 
 use pretending to be better than we are. God 
 knows just how good we are, and will reward us, 
 even in this life, only according as we deserve, 
 in spite of all our boasting. There is no use 
 pretending to be wiser than we are. For all the 
 wisdom we have comes from God ; and if we 
 pretend to have more than we have, and by that 
 greatest act of folly, show that we have no wisdom 
 at all, He will take from us even what we have, 
 and make all our cunning plans come to nothing, 
 and prove us fools, just when we fancy ourselves 
 most clever. There is no use being ambitious 
 and pushing, and trying to scramble up on our 
 neighbours' shoulders. For we were not sent
 
 PAKABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 333 
 
 into this world to do what we like, but what God 
 likes ; not to work for ourselves, but to work for 
 God; and God knows exactly how much good 
 each of us can do, and what is the best place for 
 us to do it in, and how to teach and enable us to 
 do it ; and if w^e choose to be taught, He wnll 
 teach us ; and if we choose to go His way, and 
 do His work. He will help us to it. But if we 
 will not have His way. He will not let us have 
 our own way— not at first, at least. He will 
 bring our plans to nothing, and let us make fools 
 of ourselves, and bring in sudden accidents of 
 which we never dreamed, just to show us that 
 we are not our own masters, and cannot cut out 
 our own roads through life. And if w-e take His 
 lesson, and go to Him to teach and strengthen us, 
 — well : and if not — then perhaps - which is the 
 most awful misery which can happen to any man 
 on earth — Gtod may give up teaching us during 
 this hfe, and let us have our own way, and be 
 filled with the fruit of our own devices ; from 
 which worst of punishments may He in His 
 mercy save you, and me, and all belonging to us, 
 in this life and in the life to come. 
 
 But some of you may say, ' We understand the 
 first half of the text very well, and like it very 
 well ; we all think it just that those who set 
 themselves up should have a fall, and we are 
 very glad to see them have a fall ; but we
 
 a 34 SERMON XXV. 
 
 do not see why he who abases himself should 
 liave any right to be exalted.' Ah, my friends, it 
 is much easier, and needs much less knowledge 
 of God, and much less of the likeness of Christ, to 
 see what is wrong, than to see what is right. Every 
 man knows when a bone is broken, but it is not 
 every one who can set it again. Nevertheless, 
 there is a sort of left-handed reason in that argu- 
 ment. For a man has no more right to make 
 himself out worse than he is, than he has to make 
 himself out better than he is. A man should 
 confess to being just what he is, neither more 
 nor less. Nevertheless, he who humbles himself 
 shall be exalted. 
 
 Of course I do not mean those who, like some 
 I know, make a fawning humble way of talking 
 a cloak for their own self-conceit ; who call 
 themselves miserable sinners, all the time that 
 they are fancying that they are almost the only 
 people in the world who are sure of being 
 saved, whatever they do ; who, as some do, 
 actually pride themselves on their own convic- 
 tions of sin, and glory in their own shame, and 
 despise those who will not slander themselves as 
 they do. 
 
 They are equally hateful to God and to God's 
 enemies. If you and I are disgusted at such 
 hypocritical self-conceit, be sure the Lord Jesus 
 is far more pained at it than we are ; for as a
 
 PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 335 
 
 wise man says, 'The devil's darling sin is the 
 pride that apes humility.' 
 
 But let a man really be con^^nced of sin ; let 
 a man really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ's 
 atonement ; let a man really believe in the Holy 
 Spirit ; and tbat man will have little need to ask 
 why he should humble himself more than he 
 deserves, and little wish to boast of himself, and 
 push himself forward, and get praise, or riches, or 
 power in the world. For that man would say to 
 himself: 'I, sinner as I am; I, who know that I 
 do so many wrong things daily ; things so wrong 
 that it required the blood of the Son of God to 
 wash out the guilt of them — w^ho am I to set 
 myself up ? I cannot be faithful in a little — why 
 should I try to be ruler over much ? I cannot 
 use properly the blessings and the power which 
 God does give me — must I not take for granted 
 that, if I had more riches, more power, I should 
 use them still worse ? I know well enough of a 
 thousand sins, and weaknesses and ignorances in 
 myself which my neighbours never see. I believe, 
 therefore, my neighbours have much too good an 
 opinion of me, and not too bad a one ; and there- 
 fore I am not going to boast, or puff myself to 
 them. I can only thank God they do not see 
 the inside of this foolish heart of mine as Avell as 
 He does ! In short, I am not going to set myself 
 up, and try to get a higher place among men
 
 336 SERMON XXV. 
 
 than I have already, because I am certain that I 
 have already a ten times better one than I 
 deserve.' 
 
 Or again, if a man really believed in the Holy 
 Ghost, which is much the same as really believing 
 in the kingdom of God ; if he really believed 
 that God was the King and Master of his heart 
 and soul; if he really believed that everything 
 good, and right, and wise in him came from God's 
 Holy Spirit, and that everything wrong and fool- 
 ish in him came from himself and the devil ; 
 then he would surely say to himself, ' Who am I 
 to try to set myself up above my neighbours, and 
 get power over them ; what have I that I did 
 not receive 1 Whatever money, or station, or 
 cleverness, or power of mind I have, God has 
 given me, and without Him I should be nothing. 
 Therefore, He only gave me these talents to use 
 for Him, and if I use them for my own ends, I 
 shall be misusing them, and trying to rob God of 
 His own. I am His child, His subject. His 
 steward ; He has put me just in that place in 
 His earth which is most fit for me, and my busi- 
 ness is, not to try to desert my post, and to 
 wander out of the place where He has put me, 
 but to see that I do the duty which lies nearest 
 me, so that I shall be able to give an account to 
 Him. It is only if I am faithful in a few things, 
 that I can expect God to make me ruler over
 
 PAIIABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE. 337 
 
 many things.' Ah, my friends, if we could but see 
 ourselves, not as we fancy we are, nor as others 
 fancy we are, but just as we really are, then 
 instead of pushing, and boasting, and standing 
 stiffly by our rights, and fancying that God and 
 man are unjust to us, we should be crying out 
 all day long with the prodigal son, ' Father, I 
 have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and 
 am no more worthy to be called thy son.' AVe 
 should say with St Paul — who, after all, re- 
 member, was the wisest, and most learned, and 
 noblest-hearted of all the apostles — that we are at 
 best the chief of sinners. We should feel like 
 the dear and blessed jSIagdalene of old, the 
 pattern for ever of all true penitents, that it was 
 quite honour enough to be allowed to wash 
 Christ's feet with our tears, while every one 
 round us sneered at us and looked down upon 
 us — as, after all, we deserve. And so, believe me, 
 we should be exalted. It would pay us, if payment 
 is what we want. For so we should be in a more 
 right, more true, more healthy, more wise, more 
 powerful state of mind ; more like Jesus Christ, 
 and therefore more likely to be sent to do Christ's 
 work, and share Christ's reward. For this is 
 the great law of the kingdom of God in which 
 we live, that man is nothing, and God is every- 
 thing ; and that we are strong and wise, and some- 
 
 ^y
 
 338 SERMON XXV. 
 
 thing, only when we find out that we are weak, 
 and foolish, and nothing, and go to our Father in 
 lieaven for strength, and wisdom, and spiritual 
 eternal life. And then we find out how true it is 
 that he who humbles himself, as he deserves, will 
 be raised up ; how he who loses his life will save 
 it ; how blessed are the poor in spirit, those who 
 feel that they have nothing but what God chooses 
 to give them ; for theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven ! How blessed are those who hunger and 
 thirst after righteousness ; who feel that they are 
 not doing right, and yet cannot rest till they do 
 right ; for they shall be filled ! How blessed are 
 the meek, who do not set up themselves, or try to 
 fight their own battles, and compete with their 
 neighbours in the great scramble and struggle 
 of this world; for they — ^just the last persons whom 
 the world would expect to do it— shall inherit the 
 earth ! Choose, my Mends, choose ! The world 
 says, ' Push upwards, praise yourself, help your- 
 self, put your best side outwards.' The great 
 God who made heaven and earth says, ' Know 
 that you are weak, and foolish, and sinful in 
 yourself. Know that whatever wisdom you have, 
 I the Lord lent you ; and I the Lord expect the 
 interest of my loan. Know that you are my 
 child in my kingdom. Stay where I have put 
 you, and when I want you for something better,
 
 PARABLE OF THE LOA\ EST TLACE. 339 
 
 I will call you ; and if you try to rise without my 
 calling you, I will only drive you back again.' So 
 the only way to be ruler over much, is first to 
 be faithful in a little. My friends, which of 
 the two do you think is likely to know best, man 
 or God? 
 
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